Not enough Carbonation?

I bottled a batch of beer into 32oz bottles on Monday of this week. (My first batch) Last night I opened up one to taste a sample. The beer tasted fine, but was pretty flat. The question I'm getting at is if it's possible to add more sugar to the beers at this stage of bottling to get them to be more carbonated? Is it too late? Do I just need to wait longer for the sugar to break down? Any help would be appreciated, although I was kind of looking forward to tipping back a couple this weekend.

Depending on the temperature you have the bottles sitting in (around 70-72 F) it usually takes a couple of weeks.

yea, the bottles are around the 70-72 degree mark. I guess I gotta wait until next weekend.

Thanks for the fast response.

You're welcome.

What if there's still little carbonation after almost 4 weeks? I have a Hefeweizen that I bottled in Mid-May, and it was kinda flat at the 2 and 3 week marks. I'm worried that when I moved it to the Secondary there wasn't enough yeast left in suspension during bottling. That would mean that no amount of added sugar would help right?

Interesting enough I had a similar problem.

Take a couple of them an put them in the fridge for a couple of days and see what happens.

I did this and the carb level went up a bit, but I actually got a really good head on the beer.

Go figure.

Good luck.

Could a guy add what they call gyves, which is a bit of sterile, unyeasted wort. to get things going?

I would give the beer three weeks to carbonate. I have a chocolate porter that was flat 2 weeks after bottling. I was concerned. By the end of week 3, it was carbonated.

As far as what Sasq suggests, I see a great big potential for contamination if you pop the tops, add wort, and cap again.

andre the giant said:

I would give the beer three weeks to carbonate. I have a chocolate porter that was flat 2 weeks after bottling. I was concerned. By the end of week 3, it was carbonated.

As far as what Sasq suggests, I see a great big potential for contamination if you pop the tops, add wort, and cap again.

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I had one batch that was bottled to early bottling gravity was 1.030. The beer sat in secondary for 2 months. I bottled figuring it must be done, then after trying one after two weeks it was carbonated well but toooooo sweet. So I opened all the beers up put in fermenter added yeast nutrient let go for another week gravity went to 1.025. I bottled it tasted like rotten banannas.
Then I had another batch that sat in secondary for 3 months and finished well at 1.012. I was worried about not having enough yeast to carbonate, I added priming sugar bottled and it carbonated very nicely. I also had a barley wine that sat for 5 months in secondary, I warmed a pack of champane yeast, added priming sugar siphoned beer out of secondary, and added yeast prior to bottling, the beer was carbonated just fine, but the beer packed a high octane punch. Now after a month in the bottle it has settled nicely mmmmmm good.

Andre, I agree with you totally. Adding fermentable ingredients to bottles strikes me as much more dangerous than just adding the bottling sugar during racking, which goes in sterile and without much fuss, and in known controllable amount...besides that, I realize that gyves contains no yeast, and if the problem is that there isn't enough active yeast left to carbonate a bottle, then adding things for the yeast to eat really isn't going to help anyhow. Which is to say, if the beer insists on staying flat, a guy has to take some kind of risk to rejuvenate it, or just drink flat beer.

Ken, are your bottles possibly leaking gas?