No Carbonation

Ok Im brewing a Porter, not my first beer but pretty close. Had the beer in primary fermenter for 6 weeks then bottled. Had the beer in the bottles for 3 weeks when one bottle exploded, bad deal but I thought maybe I didnt let it ferment long enough for dark beer. So I put all the bottles in my cellar for two more week before I tried to drink thinking the temperature would slow the process and not have any more bottles explode. Now its two weeks later and my beer is flat. No fizz at all. What went wrong and how can I fix it.
Thanks Brad Im logged on my wifes account.

Did you use a hydrometer? If so, what were the readings?

How did you prime?

Yeah, what were your OG and FG readings?

Did you spit in it?


(That seems to be a common question/comment and I didn't want it left out.)

My beginning reading was 1.063 and ended at 1.012

One more thing if it matters I only opened 2 beers both very flat

Sounds like you bottled at an appropriate FG. Again, how did you prime?

Might have had an infected bottle and the clean ones weren't done fermenting when you cooled them down.

5 oz priming sugar, I also have moved the beer into the tub where the house is quite a bit warmer and if another bottle blows it wont be such a mess. Maybe in a couple more weeks at a warmer temp it will be carbonated, but it was bottled for 3 week before it was moved to a cooler temp

Exactly how did you incorporate the priming sugar?

...if you haven't figured it out yet, more detail is always better...

I boil a cup of water and add sugar for 5 min, let it cool then pour into my bottling bucket then I siphon from the primary fermenter to bottling bucket.

add sugar then boil for 5 min

Your FG seems reasonable, and your method is a common one that works. So, I'm guessing you had a single infected bottle that exploded. The rest need more time. Store them at room temperature for another week or two.

Thankyou that is what I was going to try I will let you know in a couple weeks.

Sounds like all the priming sugar went into one bottle... 6 weeks in the primary and with a FG like that you were DONE DONE DONE. 6 weeks?! It exploded after 3 weeks, so 9 weeks later a bottle exploded? Wow, I thought I was safe after the first week...

I've had a batch where some bottles were fine and others were flat but I blamed it on bad capping and maybe using the wrong caps. Never had any explosions and really wouldn't expect after 6 weeks in the primary you would have any problems... you sure you don't mean 6 days - now that's exploding territory...

It's possible that the sugar wasn't mixed well in the bottling bucket, or that you didn't continually stir the mixture as you were filling. One of the brewer books talks about stirring the bucket every few minutes to ensure even distribution of the sugar. I keep a long handled stainless kettle spoon in the bucket and stir as I fill with the other hand filling the bottles. Make sure the spoon is sanitized too before putting it in your bucket-ya know I have to put that in there

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Did you spit in it?


(That seems to be a common question/comment and I didn't want it left out.)

Click to expand...

That's only an appropriate response when their question would have been answered fifteen times by using the search. Jeez..... :fro:

Did the flat bottles have that little wisp of fog when you opened them at all? How are you cleaning your bottles and everything?

To add my two cents here...
Sounds like everything you did in terms of watching the gravity, priming, temps, etc., was right on the mark and it was probably just a fluke that you had a bottle explode. I had carbonation issues with some of my early batches too, and I what typically helped was moving the bottles to a warmer location for a few extra weeks to let the yeast do their thing properly. I saw someone else mention it, but gently stirring the wort occasionally as it is being siphoned over the priming sugar solution helps ensure that the sugar is evenly distributed. Good luck with future batches!

I want my +1 for honorable mention of stirring while bottling:rockin: