Carbonation (help!)

I bottled my first brew last night and, depite soaking the kitchen, enraging my girlfriend and taking about 2 hours to sterilise all the bottles - I was pleased that I got 36 Newcastle Brown Ale bottles filled with my lovely beer.

I followed the last copule of steps in the kit instructions and added 2.5oz of sugar (boiled in water) to my sterilised fermenting bin, syphoned from secondary on to this and then bottled via syphon.

I know it's too soon and I should be more patient, but after a hard drive home tonight I cracked one bottle open to taste. The problem is, although it tastes lovely (it did even when I transferred it from primary and has now mellowed nicely) I have no carbonation. I must admit, this is one of the stages I know little about as I thought it was one of the simpler parts of the process. Should my beer be carbonated by now? Just to let you know, I used a hand bottle capper with a hammer as I haven't purchased a machine version yet, but I tried to ensure that all the caps were on good and tight and no air could escape.

Am I just being premature, is the carbonation going to take a few days or hasn't it worked?

I swear I couldn't have asked for a better brew first time around and I don't want to have fallen at the last hurdle. Is there any way of carbonating this quickly after I pour it, if the bottle carbonation hasn't taken effect?

Thanks for any help!

I try to follow the 1,2,3 method as my bare minimums. 1 week in the fermenter, 2 weeks in the secondary, and 3 weeks in the bottle. Sorry, but there is no way it will be carbonated after just one day in the bottle as the yeast probably hasn't even kicked back in yet.

what he said^^^^ way too soon for carbonation
relax and have a store bought!

Wonderful!

That means that there is hope yet! I know I was impatient, but didn't know how long carbonation took.

Do I need to leave the bottles in a warm place still at this tome if the yeast still has work to do?

Cheers guys

try for a warmish place around 70 degrees fahrenheit.
the cooler the place the longer it takes to carbonate.

Your bottles should carbonate in a week at 70F. One easy trick is to bottle some in a 1 liter soda bottle. You can squeeze test it without wasting beer.

Good idea, I may do that next time.

I take it that if everything is working then the bottle will be firm to squeeze...

As long as my yeast isn't dead. It was in primary for a week and secondary for 2 weeks to clear, so pretty standard. There wasn't a single bubble of the airlock in secondary, but that's because the fermentation finished in primary I think - the hydrometer was at 1.000 when I transferred it.

Thank you all for your answers, I'm as not worried now. Fingers crossed.

I've had primaries for as long as 34 days and secondaries for over 100 days without any problem carbonating when the time came.

Relax. Be patient. Start another brew.