Nubie question about first ever brew.

[Otto Von Blotto]

It wouldn't have been the cold crash that caused it. Those particular bottles might not have warmed up properly, or perhaps the lids weren't totally airtight. I've had non cold crashed ones not carbonate properly either because their storage temperature dropped too low. 

Five days won't drop that much yeast out. 

[jamiek86]

@Mickep @Otto Von Blotto yes it could be bottle variations etc I had some really good in flip tops and pet. Good carb young think slowly leaking out after 3 months for swing tops. think the plastic seals are dodgy

[iBooz2]

On 12/13/2021 at 12:38 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

Not in my experience. It might have taken slightly longer (talking a day or two not weeks) but the carbonation level was no different between cold crashed and non cold crashed, using the same priming rate. 

 

Taking a day or two not weeks.  Ha! 

I have had some of my batches sit for months over summer temps and it did not make a difference to carbonation.

Sorry Otto but you are dreaming.  I will post later a list of my recent, two year's experiment with PET bottles and the recommended 2 x carb drops covering about 30 batches of my K & K beers (Feb 2020 - July 2020) and almost every bottle ended up Flatucked! 

It must have been a while since you have used this combination.  Pure disappointment ensures for the new brewer if followed.  Might be OK (and I say might just make it) if you bottle 48 hours after the FG is reached and recorded but in my 30 recent batch record it says they will be Flatucked most likely if cold crashed for a week or more beforehand.

Those that use white sugar and the measure jigger (like I used back in the 70's) have had a way better response re carbonation in the K & K  beers so this is a good option.

I say that you need 3 x carb drops in the standard 740 ml PET bottle, maybe just the two in a glass bottle.

My experience and recommendation is you need one carb drop to take up the inherent stretch in the plastic bottle itself (hence I call them balloons) before the CO is forced into the beer liquid.  And another two carb drops to produce the required carbonation.

Hence the @MUZZY methods ver 1.0 and 2.0 came about and I confirm this is way better in the proof of the last 20 K & K brews I made using his method, i.e. batches #30 onward to AG.

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by iBooz2

[Spursman]

8 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

I say that you need 3 x carb drops in the standard 740 ml PET bottle, maybe just the two in a glass bottle.

We can go around and around on this carb discussion and find many different ways of skinning this particular cat.

Perhaps do your own trials with varying amounts of drops, sugar or whatever from the same brew all labelled with the info. Drink and compare. Inconsistent carb was the bain of my life so I've done a fair bit of experimentation. Muzzys 2.0 was the best but ive just tried a bulk prime in the fv (coz I'm a tight arse and won't have to buy expensive cubes) and its heaps easier.

Time will tell if it's better or not.

[DavidM]

I'm new to this fun hobby, started with carb drops, went to sugar (cheaper) using the brown scoop I picked up from woolies.

Read lots about Bulk Priming and have been using that for awhile now but have not had a Beer yet, too soon, will taste one in a week or so.

There are better ways than what I Do.

I dissolve the sugar in a saucepan, allow to cool, pour into the FV, gently stir, allow to settle (30-60Min) depending on how busy I am.

I don't cold crash and I don't aim for clear beers, "Partly cloudy but Fine"

[ozdevil]

i  don't bulk prime i dont use sugar i dont use carb drops   to bottle

my method is co2  to carbonate

i fill wort into empty keg

2 connect co2  and let sit at 2 degrees celius  at 12 psi

3 i connect my boel itap to co2 and keg

4. i purge my pet bottle or stubby/longneck of co2 to get rid of all oxygen

5 pull the tap down on boel tap

6 open pressure release valve to desired pour

7.  then squirt a bit more co2 in and cap bottle

dont have to wait 2-3 weeks for carbing

now you may say its a lot of  faffing around   

but  carbing with the said methods you all do  you have to wait 2-3 weeks
i only wait a week

having said that not all of us have that beauty of bottling from keg


but bulk priming if i bottled  from fermenter  is the easiest method

[Spursman]

