Prime Tabs

[laneto]

I brewed an Imperial IPA with a 9.6%ABV and kegged the majority and bottled a few. I used 5 primetabs per 12 oz bottle and its pouring flat. A slight mist upon opening the bottle. Its been in the bottle 4 weeks and warm considering I've had the AC on for the last 2 weeks due to the AZ heat wave of plus 90 degree weather. My question is, can I open the bottles and put more primetabs in and re-cap to bring up the carbonation or just drink flat beer or any ideas you may have? Thanks.

[BigRed]

Originally posted by laneto
I brewed an Imperial IPA with a 9.6%ABV and kegged the majority and bottled a few. I used 5 primetabs per 12 oz bottle and its pouring flat. A slight mist upon opening the bottle. Its been in the bottle 4 weeks and warm considering I've had the AC on for the last 2 weeks due to the AZ heat wave of plus 90 degree weather. My question is, can I open the bottles and put more primetabs in and re-cap to bring up the carbonation or just drink flat beer or any ideas you may have? Thanks.

5 per 12 oz. bottle? I thought it was more like 2-3 per 12 oz. bottle. Other than that...

1) Are the bottles on a cold floor?

2) My other guess here is that your yeast cant ferment at that high of an alcohol level.

Thats about all I can think of.

[brewmonkey]

What yeast strain did you use for this beer? Not many can tolerate that kind of ABV and what yeast is left is to pooped to work.

If it is the yeast I would suggest for future batches pitching a priming yeast just prior to bottling. Something that can tolerate the alcohol but you would not need a whole lot of it for a small batch. You only need about 100K cells/ml IIRC for bottle conditioning. I don't do it a whole lot, so my yeast count might be a bit off.

[laneto]

I used white labs 001 california ale yeast. Can I add some dry yeast to the bottles and some more sugar?

[Magnew]

I had a stout that didn't carbonate once. I added a few grains of dry yeast to each bottle. The sugar was already there, no need to add more. Worked fine. A couple of overcarbonated bottles, but other than that...

[brewmonkey]

I would not screw around opening the bottles and trying to fix this problem. Chances are you would create some new problems by doing so.

WLP001 is a high flocculation yeast and is probably on the edge of the alcohol content you have ended with. A combination of the yeast dropping out of suspension and the rest not being able to handle the environment most likely caused the carbonation issues.

I would switch strains next time to something a little less flocculant and able to tolerate the alcohol.