Another irritating root beer question...

[fretlessman71]

Bottled a batch of root beer on Tue 10/28. How long should it reasonably take to begin carbonating? Should I get impatient and test it?

[kevin]

assuming you bottled it in plastic bottles you need to wait until the bottles get hard, just like at the store.

mine took about two weeks, then I put it in the fridge for a week to settle the yeast.

[fretlessman71]

Oh, no... I put MINE in real BEER BOTTLES so I can look REALLY COOL while drinking it! :cool:

I suppose I'll just have to be patient for the next week or so. Going to be gone until next Monday anyway... heard great things about the Town Hall in Minneapolis - I'll let everyone know how it is!

[toneyc]

I could be wrong on this, but doesn't sode carbonate at higher pressures than beer? If you're leaving for a week, you might want to put those bottles of root beer in a plastic tub or a cooler or something so that if they blow up the mess is minimized.

:D
Toney.

[fretlessman71]

Already done it. I have had experience with root beer rockets in my distant past..... :rolleyes: Thanks for the warning, though.

[fretlessman71]

I'm very concerned that I did something wrong with my root beer! It's been two weeks (almost) and it's not carbonating at ALL. Well, maybe just a little bit... when I opened one up, I thought I heard the faintest little bit of a "phhht" from the bottle cap, and there was certainly a little bit of residue at the bottom of the bottle that I'm guessing was from the yeast doing SOMETHING. But, NO carbonation, even when I poured it hard into a glass! What could have gone wrong? I'm very afraid to try brewing a batch of beer until I know properly how to pitch yeast, and if I did something wrong I need to fix it with a batch of soda pop FIRST... I could never forgive myself for ruining a batch of REAL beer. Could it be that I just have to be really patient? I will say that the root beer flavor has certainly improved and mellowed.

I used a packet of Red Star yeast that they gave me at the homebrew store, and I'm sure I followed the directions... I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I put the yeast and warm water together too soon, or if the water was TOO warm, or what... Any thoughts out there? I'm stuck!

[tubetek]

Howdy Fretless (Jaco P?)-
When you re-hydrated the yeast, what was the water temp? It's important that:
1. Temp is not too warm (over 90f)
2. When pitching the yeast to the rootbeer, the temps of both should be as close to the same as possible to minimize shock to the yeast. (75f or so)
This is the same basic procedure for beer.

Worst case scenario- You open each bottle, drop in a FEW grains dry yeast, and re-cap. (I had to do this once with Birch Beer)

Enjoy!

[fretlessman71]

Guess I ought to go buy a thermometer so I know EXACTLY what I'm doing with that. Also ought to keep a beer log (root beer log?) so I can remember what I did and therefore determine what went wrong!

I didn't know about matching temps... I may have killed the yeast by adding it to much too hot mixture.

Is it possible to kick the yeast back into life by setting the root beer in the sunlight for awhile? Would this do damage to the taste? Would this work rather too well and give me bottle rockets?

And, if I have to re-yeast it, do I really count out 3 grains yeast for each bottle? I'd be only too happy to try it if I knew for sure what I was doing...

[kevin]

did you add sugar to hot water to disolve, then add the yeast?

[fretlessman71]

I just followed the directions on the box of extract. Can't find it now; can't remember just how I did it. It was Homebrew Root Beer extract. Pretty standard stuff.

[fretlessman71]

I'm refreshing this thread in the hopes that someone new will see it and take pity on me and answer my questions on what to do with this batch of root beer! HELP!!!!

[tubetek]

Y'know, Charlie Papazian's book may be pretty dated now, But he made one timeless observation; things always seem to go smoother when you- "Relax, Don't worry, Have a homebrew". Sounds to me like yer stressin' way too hard over a load o' sugarwater. I haven't been brewing long. some of our early attempts were pretty rough but we drank 'em anyway to learn about what we did wrong-In fact, the beers that were rough seemed to result from sessions where we were stressin' or otherwise distracted!!
I've been where you are (and not that long ago) Trust me, it'll get better and it's worth persuing... No, you don't have to count the grains of yeast, I meant to infer that you should use about as little as you can...
Enjoy!!
TT