55 minutes ago, ozdevil said:

i  don't bulk prime i dont use sugar i dont use carb drops   to bottle

my method is co2  to carbonate

i fill wort into empty keg

2 connect co2  and let sit at 2 degrees celius  at 12 psi

3 i connect my boel itap to co2 and keg

4. i purge my pet bottle or stubby/longneck of co2 to get rid of all oxygen

5 pull the tap down on boel tap

6 open pressure release valve to desired pour

7.  then squirt a bit more co2 in and cap bottle

dont have to wait 2-3 weeks for carbing

now you may say its a lot of  faffing around   

but  carbing with the said methods you all do  you have to wait 2-3 weeks
i only wait a week

having said that not all of us have that beauty of bottling from keg


but bulk priming if i bottled  from fermenter  is the easiest method

See what I mean - gunna have to get a bigger supply of cats!

[Otto Von Blotto]

23 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

Taking a day or two not weeks.  Ha! 

I have had some of my batches sit for months over summer temps and it did not make a difference to carbonation.

Sorry Otto but you are dreaming.  I will post later a list of my recent, two year's experiment with PET bottles and the recommended 2 x carb drops covering about 30 batches of my K & K beers (Feb 2020 - July 2020) and almost every bottle ended up Flatucked! 

It must have been a while since you have used this combination.  Pure disappointment ensures for the new brewer if followed.  Might be OK (and I say might just make it) if you bottle 48 hours after the FG is reached and recorded but in my 30 recent batch record it says they will be Flatucked most likely if cold crashed for a week or more beforehand.

Those that use white sugar and the measure jigger (like I used back in the 70's) have had a way better response re carbonation in the K & K  beers so this is a good option.

I say that you need 3 x carb drops in the standard 740 ml PET bottle, maybe just the two in a glass bottle.

My experience and recommendation is you need one carb drop to take up the inherent stretch in the plastic bottle itself (hence I call them balloons) before the CO is forced into the beer liquid.  And another two carb drops to produce the required carbonation.

Hence the @MUZZY methods ver 1.0 and 2.0 came about and I confirm this is way better in the proof of the last 20 K & K brews I made using his method, i.e. batches #30 onward to AG.

 

Well, I bulk primed them all so that may have made a difference, and they were in glass with crown seals, but I'm certainly not dreaming.. never had any carbonation issues with cold crashed beers using reasonably standard priming rates. Most of the complaints of flat beer from what I can remember were using plastic bottles. Perhaps that, and not the cold crash, is the issue. 

The only way you'd remove enough yeast to make carbonation fail is if you filtered it out. A week sitting cold simply won't do it. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

45 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Well, I bulk primed them all so that may have made a difference, and they were in glass with crown seals, but I'm certainly not dreaming.. never had any carbonation issues with cold crashed beers using reasonably standard priming rates. Most of the complaints of flat beer from what I can remember were using plastic bottles. Perhaps that, and not the cold crash, is the issue. 

The only way you'd remove enough yeast to make carbonation fail is if you filtered it out. A week sitting cold simply won't do it. 

@iBooz2, I have got to say that my experience matches up with Otto's.  However, I only ever bulk primed once.

I cold crash almost all of my brews (I can only think of one in the last 2 years that was not cold crashed), typically for at least four days.  Usually keg most of a batch.  The rest goes into bottles.  I mostly prime with table sugar.  But sometimes with carb drops (I still get some in the ROTM packs).  I use a mixture of glass capped, swing top and PET bottles.  I have not had issues with flat or even under-carbed beers in the bottles for ages.  The bottles I open after two weeks are ready to go.  After some early failures, I make sure:

• Flip top caps are properly centred over the bottle-mouth.
• PET caps are tightened properly.
• No sugar grains are on bottle opening rims.

[Space]

I just want to say thanks to all the commentrs on here.  This thread has turned into a masterclass on carbonation.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Space

[Malter White]

7 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Most of the complaints of flat beer from what I can remember were using plastic bottles. Perhaps that, and not the cold crash, is the issue. 

You could be on to something here, Otto. I get the occasional flat beer and I use PET bottles almost exclusively. They aren't frequent enough to make me want to change to glass as I find PETs easier to use ie. lighter, no dangerous shards etc.

