Problems With Carbonation

I brewed a Belgian Strong Dark Ale in early March (SG - 1.086, TG - 1.020). I fermented in primary for 2 weeks, racked to secondary for two weeks, primed, RE-YEASTED, and bottle conditioned for two weeks. After two weeks, I opened a bottle and had no carbonation. I let the bottles condition for an additional 2 weeks and tried again... still nothing. Frustrated and realizing my options were limited, I emptied the beers back into the bottling bucket added more yeast and re-bottled. I did not prime assuming there was plenty sugar leftover. I opened a bottle last night after two weeks in the bottle and still had nothing. What could the issue be???

I used Safale us-05 both times and rehydrated according to Fermentis.com (80F water for 30 minutes). The beer has no off flavors, was covered in a dark closet for fermentation and conditioning, and the temperature in my apt is kept at 70F. Light, sanitation, and temperature should not have been issues.

I know that it's possible to get a bad packet of dry yeast but I think the chances of that happening twice are pretty slim. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe the particular yeast won't survive in the higher-alcohol-content beer??

Any input is greatly appreciated! Thanks

To be clear, you don't mention the type or quantity of priming sugar you added when bottling. That could be a very helpful detail.

I think your issue may be that the yeast do not like to just be thrown into a 8.6ish% ABV environment. You can probably still salvage the beer by making a starter and letting the yeast build up some tolerance to the alcohol before re yeasting the beer.

What your issue is patience! Now you have another issue because you dumped the beer out again and probably did a really great job introducing additional oxygen and will wind up with oxidized beer, hope you like cardboard

3 weeks is a very general minimum amount of time to properly carbonate and condition a bottle of beer at 70 degrees. Some beer takes less time, many beers, especially higher gravity beers take longer, some as long as 3-6 months!

I have bottled well over 300 gallons of beer and not once has a bottle never carbonated. Not once have I ever had to add more yeast to a bottle either.

Revvy has a stickie in the bottling section that you should read, it's a little late for this batch though......

Last strong beer I bottled was 10.5%, took a little over 2 months to carb but really came together at around 6 months. Big beers require more time usually.

Awesome, thanks for the advice everyone. I obviously am new to the game. I'll check out Revvy's post...

I added 4.5 oz of priming sugar when I racked. I was also aware of the possibility that I could oxidize the beer when I re-bottled. I was working under the assumption that the beer wasn't going to carbonate as it was and I'd rather take the risk and re-bottle than drink 5 gallons of un-carbonated beer . Turns out all I needed was patience! The beer still tasted fine when I tried one on Tuesday (just un-carbonated) so hopefully I don't get any cardboard flavor. I'll let it rest for a few... months. I'll probably build up the starter to be safe next time.

The main reason this confused me is that the guy I brew with regularly, brews strong ales and has proper carbonation after 2 weeks sometimes even 1. I've also brewed two batches of strong ale prior to this and had no problems.

Thanks again for the input