Low carbonation

Mancpete

I was wondering if any one has got any tips on how to get some more carbonation into my beer after it comes out of the bottle. My problem is I took some bad advice and didn't put enough priming sugar in before bottling, the result very flat beer, I'm sure it would just feel and taste better if I could get it carbonated better.
Cheers pete

HBO_Staff

Hi Pete, once primed and sealed it is hard to add more CO2 to it, the amount of carbonation you find in the bottles may be low if they haven't been bottled too long, or if the brew had been well cleared before bottling and you didn't have that much yeats left suspended in the brew at the bottling stage to work on the priming sugar/drops. If you haven't already, try leaving them for longer, warming them for a few days will ensure the priming sugar is thoroughly dissolved and may get the carbonation to build up.

If however you believe there was not enough sugar in the bottles, the only way we know of is to open them up and re-prime, but this is risky and you may create a problem and contaminate the batch, etc.

Carbonating at the time of drinking is the only other way we know, mixing with a carbonated drink would help, but is not ideal.

Try leaving them for longer, perhaps re-prime a few bottles with some more sugar and re-seal and see what they turn out like as an experiment, if it works then you could do the rest perhaps

Mancpete

Thanks for the tips, I'm pretty sure it's a lack of priming sugar I put 20 grams less in because I was advised to, because the brew finished to early, or maybe it didn't. Think I'll try a re-prime on a couple of bottles see what that can do for me.
Cheers.

HBO_Staff

Hopefully a re-prime will do the trick, it's a bit of an unknown as we have never tried it with bottles, please let us know if it works for you

New2Brew

Hi Mancpete,
It might be a long shot,but have you thought about trying a "Sonic Foamer".
I had one bought me for Christmas from America and it does work on low carbonated beer.I am pretty sure that you can now get one in the uk.It costs around £20-00.Try googling it.Could be worth a try?.
Cheers Pete.

marko

Hi Pete,

Not tried this myself, but we had a customer come in to the shop one day and he told us he uses a tiny sprinkle of salt. Apparently it brings it to life. Not tried this one though but let us know if you give it a go.

Mancpete

Just checked out the sonic foamer on Amazon looks like a cool gadget actually. Considering my isn't carbonated very well I'm not convinced it would work, thanks for the tip though. My beer has been ageing well it's 8 weeks in the bottle now, I'm in two minds if I should just leave it alone.