While I have your attention, I'd also like to congratulate you on now becoming the best bus driver on the forum. Well done, Grasshopper.  

[DavidM]

1 hour ago, MUZZY said:

you on now becoming the best bus driver on the forum.

Does this mean that Your transition out of Buses is complete?

[Malter White]

56 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Does this mean that Your transition out of Buses is complete?

Yes, mate. Did my first day delivering vegetables (the non-human kind) yesterday. The money is crap but the work is far more enjoyable.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Thanks mate

I can't afford to take a pay cut at the moment living alone with a mortgage etc. so I'm sorta stuck on the buses but for the most part I enjoy it so it's not too bad. 

That said, I am looking forward to my month off from next Friday, gonna get the brewing back up and going properly and do a fair bit of work on my golf as well as a few things around the house I want sorted. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

2 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Thanks mate

I can't afford to take a pay cut at the moment living alone with a mortgage etc. so I'm sorta stuck on the buses but for the most part I enjoy it so it's not too bad. 

That said, I am looking forward to my month off from next Friday, gonna get the brewing back up and going properly and do a fair bit of work on my golf as well as a few things around the house I want sorted. 

@Otto Von Blottoit sound like you are very passionate about your golf & why not, good luck to you. As a kid I grew up alongside a golf course & my old man was the greenkeeper when he sold his fruit property in the Riverland of SA, I ended up playing & eventually went from Saturday Pennant & Opens etc & won a few worthy Comps & got down to six but as the years went by I was called up for National Service & ended up as a travelling salesman, the rest is history. I have had a few go's at belting the little white thing over the years but sadly the swing isn't what it used to be.  Now with dodgey knees & other interests e.g.  Brewing, I don't worry about it.

Good luck with your golf journey.

[Malter White]

10 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I can't afford to take a pay cut at the moment living alone with a mortgage etc.

That's the reason I stayed on the buses so long. Although some aspects of the job p155ed me off it did provide a fairly decent income for someone like me who didn't have many qualifications. Now I'm 55, my kids are adults, house virtually paid off, the money isn't so important. I hope you keep enjoying the job, champion. There was a time I did but that was long ago.

[Tricky Micky]

1 hour ago, MUZZY said:

That's the reason I stayed on the buses so long.

"On The Buses" 

[Marty_G]

I maybe a bit late to this but I have found that if you hand tighten the lids on PET bottles it is not a satisfactory seal. Need to grab a pair of multigrips and give a small crank of about 1/4 of a turn to get those babies nice and tight. Also over time the PET bottles will lose pressure.  As far as cold crashing: when I bottled I never had an issue with lack of carbonation from cold crashed beer regardless of being in PET or glass.  

[Otto Von Blotto]

10 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

@Otto Von Blottoit sound like you are very passionate about your golf & why not, good luck to you. As a kid I grew up alongside a golf course & my old man was the greenkeeper when he sold his fruit property in the Riverland of SA, I ended up playing & eventually went from Saturday Pennant & Opens etc & won a few worthy Comps & got down to six but as the years went by I was called up for National Service & ended up as a travelling salesman, the rest is history. I have had a few go's at belting the little white thing over the years but sadly the swing isn't what it used to be.  Now with dodgey knees & other interests e.g.  Brewing, I don't worry about it.

Good luck with your golf journey.

I'd probably be out there several days a week doing something, whether it be playing or working on something, if I didn't have to work. I used to play about 15-20 years ago but just kinda stopped due to other interests. I don't have those anymore so I got back into it a couple of years ago. I just recently started lessons to try to improve more, and I'm beginning to see the results coming through more now. It's a nice escape from all the real world bs. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

2 hours ago, MUZZY said:

That's the reason I stayed on the buses so long. Although some aspects of the job p155ed me off it did provide a fairly decent income for someone like me who didn't have many qualifications. Now I'm 55, my kids are adults, house virtually paid off, the money isn't so important. I hope you keep enjoying the job, champion. There was a time I did but that was long ago.

