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I was being cheap and used empty water bottles to bottle my beer. They worked okay on my 1st batch when I used 1 carbonation drop to prime. That 1st batch didn't have quite the carbonation level I wanted when using just 1 carb drop, so I tried the 2nd batch with 1.5 carb drops.

The 2nd batch had been sitting for 2 weeks and I went in to check them. About half have lost pressure, looks like weak caps. Is it possible to pour this uncarbonated beer into new, legit bottles with more carb drops and save it? Will the addition of oxygen totally skunk the beer? Will the yeast continue to eat sugar and produce CO2?

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Yes you can.

Oxidation doesn't skunk beer, light does that. Oxidation gives a cardboard / wet paper aroma & taste.

Oxidation can be minimized by using a funnel with a tube that reaches the bottom of the bottle. If you choose to rebottle.

It's more likely that the yeast wasn't active enough to catbonate. You can add a few grains of dry yeast in each bottle to rule this out on second attempt. See if the ones that didn't carb are sweeter than those that did, if so then it was yeast and not the seal. Don't add more sugar In those, just yeast.

Note: carb drops are for a 12oz volume each.

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  • Thanks for the reassurance and the last part about adding a little dry yeast.
    – AtariPixel
    Sep 10, 2016 at 18:27
  • I'd suggest doing this with a couple bottles at first and see how it works out. Then the OP can tweak the # of tabs or the amount of yeast needed for successful recarb.
    – brewchez
    Sep 10, 2016 at 19:47
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    Success! Evil Zymurgist was spot on. I rebottled the depressurized beer into new bottles, added about 1/8 tsp of saf-instant yeast (beer yeast isn't sold in this country) and 2 carb drops to each 750ml bottle. Within 2 days they were back to drinkable and after a week they're excellent.
    – AtariPixel
    Sep 20, 2016 at 9:08

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