In the past, I only ever did top fermenting styles. I had to depressurise my bottles sometimes even more than once (using swing top bottles, luckily, this is not too awful). Now I made a Vienna Lager and even though I can‘t even really cold crash the bottles (I have them sit outside at maybe 10°C instead due to a lack in fridge space), my secondary fermentation is way slower than I’m used to. Is that to be expected?
With ales, I opened the bottles the day after starting secondary, and it sometimes was a deafening bang already. Now, I waited maybe even two days and haven‘t got more than a shy little pop.
I used powdered sugar (mixed with sterile water 1:1) to feed the yeast in secondary fermentation because I didn‘t have anything else in the house when I found the time to bottle. Is that maybe an issue?
You should leave your bottles to condition for two weeks, that loud pop you heard after one day carbing with ale yeast is all the CO2 pressure in the neck of the bottle escaping instead of slowly dissolving back into the beer had you given it time.
Yeah I know. I ever only broke one bottle or so, and rarely - if ever - undercabonated, so I’d say that with ales, I’m pretty OK. :)