Damn RIS just won't carb.. 5 weeks in bottles now

Okay, here is my problem. I have a Russian Imperial Stout (9.6%) that just will not carb. I brewed it on 10/13/09 with notty. Racked two weeks later to a secondary and let it sit until 12/27/09 and then bottled with 3.8oz of corn sugar. After three weeks in my office (temp controlled at 68 degrees) I cracked one and nothing (no sound), after 4 weeks a tiny hiss but no carbonation at all. I waited another week and last Tuesday tried again and not even a hiss when I cracked the cap.

Now I am a patient man but damn this stuff if tasty flat and want to start drinking it. What should I do? Drop in a grain or two of notty yeast in each and re-cap? add more sugar?

The other viable option I have is that my kegging equipment arrives today. How can I get the beer out of the bottles and in to the keg without creating too much oxidation? What would be the best way to do this or is it just best to let it carb in bottles? It is a RIS and couldn't hurt to let it bottle carb another month.

I had one that took 3 months to carb to perfection.

Definitely leave it be. It really won't be that great for another 6 months anyway. Why waste it now...

I have a porter in a similar situation. It has been bottled for 5 weeks and it is barely carbd and tastes really green (kind of cidery). I just put it out of sight and mind. I plan on trying it again in a month or so per people telling me to be patient. Still I wonder if I fell victim to one of those nottingham packets that was reported bad a little bit ago.

Hmmm, well it has been 6 months and I tossed a few in the fridge and... FLAT..


Now what? Open, toss in a few grains of notty and bottle again and let carb up or am I better off putting in a keg?

I'll admit I did take a 12 pack and put it in a keg to drink 4 months ago to carb and drink and this stuff is really tasty.

I've had to pour bottles back into the priming bucket before because I forgot priming sugar, never really noticed excess oxidation, so it should be less bad to pour it carefully into the keg since you are just going to close it up right away, not expose it to more air to re-bottle like I did. Just purge the air space in the keg with co2 before closing it. Or with or without doing that, put a little yeast (maybe something designed for higher gravity like champagne yeast?) in some bottles and wait to see how those do. I'd think for the small size of the bottle opening, you are exposing it to pretty little oxidation and adding the yeast to the bottle shouldn't really hurt much. You could keg it all, keg some and yeast some, or just yeast a few, or yeast all, even leave some bottles alone if you are worried about risking it.

Above all, if it tastes decent, it should get drank, right?

I have had to pour a batch of bottles into a keg. Never had any issues with it.

You could try heating them up for a while. Its winter here now and my garage temps stay fairly low so Ive been putting my bottles into a bucket of water with an aquarium heater where they sit at +-82F for two weeks, then into the fridge.

you may have to add that back yeast. If you let it sit in your secondary for a really long time ( couple months) then all the yeast may have fallen out of suspension and you wont have anything left.