Imperial Read Ale??

[cjdj]

I bought my American Imperial Red Ale kit from you guys and it has been about 3 1/2 weeks and I was eager to try a bottle. I put just one in and chilled it and it is not carbonated at all. It is flat as when you first put it in to bottles. This is my 6th kit from you guys and all have been outstanding, but this one just doesn't seem to be right. I know that the instructions say wait for 4 weeks, but I figured that the carbonation would have been there like the other kits were after only 2 weeks. Is it possible that something in the kit was bad?

[grapeadmin]

If it was primed correctly I would just be patient. Some beers and especially higher alcohol beers can take some time to carbonate. Try putting the bottles in a fairly warm spot and try one in another week. As a last resort and it does not carbonate after a couple more weeks, you could open each bottle and put one carbonation drop into each one and let it carbonate again. So, in all likelihood, it should be salvageable.

thanks
john

[cjdj]

Thanks John!

[grapeadmin]

Let me know what happens.

john

[cjdj]

John - I went ahead a cracked open one of those bottles and there was a slight sound of carbonation, but not like any of the other batches that I have bottled sound like after 4 weeks of being in the bottle. So I took 10 of the bottles and recapped with a carb tab in them. I am going to see what happens from there. I only did 10 just in case there was a chance they do carbonate late and here I added those tabs to really carbonate them and then having some bottles that want to explode?? I am assuming that they might, but have never had that happen yet and don't plan on it. Thanks for the help!

[grapeadmin]

Sounds like you are on the right track. Keep an eye on the 10 with the carb tabs and see what happens after a week or two.

john

[cjdj]

John - It's been 10 days since I put those carb tabs in the 10 bottles. I put one in the fridge and tried it today and it is still flat as the day it went into the bottle. Really frustrated with this batch.

[grapeadmin]

It sounds very frustrating. Try leaving them out for another week and see what happens. If this does not do it, you could try opening each bottle and adding a small amount of fresh yeast solution (with an eye dropper) and see it that might get it.

Sorry to hear it has been so frustrating. This does not happen very frequently. It is quite rare in my experience.

john

[cjdj]

John,

I left the beer go and just popped one open and it ended up carbing up. Wow it is pretty good too! I was getting nervous on this batch. I have made 13 batches so far and didn't want it to be my first bad batch already. Thanks for helping me out and talking me through it.

[grapeadmin]

No problem. Glad to hear it finally carb'ed up~!

john