Low carbonation traditional Brown Porter

[gundarak]

Bottled a cinnamon chestnut porter a few weeks ago.. actually think its been about a month now. Classic brown porter.. around 4.5%, but I think I made the wrong choice in going for the low side of carbonation. I think i added enough corn syrup to get to 1.7.

After 2 weeks I have little to no head or retention, and little to no carbonation. the bottles do open with a "tss" though. Flavor is awesome, just wish it was more carbonated. I tried that trick of lying the bottles on the cap for a week to allow the yeast to move through the bottles again.. but I think its the level of sugar i added is too low, not the yeasts fault.. its mine

Is there a way to add more carbonation to this? perhaps open the bottles and add a drop or two of corn syrup per, recap and give it some more time?

Has anyone done a second carbonation in bottles like this?

Thanks!

 

[flars]

More sugar could be added to each bottle. A half a carbonation drop may be easier to measure than a liquid solution.
First though, are you holding the bottles in a warm area of the house, about 70° to 75°F? To low of a conditioning temperature could add weeks of time for good carbonation.

 

[MindenMan]

How much priming sugar did you add per gallon? It is possible the cinnamon is part of your trouble; in my experience, cinnamon and yeast don't get along. It took until the second time for me to figure out the cinn/yeast conflict.

 

[gundarak]

Thanks for the input...
@flars - im up here in Boston, and as you know we just broke the record for most snow in winter, so im trying my best to keep this in a part of the house that is the warmest.. we are holding at about 68-72F.. cant wait for spring :/

@MindenMan - Now that im home from work i can check. I use BeerSmith for my recipe formulations and calcs.. so I used whatever calc is on there. A friend of mine at a brewery told me that one of the downsides of BeerSmith is that their calcs always assume the best case, and not accounting that I may have a lower yeast count than what the calc is assuming.. ok looks like I was aiming for 2.3vols.. using 1.65oz corn sugar added to the beer in a pot prior to bottling.

So, Im sorry i thought i went for 1.7 vols, when clearly I wanted more..

Interesting about the cinnamon! Would that explain why the head doesnt form? I added the cinnamon right to secondary fermentation to "dry spice" it.. i wanted the max cinnamon.. i find there isnt enough retained if added during the last 10 mins of boil.. i would need like 5 sticks for what i wanted lol.

 

[MindenMan]

Just a thought, if you do try to re-prime your bottles, anything that is granular or powder-like is bad; think of Mentos and Diet Coke. I'm not kidding.
I am not a fan of the "carbonation calculators", if I am making a Porter or Stout, I add 0.75oz table sugar per gallon, and if I am making something lighter in style I will add 1oz per gallon of priming sugar. I hope this idea helps you.

 

[ncbrewer]

What size batch was this? If it was 5 gallons, it wasn't enough sugar.

 

[gundarak]

What size batch was this? If it was 5 gallons, it wasn't enough sugar.

sorry, forgot about this post!... this was a 2.5 gallon batch using just about 1.6oz corn syrup