No carbonation in bottles after 4 days...should I worry?

I normally use 5oz corn sugar to bottle, however this time I made a spiced holiday ale to hand out as presents to people and I thought "I know, I'll use brown sugar as priming sugar instead." So I looked that up on here, everything I found said to use 2/3rd cups of brown sugar in two cups of water, so I did. I boiled it and let it cool, like I normally would, and then I bottled. It's been four days and there is no hint of carbonation even. When I used corn sugar, it's usually at least lightly carbonated after three days. I still have time to recrack these bottles, pour them out, and priming sugar the batch again, but I don't want to do that and have it be hyper-carbonated or something. Can anyone shead any light on this at all? Should I be worried?

Don't attempt to add more sugar to these bottles!!

Go drink something else, give your beers at least two weeks to carb and condition. Brown sugar is a bit more complex so it would reason that it will take longer for the yeast to process it, but have no fear your beer will carbonate.

Yeah, I figured that adding more sugar would be a bit extreme, haha. The logical part of my brain KNOWS that it's sugar and will have the same effect as corn sugar, but the part of me that worries thinks about the fact that I've never used brown sugar before and am afraid it won't work.

4 days is nothing. Relax and have one of your other homebrews.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease. It's just that I mostly keg my beer now, and the ones that I have bottled recently with corn sugar usually have some carbonation after a few days.RDWHAHB right?

dukerutledge said:

Don't attempt to add more sugar to these bottles!!

Go drink something else, give your beers at least two weeks to carb and condition. Brown sugar is a bit more complex so it would reason that it will take longer for the yeast to process it, but have no fear your beer will carbonate.

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3 Weeks at 70* F is the MINIMUM time recommended for bottle carbing!

If its colder than 70* it will take longer. As others have said, 4 days is nothing. The key to being able to wait 3 weeks you may ask? Brew more then you will always have a beer coming into the pipeline

Of course!!! I wasnt thinking about the temperature! It's probably 59-60 where the bottles are. I need to move them up from the basement asap!

Moody_Copperpot said:

Of course!!! I wasnt thinking about the temperature! It's probably 59-60 where the bottles are. I need to move them up from the basement asap!

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There ya go

If you really want to do everything possible to speed up carbonation becuase these are christmas gifts, not valentines gifts, try agitating the yeast in each bottle once a day. Not quite shake, but flip the bottles over a few times. This will resuspend the yeast and help speed things up a little...

Oh wow, I didnt know that. Thanks for the tip!

brettwasbtd said:

3 Weeks at 70* F is the MINIMUM time recommended for bottle carbing!

If its colder than 70* it will take longer. As others have said, 4 days is nothing. The key to being able to wait 3 weeks you may ask? Brew more then you will always have a beer coming into the pipeline

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Despite the risk of pissing off someone by saying this (heresy?), I think 3 weeks is generally a good period to wait for the beer to carb up and condition but not 100% necessary. Some beer will carb up much faster than 3 weeks (in under a week, in my experience). Some other beers wont carb up until many months post-bottling (think barelywine).

3 weeks is recommended because it also allows for green-beer to transform into a better tasting real-beer.

In this case, I say to the OP- give it some time man, it needs it