Bottle conditioned carbonation issue

So I brewed a modified honey porter, 10 days in the primary, 15 in the secondary, bottled using 1/3 a cup of honey. Now been two weeks in the bottle and I have next to no carbonation. However it does make a very mild barley wine. Now when I pop a warm bottle it's pretty good. When cold I got nothing.

Mind you I live in Hawaii.

1. Two weeks is too early to be worried

2. Was this a 5 gal batch? If so 1/3 cup honey seems a tad low ( I'd go with 1/2 cup) but you should get some carbonation. Depends on the style and what you were going for.

It is a partial mash, in the directions it says to prime with only a third cup. I thought it was a bit low as well, but you know I didn't write the recipe.

Yes 5gallon batch.

Honey takes longer...I give all my beers 4 weeks (I only carb with honey). My rule of thumb is three tablespoons per gallon, so you should have used nearly a cup (If you bottled 5 gallons, 5 gallon batches sometimes get you 4.5 gallons in the bottling bucket.) As stated, it depends on the style and what you are after, I like my beers on the higher end. Google priming calculator or use some software to figure it out exactly.

jamason_2000 said:

Now been two weeks in the bottle and I have next to no carbonation.

Click to expand...

It's too early to tell.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Carbonation is actually foolproof, you add sugar, the yeast eats it and farts co2 which carbs the beer. It's not a complex system, and there's very little that can go wrong...It just takes time.....

So I think I got it figured out. Too much headspace/ not enough honey. Still a good barley wine. Of the few that did carbonate right, they are amazing.