Beer Forum

Hi - I currently have my 1st ever homebrew fermenting a away. I followed a Malt Extract recipe for a Witbier. Final gravity reading is as it should be, I've had it in primary for 2.5 weeks now. My only concern I there is not much sign of carbonation, I'm afraid that I'm going to end up with a flat beer...

I used 2.7KG (6lb) dried wheat malt extract as stated in the recipe. Will my brew carbonate after I bottle it, or should I consider adding priming sugar? I've done some research but can't quite find what I should be doing.

Any advice would e greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Congratulations! It's time to bottle it up!

Beer won't carbonate until you package it (bottle or keg it). What you'll want to do is use a carbonation calculator - which can be found in pretty much any brewing software, or I'm sure there are a few online that can be found with a quick Google search.

You're going to want to aim for 2.5 volumes of CO2 (that's the amount of carbonation in the final product). You'll also need to know how much beer you're carbonating. Enter that info into the carbonation calculator & it'll tell you exactly how much priming sugar to add.

To add the sugar, the best way is to use a bottling bucket. Dissolve the sugar into a a small amount of pre-boiled water (bring the water to a hard boil, remove from heat, & stir in the sugar when it's cooled down a touch). Add the sugar water to a sanitized bottling bucket & rack your beer on top of the sugar water. This will ensure the sugar water gets mixed evenly into the beer.

Bottle it up, cap it, leave it in a dark place at 70-ish degrees for about 2-3 weeks. At that point put a bottle in the fridge & give it a try once it's reached drinking temp. It should be fully carbonated by then. If so, put the rest in the fridge, if not, let them sit for another week & try another one.

Wonderful thank you. I wasn't sure about adding priming sugar as the recipe I followed had Dried malt Extract

onecrombie wrote:Wonderful thank you. I wasn't sure about adding priming sugar as the recipe I followed had Dried malt Extract

Yup, it's the same for all grain, dry extract, liquid extract, etc.

Let us know how it turns out.