flat beer

At 3 weeks you should have *some* carbonation, but it is also too early to lose hope IMO. Give it another two weeks.

How much priming sugar did you use?
What's the ABV on the beers?
What were the final gravities?
How long from brewday to bottle day?
What yeast(s) did you use?

 

Also, did you make sure the sugar was incorporated entirely - otherwise you might have some flat bottles and some bombs.

Also, is there maybe something wrong with the bottling equipment?

 

Did you stir after you added the beer? It is possible that you are under primed some bottles, and over primed others. My first batch had 10 or over carbed bottles, 1 or 2 perfect, and 30 or 40 flat bottles.

 

What temperature are the bottles at?

 

Adding priming sugar solution off the boil?
Cold storage during carbonation phase?
Loose fitting caps?

 

What does that mean?

 

How do you know that they're ALL flat? The best educated guess with the information that we have right now is that you probably didn't incorporate the priming sugar evenly throughout the beer by some gentle stirring in the bucket. So I'm guessing that you've checked only a few bottles so far, and these happen to be ones that didn't get much (if any) sugar in them.

You need to determine with certainty whether ALL of them are flat before we can try to recommend steps for salvaging these beers for you. We don't want to recommend adding sugar again if there is a chance that some bottles already have proper carbonation. If you haven't opened many yet, then try a few more over a week or so, and take care to listen for any sign of a hiss when you pop the cap.

If you are certain that all of the bottles are flat, then 1.) you either have dead yeast (or dormant if you have the bottles stored too cold), and we need to figure out how that happened so you can learn from it (and we can try to recover from it and help you get your beer properly carbonated), or 2.) you have caps that are applied too loosely and all of your carbonation has escaped.

 

It could be temperature related. Are the bottles cool or are they at room temp ~70 F? Keep them warm until fully carbonated.

Also, your yeast might have settled out. Get your yeast back into suspension by gently flipping each bottle over a couple of times to make it hazy again. Repeat after another couple days. Then wait another week, then taste one.

 

Reviving the thread for a question. I brewed a 9% ABV imperial stout that sat in primary for 3 weeks, then split into to 2.5 gallon batches for aging on coconut/van./choc. Used appropriate amount of priming sugar for both batches at bottling, but I'm "worried" about the yeast being dormant. I've checked 2 bottles, one at 2 weeks and one at 3 weeks and no carb. I know I'm kind of jumping the gun as they may take longer, but just want to see if anyone has experienced anything similar? Could this take a couple months to carb?
I'm going to move the bottles to a little higher temperature space then my basement see if that helps.

 

That's correct.

Lots of people have. You probably already knew that, based on the first quote above.

It could.

It couldn't hurt. You'll probably get some advice to pop open your bottles and add yeast. I'd recommend saving that for a last resort.

 

That's the piece of advice that keeps running through my head, and I'm hesitant because it's a sweet stout with the proper amount of sugar and I don't want bottle bombs.
Thanks sir!

 

More yeast wont cause bottle bombs, only more sugar (or an infection but that's not in the equation right now). I agree with Vikeman though, uncapping and adding anything is a LAST resort. As with many other parts of brewing, time has a way of making things work out just fine.

 

I'm going to do a second hijacking of this thread. Bottled this past weekend for the first time and after reading this post I have a question. I put the sugar mixture into the bottling bucket first and then racked on top of it. I thought the swirling just from racking would mix it but now I'm wondering if I should always stir as well and if I'm going to have unevenly carbonated bottles most likely from not?

Thanks,
Tim

 

I had similar problems with my Big Basin Red Ale I just brewed, ended up being all temp. issues. I moved it from my basement(temps ranged from 63f-69f) to another brew club members house, his spot was 70f -71f, in two weeks we were good to go!

 

I have always put the priming sugar/water mixture in the bottling bucket first then rack on top, and don't stir with no issues. My lower ABV brews (7% and under) carb up nicely in roughly 6 days.

 

That doesnt mean its not a good idea to give it a gentle swirl. I use the auto sypon to swirl, one less thing to sanitize.

 

There have been too many reports in this forum of inconsistent carbonation because the priming sugar was not well mixed, so my advice is to always gently stir the beer in the bucket with an upward motion from the bottom. I even go so far as to do it 3 additional times during the bottling process because that sugar water mixture is heavier than the beer and wants to keep settling out.

 

It's curious that nobody has yet posted the traditional 'kegging' reply to this carbonation post. (is it my turn already?)

Time to start kegging. Among the innumerable benefits is that carbonation problems are non-existent. It's perfect, every time.

 

No shite!! I'm just about there (kegging with training wheels) but keep striking out on CO2 tanks. Can't seem to find one locally, and AiH has the best option but $30 in shipping just gives me pains.