Your Brew is Ready But Turned Out Flat? I am here for the rescue...

      A few month ago i was very excited brewing a dark chocolate stout, followed every direction possible and wait anxiously to try my beer. Well the day to pop the top and pour myself a glass, actually I was so excited I had a friend come and join me for the trial. My excitement came to a halt when carbonation was minimal.... First thought in my head was here goes 5 Gallons of beer down the drain, but I decided to leave my bottles alone for now, and try to see if they carbonate a little more. I also went to my local home-brew shop and explained my problem, and thats when I saw the light.
     
      Let's first talk about what carbonates the beer... I will keep it simple, since that is the goal of this whole blog! Carbonation happens because your beer still has some active yeast in it, it is not an excessive amount (that would just blow your caps right off, if not the glass also) but it is an amount that will cause carbonation (basically carbonation happens from fermentation). So if it did not carbonate you: 1) Did not give it enough time, 2)Left the beer in the fermentation bucket or carboy for too long, 3)The yeast just became "lazy", OR 4)Your bottles were not capped properly. WHATEVER it is, there is a way to fix the problem. As long as your beer is not contaminated, you can save it!

     The first "rescue" step would be shake the bottles a little bit to move the yeast around, and move them somewhere warmer, then wait a week and see, sounds simple and a makes little sense, but it has worked for me in the past.

     If all else fails, buy some yeast, activate it and pour your yeasty water solution into an eye dropper. Uncap all of your bottles, and place two to three drops in each bottle, that way you put a little bit of yeast to ferment and carbonate... cap everything and put your bottles away in a dark place for a week or two.

I hope this helped!!!!

   

Key pre-brew procedure is.....

      Most Important thing in brewing is SANITATION! If you don't sanitize your work area and equipment, you will ruin your brew, no matter how great your beer might have been, bacteria will ruing it. Basically think about it this way, if you don't sanitize you are throwing your money and your brew down the drain. Bacteria is the enemy!

       Now that i emphasized sanitation, I will explain my procedure of keeping everything clean. First thing I did was cleaned my bathtub, and rinsed it well with hot water. Many of you are asking why bath tub, and the answer is because the tub fits EVERYTHING! I then proceeded to fill the tub with extremely hot water, just enough to cover the equipment I have in there:
 

     The airtight lid, siphon tube, rubber grommets, air lock all went in the hot water for about 20 minutes, during those 20 minutes I took the opportunity to clean the kitchen counters and stove where were I will be brewing with bleach water in order to get my work area all sanitized. In the sink I then mixed iodophor and water in order to sanitize the spoon I used to mix,thermometer, and cooking pot, and re sanitize everything from the tub. Better safe than sorry, also wash your hands and rinse them really well. If your ingredients are contaminated, your beer will taste terrible and vinegary.

      The boiling water will take care of anything within the water that might be a containment, but keep in mind there is cold water that has to be added when you are done with your boil, so either boil additional water and chill it in the fridge, or just buy distilled bottled water to ensure cleanliness.