A "Why is my beer flat??" question, with a twist tho...

[doheed]

Hello there

I've brewed up a few batches now and really getting into this craic. I had been bottling using Ox-bar plastic bottles and my last batch was mostly those and a few glass bottles. After three weeks, I cracked into a few. All the plastic ones were nicely carbed but the glass ones (admittedly only three so a small sample size) were not; no fizz at all no matter how vertically you poured the beer. They were all primed with equal amount of carbonation drops. They appear to be capped properly using a two-handle capper. Since that batch, I've bottled (in glass) another two batches and I am very worried that all of these bottles are essentially dead, flat beers. I've tried submerging them under water and no air is escaping so doesn't seem to be a gas leak. I've noticed an indent in the top of all the bottles, caused by the capper. It's on most of the bottles except for one particular bottle i used. This bottle was the only one the carbed up.

Can anyone explain this? Does it take longer to carb up a glass bottle? I've forty bottles of stout sitting in the room conditioning and it would break my heart to rebottle them in plastic bottles and wait a further few weeks to condition again.

any help would be appreciated? tearing my hair out!

[matthewdick23]

sounds like u havent capped glass btls properly. open up some of the other batches and see

also, wot do u do wit the bottles after uv primmed them? wot temp are they stored at etc?

[doheed]

Once they're primed I fill them up and cap them. Store them at around 18 degrees for three weeks.

It must be a capping issue alright. I'll submerge some more in water and try determine which are leaking. Very frustrating. The caps I used had cork in them which had expanded greatly, perhaps this is a sign of a leak.

[Will_D]

You need to use warm/hot water!

cap an empty cold bottle and imerse in sink of hot water. That should test the seal.

[delzep]

Just have a go at capping them again (as in run the capper over the existing caps....not removing them and using new ones)

[doheed]

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. Gonna heed your advice and go ahead and test for leaks in all the bottles, open a few to sample if it's flat or not, and then cap and re-prime where appropriate. Hopefully it's not too labour intensive. I reckon this weekends Home brew party will have to be postponed though!

[Eoin]

You are pressing too hard on the capper. Don't push it all the way home, hard to explain, but you get the feel when the crown is properly crimped, stop at that point. When you get that indent, especially when it's deep, it starts to open the seal again as you are effectively reversing the crimping you have just done by pressuring the centre of the cap and flairing the rim again. You should not be seeing any indent on lids.

Sent from my HTC One

[Covey]

Check the head space, i found that if bottle were filled to the brim they did'nt carb correctly