Uneven carbonation

I brewed up a batch of pale ale and bottled it. It's been in the bottles for about three weeks and the taste is pretty darn good. But the carbonation is really uneven - meaning that one bottle will produce a nice rich head when poured and the next bottle will produce almost no head - though there is a light carbonation within the beer. It all came out of the same bucket - and all pretty much tastes the same. Any ideas?

Number one guess would be inadequate mixing of the priming sugar into the bottling bucket. I've made that mistake. Think about how you did it, and see if it applies to your situation.

When I bottled, I would add the dissolved priming sugar first to my bottling bucket and then rack my beer to it. The constant swirling of the beer flowing into it help stir it up to make it even. A final good stir is still a safe way to go to prevent uneven carbonation as well as bottle bombs.

I'd give all your bottles a twist as well.

another possibility is that some of them were capped wrong and there are slight leak in some of the bottles. But as already stated I think the best bet is that the priming sugar was not fully mixed.

how uneven is it exactly? if it was extremely uneven as far as you can tell, be careful with some of the bottles, as they could potentially be bottle bombs. i would put everything in the fridge now to slow down and try to prevent any bottle bombs from happening.

I have heard that this can happen if some of your bottles were not completely sanatized too.
Just a possiblity to keep in mind.

Thanks for all the posts. Good information to work with.