Under carbonated bottles...

[Darren Wood]

The the last few batches of all grain (ESB, IPA, APA) the carbonation in my bottles has been underwhelming...

I've been using the Beersmith carbonation calculator to determine the amount of sugars required in my bottling bucket. 

Some background: I ferment in a temp controlled fridge: 3-4 days at 17c, then up to 23c for 10 days. At which point I move the (very clear & beautiful) beer to the primed bottling bucket. Bottle in 500ml glass bottles with standard crown caps. I age for 3-4 weeks (and increasingly longer due to afore mentioned lack of adequate carbonation)...

Any ideas? Should I add more yeast to the bottles? If so how much?

Thanks team!

[oliver]

What type of sugar are you using to carbonate, and what temp are you putting into the beersmith calculator? Should still be plenty of yeast in suspension to do the job unless your filtering or fining so shouldn't need to add more. 

[Darren Wood]

I've tried both dextrose and table sugar. And I'm bottling at ~23C — which is what I'm adding to the BS calculations.

I use irish moss during the boil... 

[Barry]

Where are you conditioning and what temp?

[Darren Wood]

Conditioning in the front-room at around 20C. The bottles are in stacked crates.

[Barry]

All sounds perfect Darren (as I would expect).

Only thing I can think of is maybe the priming sugar isn't being evenly distributed around the bottling bucket?

Get some kegs bro ;)

[Darren Wood]

Hmm... kegs... I've been thinking more and more about that, tbh. Can one store kegs at ambient temp and then decant into bottles for consumption? I don't really have the space or budget to get yet another fridge to cold store...

[Barry]

They need to be stored cold.

[Peter Smith]

Kegs are good but you still need bottles for a great porter/stout/saison   and the issue with many of these beers is that you wont know if they are overcarbed or under untill they reach there maturity peak in 3-6 months time,   My saisons from xmas just keep getting better every month, and I expect will be best in another 6 months time.

when bulk priming i disolve sugar in 500ml water boil/cool and dump into bucket then syphon into this with slight whirlpool due to tube placement, THEN I still stir lightly before bottling and 1/2 way through.

I always put the temp into the priming calculator at 18C even if I have been cold crashing to 2C for a few days.   I must be lucky I have not seen undercarb and all my overcarb has been due to the yeast dropping out early and me not dropping the priming rate a bit.

next time you bottle put 6 bottles worth in 750ml pet's and see if they carb up, just in case you having a bottle / cap issue where your capper is not super tight ???  I have a couple of lever action cappers but trust 1 over the others...   it seems to put a pressure point on the top of the cap and I can see if that is perfectly round its a perfect cap.

[Barry]

You can have great porters/stouts/saisons in kegs. CO2 is CO2.

[Peter Smith]

Yes you can but I reckon to have a keg full of saison for 6 months is a waste of a keg,   unless you have a lot of kegs.

[Crusader-Rob]

the key is to alway plug in the top or main temperature that fermentation took place, this help to get the beer carbonated correctl in bottle priming, always disolve the sugar in solution and boil for 10-15 mins to sanitise.

from my experiences i find the longer i boil the sugar the more concentrated it gets and more carbonation,

[Peter Smith]

I like this calc as well

http://kotmf.com/tools/prime.php