High abv beer not carbonated after 5 weeks

It has been 5 weeks and my beer still barely has any cabornation in it. The beer is around 13% abv and I used 5.5 onces of corn sugar for my primer. Will it still carbonate more after 5 weeks. It also taste like alchol, which I assume will improve with age. This is only my third batch of beer but is basicly the same recipe that I used before, but I added 1 lb of honey to the primary on the third day. Is it possible to kill off the yeast and not carbonate?

The limit of most strains of yeast is 10-14%. I wouldn't have tried bottle conditioning a beer that big without reyeasting with some healthy alcohol tolerant yeast.

You should probably provide more details about the batch, like what yeast you used, did you make a starter, fermentation times and temps, etc. At the very least tell us what yeast you used.

There are a few possibilities. You may have exceeded your yeast's alcohol tolerance and killed off any remaining cells that would have carbonated your beer. It's also possible that you have some viable yeast left, but not very much so it's working very slowly (especially considering the high alcohol). And as some around here will tell you, patience is a virtue with bottle-conditioning, ESPECIALLY with a big beer like the one you have.

Someone else around here can help you more with the specifics of your situation, but I can give you some of my own personal experience. I brewed a 3 gallon batch of Barley wine a few years ago. It was All-malt, with an OG around 1.105. I used Wyeast 1728 (No starter, but I may have been re-pitching a jar of old yeast so there may have been a healthy cell count, or not). It fermented pretty quickly, to about 1.025 in 3 or 4 weeks, so I bottled it. 1728 is supposed to be good up to 12%. I left it for a couple months before trying some, and it wasn't really carbonated. I drank a bottle here and there over the next 6 months to a year, and although it never fully carbonated, it did seem to be slowly developing more bubbles. Unfortunately due to the small batch size and my own impatience, I never got to see if any ended up properly carbed. I didn't follow the extra steps that are recommended when fermenting a high gravity beer so even though I hadn't exceeded the yeast's 'official' alcohol limit, there probably wasn't enough left to do the job in a timely manner. You may be in the same position.

I did another batch more or less the same way, except I pitched some Champagne yeast (much higher tolerance) in the secondary. It ended up sitting in the secondary for more than a few months, which isn't a bad thing with a beer like this but wasn't my intention. Anyways, it carbed up fine. I can't recall how soon after bottling I cracked the first one, but every one has been fine.

I used safbrew T-58 yeast, no started. I pitched the yeast at 68 deg f and for the first 2 days the primary was keeped at 69 deg. On day three, I added 1 lb of honey which is the only big difference to my previous batch that came out great. I let the primary warm up to 71 deg by the end of the week. I transfered to secondary on day 8 and bottled on day 15. For my primer, I used 5.5 onces of corn suger disolved in water, stired into the batch slowly for 2 minutes. My og was 1.13 and fg was 1.031. With the addition of honey in the primary I assume my abv is above 13%. I read on the forum elsewhere that I should chill the beer for several days to help trap the carbonation, I have only chilled for a few hours just to try the beer. There is some carbonation but it is very wispy and has big bubbles on top of the thin head. The beer taste ok but has a harsh alcohol taste. Will the alcohol taste die down with time?

Thanks
Jeff

I just read somewhere recently that honey can slow down fermentation. so, maybe the honey you added has slowed down your yeast and it's just going to take longer.

or maybe it's a combination--the honey slowed down fermentation AND you exceeded the alcohol tolerance of the yeast?

The alcohol tolerance is listed at 11.5% for that yeast, so you've already exceeded that. As for honey slowing down fermentation, that's possible since honey apparently doesn't have anything in the way of nutrients for the yeast, which is why it's easy to get a stuck fermentation with a mead (I have two batches that are proof of this). However, with a small amount of honey in a beer I don't know if that's your issue. I would guess no.

If it's already fermented to 13% and there's some carbonation in the bottle, then it sounds like you still have some yeast left in there. I would just give it time and see. That should also help mellow out the alcohol burn a bit. Let it sit for a few months and then check it again.