Adding Liquor to beer and bottle Carbonation

Assuming 86 proof bourbon and a 5 gallon batch of 10% ABV beer, you would have ended up about 10.3% ABV. So it's doubtful that the extra alcohol is a major problem.

How long did you wait before deciding you were having a hard time carbonating? High ABV beers tend to take longer, because the yeast are not at peak health.

 

If adding to a bottling bucket, I'd probably rehydrate. But if you're going to uncap and add, I'd just use it dry.

Temperature? Also, I believe some people have had to wait even longer than that with big beers. I wouldn't expect completely flat though. Are you sure you added priming sugar? And mixed it thoroughly? Maybe open bottle from the other end of the bottling run and see.

 

Although it's not up in the 10+ range, I've added rum to a porter that took it from about 6.5% up to 8% and it carbed fine. Not sure how long it took, however, as it was about 6months before I opened one.

 

Because the sugar is heavier than the wort, I always use my brewing spoon to dig deep into the bucket and pull that sugar syrup upward with spoon strokes. I also do it several times during the bottling process just to make sure it stays mixed. Before I started using this procedure, I learned the hard way what happens with an improperly mixed batch and have had no issues since.

 

That's a sound method. I'd be most concerned with the time in between fermentation and how many weeks pass before you bottle. The yeast on a 10% beer are usually exhausted. I personally have luck moving the beer within 3 weeks, or repitching some extra yeast into the bottling bucket. I use half a pack of champagne yeast and save the other half for priming or small wine projects. Storing the beer at about 68-70F for a few weeks usually gets things going.

 

Yeast craps out on high gravity beers. It is like they've just run a marathon and have an empty tank so pitch new yeast when you bottle and you will be fine. Using about 1/5 of your pitch rate for the beer works.