No carbonation

Brewed a barley wine about 5 months ago. Bottled 1 month ago. Decided to pop one open for my friend and I to see how they were doing and there is absolutely no carbonation. Still pretty damn new to brewing. I boiled my primer and added it to my botteling bucket. If I didnt let the primer cool could this kill my yeast with the heat and prevented it from carbonating? Could this be an issue with how I cap? Any/all input would be appreciated. Thank you.

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Artskoolfailure said:

If I didnt let the primer cool could this kill my yeast with the heat and prevented it from carbonating?

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Not unless you used one heck of a lot more than the normal amount of water to create the priming solution.

When you long-term age prior to bottling, especially something with the high ABV of a barleywine, you ought to add a small amount of alcohol-tolerant yeast at bottling time for carbonation purposes. Did you happen to do that? If not, you can uncap each bottle, add a very small pinch of dry yeast to each and re-cap. I'd be thinking about maybe using a champagne yeast like EC-1118.

Artskoolfailure said:

Could this be an issue with how I cap?

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Pretty unlikely. How did you cap?

I would agree with the above post. If you use the typical cup of water and 4-5oz corn sugar, there's no way it would raise the temp enough to kill yeast.

More likely, it's that the yeast didn't hold up to the alcohol somehow. Normally I would recommend a carb drop in each bottle to try again, but for a barleywine I think I'd be looking more at the yeast than the fermentables.

I used 2 cups of water with (if I recall correctly) 5oz. of priming sugar. I didnt add any yeast at botteling, havent really heard of that prior. So if I uncap and add a pinch of yeast to each I might be able to correct this? Thank you for your response. I will hit up my brewstore tomorrow and get some yeast. Fingers crossed this works.

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For capping I just used my basic capper. Not table mounted. But pretty much the most basic capper. (Red, dual handles... thats about all there is too it.) And a new bag of caps.

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Artskoolfailure said:

I used 2 cups of water with (if I recall correctly) 5oz. of priming sugar. I didnt add any yeast at botteling, havent really heard of that prior. So if I uncap and add a pinch of yeast to each I might be able to correct this? Thank you for your response. I will hit up my brewstore tomorrow and get some yeast. Fingers crossed this works.

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Your other option is to simply give it more time at 70-75*F. High ABV beers can take 2-3 times as long to carb up even at the right temps.

Also, if your temps haven't been 70+, those beers will be extra, extra slow to carb. If you've been storing those bottles where it gets under 60*F, I'd put the additional yeast plan aside for a while and give them another two months at the right temp.

Your priming sugar is already there waiting to be eaten, so DO NOT add any more sugar or carb drops.