First All-Grain (BIAB) Recipe - SMaSH Pale Ale

[Prairie Dog]

I ran the numbers as well, and they are within what I use (6-8 gr table sugar per litre) but I now see that dextrose is used...
Don't know the "ground rule" for dextrose

Swingtops have always worked fine gor me. Mine were ex-grolsch bottles.

Another thing: for your next batch, also use a couple of pet-botles.
Fill as you do your glass bottles (same amount sugar per volume), squeeze bottle, screw on lid.
You can use those bottles to "follow" carbonation by squeezing

Hmmm. Good to know you don't have to do anything different with swing tops. Yeah, I don't know. I used the Northern Brewer priming calculator. 2.4 for the desired C02 volume. 70 degrees for beer temp, and 2.5 gallons for total volume. They come up with 61.04 grams of dextrose which is what I added to a cup of water.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Would that account for it being very flat though? The beer I opened yesterday had almost no carbonation after 20 days of bottling.

I ran the numbers in Northern Brewer again and they come up with basically the same result: 61.04 grams or 2.15 oz of dextrose for 2.5 gallons at 72F.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/pages/priming-sugar-calculator

I bottled for 10 years and used the northern brewer calculator. However, based on advice, I entered the max fermentation temp of the beer instead of the current temperature. Once I did that I got better carbonation levels. However, that wouldn't account for no carbonation, just lower than desired.

Since you didn't stir your priming solution into the beer (I always stirred gently) you may have some bottles that have less sugar than others. So, next time you grab a bottle, take one at random. If you find some bottles with too little carbonation and other bottles with too much carbonation, then that is the likely cause. Twenty days of bottle conditioning at 72°F (22°C) is perfect. So if it's not a stratification of sugar in the bottling bucket, I think it's got to be the flip-top caps not sealing properly. I always used regular bottles with crimp-on caps but, occasionally I would get a batch of caps that wouldn't seal properly and I'd have little to no carbonation in a bunch of bottles.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

I ran the numbers as well, and they are within what I use (6-8 gr table sugar per litre) but I now see that dextrose is used...
Don't know the "ground rule" for dextrose

Dextrose is about 96% fermentable so you need a little more dextrose than sugar. The NB calculator has priming amounts for many different types of sugar.

 

[Sandy Feet]

I always went 2.5 on the carbonation, but 2.4 definitely wont make it flat.

 

[Prairie Dog]

Well, the plot thickens. I bottled this beer mostly in the swing tops above from Amazon, but I put a few in bomber swing tops that my friend had. I opened one of those last night, and it was perfectly carbed. It tasted pretty good, but the hops still seemed a bit harsh to me, so I think I'm going to let them sit at 72F for maybe another week, then throw them in the fridge, or most of them. Seems like the problem is definitely the bottles, or possibly the priming sugar wasn't fully incorporated. Thanks for the help!

 

[Sandy Feet]

It only takes a couple of weeks to carb. I would throw them in the fridge now and let them sit in the cold for a bit if you don't quite like the flavor.

 

[Prairie Dog]

It only takes a couple of weeks to carb. I would throw them in the fridge now and let them sit in the cold for a bit if you don't quite like the flavor.

Thanks for the advice! I was thinking that I wanted some of the hop flavor to die out, which is why I was going to wait another week. I thought refrigeration would slow down that process but maybe I'm wrong?