Bottled Beer - Low to no carbonation

Just as i think my brewing is going without a hitch, i now have a carbonation problem.

I brewed an AHS Pumpkin Ale. Brewing went off perfect, no problems. But, instead of using the suggested amount of carb sugar stated on the AHS recipe sheet, i used Palmer's How to Brew book, and their table of amount of carb sugar to use. When i compared the amounts, i came up with about half of the amount of carb sugar that the recipe sheet suggested. Well, i've let the beer sit for over a month now, and there is little to no carbonation on any of my beers. I've drank about 4 so far and nothing. It tastes perfect, great amount of pumpkin, and i believe would be an unbelievably awesome beer, if it was just carbonated.

So, how can i up my carbonation? I refuse to use carb drops because i ruined 2 batches using carb drops in the past. I got a feeling i'm going to have to uncap, and add more sugar to each bottle, then recap. My question would be, how much sugar should i add? Would a teaspoon be enough?

For information purposes: When i pour my beer into a glass, i get NO head, and i don't see bubbles rising inside the glass.

I'd experiement with like 2 bottles first. add in half the dose that normally goes in and wait a week. check to see how they are then go from there with the rest of your beer.

At what temperature are you storing the bottles?

Half the dose? When i add priming sugar, i pour the priming sugar/water mixture in a bottling bucket, then rack the brew from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. Allows for a more even distribution of priming sugar.

At what temperature are you storing the bottles?

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I have my temp controller set at 69. So the max temp is 69, low is 64.

How long have your bottles been carbing?

If it s was down around 64 for the majority of the time it could take a lot longer than normal. Maybe try to push the temp up above 70 and wait a little longer. Some brews can take a while to carb up.

Have you been leaving them in the fridge for at least 48 hours before drinking? And is there any sound when opening the bottles?

Brewnoob1 said:

How long have your bottles been carbing?

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BugAC said:

Well, i've let the beer sit for over a month now, and there is little to no carbonation on any of my beers.

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Have you been leaving them in the fridge for at least 48 hours before drinking? And is there any sound when opening the bottles?

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I do hear the pfft sound when opening. So i know there is carbonation, but it is not much. And yes, i've left a brew in the fridge a week before.

I recently adjusted down my temp to 69, before it was at 71 for the duration. But again, with those temp controls, the max temp is 71, the low is a good 4-5 degrees cooler.

So back to my question, how long in total have the beers been carbing?

So back to my question, how long in total have the beers been carbing?

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I bottled November 7th, so 5 weeks and 3 days or 38 days.

Looks like the AHS instruction sheet might have been correct here.. Just a guess. If it tastes good.. I'd drink it.. but, maybe letting it warm above frig temp will help. Could be a good lesson learned. I'd guess AHS has tweeked their recipe and sheet pretty well.

The problem with opening each bottle and adding sugar (which is fine to do, in theory) is that first, some of the carbonation in each bottle will escape with that "pffft" when you open it. So even adding more sugar will not give you full carbonation, but you don't want to add too much! Secondly, adding sugar into partially carbed beer will cause a ton of nucleation points and cause the beer to foam up and out of the bottle.

If you don't want to use carb tabs, then I think you're stuck.

I don't know why using Palmer's instructions would give you such a low carb, unless there was a temperature/priming thing (which are usually wrong because they don't take into account fermentation temperature, not CURRENT temperature). You can usually plan on 4-5 ounces of corn sugar (by weight) for nearly every beer style when bottling.