My first flat beer - where did the yeast go ?

[Ged]

Did another Macs Pale Ale kit. They appear to be a kit where no extra sugar needs to be added.
Instead of using the kit yeast with this one I used a Safale S-05..
Controlled the temp perfectly, noticed when I bottled a thick yeast cake on the bottom and generally all good..OG 1045 FG 1014.Fermented for approx 8 days. I put x2 Mac kits into the fermenter as a single kit only makes 11 litres but only x1 S-05 packet of yeast as it said it was good upto 23 litres...

I am thinking this 'might' be the issue ?

Bottled and stuck the x2 carbonation drops into each 750 ml bottle.

Controlled secondary for 10 days at a constant temp...Then left to rest for another couple of weeks.

...Opened my first one..Little bit of fizz but not a lot..Sweetish as well ! I'm thinking some of the sugar drops didn't ferment and carbonate..

Then after puring I look inside and instead of the usual thick yeast layer I can swirl up on the bottom of the bottle, there are a few wee floaters in a pretty clear( ish) beer...Almost like there wasn't a lot of yeast transferred during bottling.

Help greatly appreciated....What have I done wrong? and how to avoid this in the future. This is the first time in about 15 kits this has ever happened!

Cheers

Ged

[Kempicus]

Ged

yeast amount is fine

could be a few things....have you opened another bottle? Try another couple of bottles to see if it's a capping problem...sometimes they leak, the old hand capper ain't perfect.
Sometimes it's easy to forget a bottle when putting carbo drops in too....i forget every now and again so it could be that.
Sanitation, how do you sanitise? Any possibility of residue in the bottle?

no need to panic until you've tested a few more :0)

[JoKing]

You havent done anything wrong.

This is pretty normal when you use good quality yeast strains. The yeast has floculated in your primary fermenter, and when you bottled, bugger all went into the bottle. A good sign is that it fizzed when you opened it - this indicates that the small amount of yeast in your bottle is working away at the sugar tablet. If you leave them at around 20-24 degrees for the next few weeks, the bottles will carbonate as expected. You can do a rutual shake up of each bottle during this time to force the yeast into suspension (in each bottle).

You may find that the bottles that you bottled towards the end of your bottling day will fizz up a bit better as generally the end of flow will drag a bit of yeast out with it.

[Dan]

Ive racked lagers for months, there has always been enough yeast to carbonate the bottles.
Temperature?

[Greig McGill]

I don't think the problem is with your yeast pitching rate, OG 1045 should be handled fine by 1 packet of dry beasties. Even "clear" unfiltered beer typically has millions of yeast cells per millilitre still in suspension, so that's also unlikely to be the problem. My guess would be something has killed the yeast. Did you perhaps use too much no-rinse sanitiser, or not rinse properly if you're using something else? I've done this before. Ask Kempicus about the legendary "memory loss" beer. ;)

[Barry]

I'm with Greig, there'll be a ton of yeast in it. What temp have the bottles been stored at? They need to be at room temp for the yeast to carbonate the beer. Also check your caps (as mentioned above).

It might be that those cans have hardly any fermentables - leading to the high finish and sweet taste. But with the addition of drops there should be carbonation. Maybe something did kill the yeast.

[Kempicus]

hahaha memory loss beer was great....ESB from memory (faulty as the memory is)? Tasted good, just was a little flat :0)

[Ged]

Thanks for the speedy reply guys....My brother (who drank said beer last night) did note he was happy to take the 30 bottles off my hands at no cost...Tasted good..Just a bit too sweet and flat.. Joker..Funny you say about the floculation. The yeast cake at the bottom of the fermenter was about twice as thick as you would normally get with the kit yeasts. It was like scooping thick yoghurt out after bottling.So thick in fact the first couple of bottles took a bit of it which had gathered close to the tap..I'll stick them back in to secondary for another couple of weeks to see what happens..Greig and Barry - Might well be the no rinse sanitiser. I used to rinse the hell out of the bottles but saved an hour using this stuff and just tipping it out...Perhaps i've left too much in the bottle to start with..Will start to wash them out again from now..Thanks again. I will update all in a couple of weeks. Ged