St Peters Cream Stout

[White Rose Al]

Morning All

Done a few St Peters kits, with priming in 500ml PET bottles and 1 crafty fox carbonation drop

Primed this kit for 1 week in the warm then moved to the garage for 3 weeks.

Just had a cheeky try (as you do), the beer tastes fine but carbonation was poor with next to no head.

Have I not left these long enough to prime, is this now a write off?

 

[Pirate_Pete]

I would have left them for two weeks in a warm place.
I'm not sure about those carbonation drops you're using but to me one isn't enough in a 500ml bottle.
I know some people say to halve the priming rate for stout, but I tried it once and wasn't convinced. Personal choice.
I bulk prime and I add 6grams of dextrose per litre when I'm doing stout.

Bring some in out of the cold and see if the carbonation improves.

Even on Coopers recipes they say use two carbonation drops per 750ml bottle.
So one and a half drops for your 500ml bottles.
That's why I bulk prime. I sometimes fill 330, 500 & 750 ml when I'm bottling.

I saw those kits available here the other week. Bit pricey. About $51 I think.
About £29. I could get a fresh wort for around the same price.

 

[White Rose Al]

I would have left them for two weeks in a warm place.
I'm not sure about those carbonation drops you're using but to me one isn't enough in a 500ml bottle.
I know some people say to halve the priming rate for stout, but I tried it once and wasn't convinced. Personal choice.
I bulk prime and I add 6grams of dextrose per litre when I'm doing stout.

Bring some in out of the cold and see if the carbonation improves.

Even on Coopers recipes they say use two carbonation drops per 750ml bottle.
So one and a half drops for your 500ml bottles.
That's why I bulk prime. I sometimes fill 330, 500 & 750 ml when I'm bottling.

I saw those kits available here the other week. Bit pricey. About $51 I think.
About £29. I could get a fresh wort for around the same price.

Thanks Pirate_Pete will bring them back inside

 

[Pirate_Pete]

No problem. Maybe get one of those scoops and use dextrose / sugar next time.
Experiment a bit till you get what you think it the correct carbonation for a stout.
My friends like my stout how it is, but according some on the forums it's overcarbonated for a stout.
Each to their own.

 

[thesteve]

I brewed up this kit a while back and it looks ok, the head is great but very fizzy. Have I just added too much priming sugar? I used about half a teaspoon of regular white sugar in each 500ml bottle. The taste is good apart from being fizzy which is not ideal in this kind of beer. I still have about 20 bottles left, presumably there is nothing I can do now to fix it?

 

[Stu's Brews]

I brewed up this kit a while back and it looks ok, the head is great but very fizzy. Have I just added too much priming sugar? I used about half a teaspoon of regular white sugar in each 500ml bottle. The taste is good apart from being fizzy which is not ideal in this kind of beer. I still have about 20 bottles left, presumably there is nothing I can do now to fix it?

I have a similar problem with my latest brew as I didn't properly account for the amount of CO2 already present in the beer when calculating how much priming sugar I should add.

It seems you can fix it (or at least improve the situation) by 'burping' the bottles. Crack the cap open slightly (don't fully remove it, just open it enough to let some CO2 out) and then leave it for a couple of hours before re-capping.

This will reduce the amount of carbonation in the beer, although you may find you need to do it for longer or more than once to get it exactly how you want it.

 

[GhostShip]

As others have said, get them back into the warm. One week is not enough. I always leave them for two weeks and as I use PET bottles, I can gauge the fact that carbonation is taking place by feeling the pressure increase as the bottles 'tighten'. The bottles are ALWAYS tighter at the end of two weeks than they are at the end of one.

As for the level of carbonation, I would say that's a matter of personal taste, but I don't like much carbonation in a stout. I would normally put one sugar stick (which I guess would equate to a carbonation drop) into each 500ml bottle. I think your problem is that secondary fermentation hadn't finished rather than the amount of sugar you put in.