Oh there's certainly aspects of it that piss me off. The main one is the reluctance to actually update timetables to reflect current traffic conditions. Quite a few have nowhere near enough time to actually finish it on time, but a few also have way too much time. I don't let it get to me too much now though, I just figure if these muppets won't give me enough time then I'll just run late and get overtime  

There always the dumb questions from passengers who could answer it themselves if they opened their eyes and actually read something, but fortunately the routes I drive don't attract the dregs of society like some others do. 

Overall though I'd probably be happy to go back to my original job as a greenkeeper if I did quit, but yeah it just doesn't pay enough to survive on in my situation. 

[iBooz2]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:06 PM, Otto Von Blotto said:

Well, I bulk primed them all so that may have made a difference, and they were in glass with crown seals,

Yes agreed, with glass and crown seals that combo is very rarely a problem.  I don't get flatucked beers either when I bottle the same batch in glass stubbies (345 ml) and use 1 carb drop.

The original poster was asking about  500 ml PETs and carb drops so that's why I recommended 2 because that what I have worked out when using PETS and carb drops.  You have never had the problems I was referring to because you do not do it this way (which is what I suspected and hence my dreaming comment), I meant no disrespect.  Plus a new brewer will probably want to sample his beers sooner rather than later and better not to be disappointed when drinking them early.

@Marty_G I do all mine up by hand, used to use a tea towel but switched over to one of those jar opening mat things.  In my case its not the tightening as my batches of ginger beer done in the same PET's are always carbed, sometimes a bit more than I would like so its not a seal problem it is a lack of sugar problem.  Since I have switched to the Muzzy method or used 3 carb drops in the 740 ml problem solved.  More sugar fixed the problem not multi-grips in my experience but yours is a good tip to a beginner to double check the tightness of his PET caps all the same.

All the flatucked beers have since be reopened and a 3rd carb dop added to each and hand tightened as per above and then left for a couple of weeks and when tried again thy were where they should have been in the first place.

So its 3 drops per 740 ml PET (for most of my beer styles) or the Muzzy method from now on for me even though I keg now days.

Edited December 19, 2021 by iBooz2

[Cee]

On 12/19/2021 at 10:18 AM, Marty_G said:

I maybe a bit late to this but I have found that if you hand tighten the lids on PET bottles it is not a satisfactory seal. Need to grab a pair of multigrips and give a small crank of about 1/4 of a turn to get those babies nice and tight. Also over time the PET bottles will lose pressure.  

 

There is a point that @Marty_G makes here that makes a difference - so a few days after bottling, check in on those babies because the pressure happening during conditioning loosens the lids a little. Another quick twist (multigrips for my dodgy wrists is a great idea) seems to do the trick. 

 

I was surprised at how much the lids loosen, (I mean it's not like Poltergeist levels of lid-loosening, but it certainly stood out to me) so this step is now canon in my brewing procedures, along with a whole bunch of useful stuff from this thread 

 

[Cee]

I mean, @Marty_Gmakes more than one point that makes a difference... 

 

[iBooz2]

30 minutes ago, Cee said:

 

There is a point that @Marty_G makes here that makes a difference - so a few days after bottling, check in on those babies because the pressure happening during conditioning loosens the lids a little. Another quick twist (multigrips for my dodgy wrists is a great idea) seems to do the trick. 

 

I was surprised at how much the lids loosen, (I mean it's not like Poltergeist levels of lid-loosening, but it certainly stood out to me) so this step is now canon in my brewing procedures, along with a whole bunch of useful stuff from this thread 

 

I never had lid loosen at anytime in their lives, I have some bottles that are two years in and no problems other than lack of carb sugar so in your case probably not tight enough in the first instance.   if you are getting a 1/4 turn extra later on then definitely not tightened enough to begin with.  As stated previously I just use one of those jar opening map jiggers and double check all the caps after I have cleaned up on bottling day.  No need for multi-grips with a gorilla like me. ha ha.  If I was to turn mine an extra 1/4 turn with multi-grips I would ruin the cap threads and strip it.

Edited January 29, 2022 by iBooz2

[Malter White]

@Cee Hahahaaaa at "Poltergeist levels".