Re-carbonation

[ScottK]

I bottled a porter two weeks ago and tried the Muntons tablets for the first time. I used 4 tablets per bottle for medium carbonation. I opened one today and had very little carbonation. Basically a flat beer after the pour. The beer was in a secondary, so perhaps there wasn't enough yeast to fully bottle condition. Provided the subsequent bottles are the same, is it possible to empty all the bottles into a keg and then force carbonate? A Blichmann beer gun is in my immediate future, so I'm hoping I could re-carbonate from the keg. Any thoughts?

[lexuschris]

Bummer on the flat bottles. It sure sounds like it could have been the secondary ferment not leaving enough yeast in suspension for bottle conditioning...

I've never had to try re-carbing, but I'd be nervous about introducting oxygen to the beer. Pouring (or siphoning) from bottle to keg sounds like too much opportunity for oxidation to occur.

I wonder if you could rehydrate some fresh yeast in sterile water, and then put a few ML in each bottle and just recap..??..??
--LexusChris

[ScottK]

Thanks. I hadn't thought about oxidation. If I were to use some dry yeast and rehydrate it, how much water do you think I should use? A quart? Then with an eyedropper just drop 1-3 ML in each bottle? Thanks for the help.

[backyard brewer]

Problem #2 is that you have the Muntons sugar in the beer that you're going to want fermented out. If you force carbed it, you'd have that sugar flavor as well and if the yeast ever woke up, you'd have bottle bombs.

I think a small dose of yeast per bottle might be better. I've hear of people just dropping a few grains of dry yeast per bottle, but I've never tried it myself.

[BrewMasterBrad]

I would let them go another couple weeks before doing anything drastic. Maybe they are just taking longer to carbonate.

[brahn]

I would let them go another couple weeks before doing anything drastic. Maybe they are just taking longer to carbonate.

+1

[dhempy]

I would let them go another couple weeks before doing anything drastic. Maybe they are just taking longer to carbonate.

+1

+1 plus I'd see if I could get the temp into the mid 70s somewhere 74 - 77 for at least a day to see if that would encourage some activity. I definitely wouldn't let the temp fall below 70 for the next week. You're not worried about ester production at this stage ... you just want the yeast to wake up and get with it.

I also wouldn't make any rash moves until I had tried at least a couple of bottles just in case there was some issue with the one.

Dan

[ScottK]

Thanks guys. I'll hold off on anything and give them some time. They're indoors, so they've been in the 70's for the past two weeks.