Slightly Flat Beer

Hey everyone. I just finished a 5 gallon batch of a walnut indian brown ale with maple syrup. It was in the carboy for 2 weeks, bottled using 5 oz of priming sugar and set them out for about 2 weeks as well. I tried the first one today and it was exactly what I wanted except that it was slightly flat. Any ideas why??

I would guess that it just needs more time in the bottle, especially if it is a bigger beer. What was your OG? I did a Bourbon Barrel Porter recently that started around 1.070 and was almost completely flat for the first month after bottling.

I'm no expert, but from what I've read, specifically from Revvy, is that you should bottle condition your beer for at least 3 weeks.

So, it probably just needs another week or so. Revvy posted a video of a guy opening a beer every week and commenting about the carbonation. I'll see if I can find it for you.

Edit: Here's the video:

Saluki brewer, my OG was 1.080. In the end the beer is at 7.2% ABV. Also, how did you do a bourbon barrel, I've been thinking about doing one, but cant seem to get the right taste with out actually aging the beer in a bourbon barrel.
And Intrevix, thanks for the video. I think I'll let it go for another week or so.

I used the Bourbon Barrel Porter kit from Northern Brewer. It is just a basic porter, but then you soak toasted oak cubes in 16 oz bourbon (I used Maker's Mark like they recommend) and add it to the secondary for a couple weeks. Since you are actually adding bourbon to the beer in the secondary, it takes some time for everything to mellow out. For the first month it was flat and tasted like a boilermaker, but now it has really blended into the beer and has a great tan head and smooth flavor.

Sounds nice. I've only done one step fermentation. How did you go about adding the bourbon soaked oak chips to a secondary, meaning how do you do a two step fermentation process?

Noble -

You just need to let your beer ferment in the primary like you normally would. About 1 or 2 weeks into the primary, I put the oak cubes and bourbon into a mason jar to give the bourbon time to soak into the cubes. When the SG of the beer was stable, I racked out of the primary into my secondary (5g glass carboy in my case) on top of the bourbon and oak. Then i just let this sit for 3 weeks or so and bottled like I normally would with priming sugar.

Union -

This beer was pretty good after about 5-6 weeks in bottles, but I have been trying to exercise patience with this one because all of the reviews I have read say that it really hits its peak around 6 months to a year. I have been putting one or two bottles in the fridge at a time about every week or two and every one has been better than the last. Its been probably about 2.5 mo right now and the bourbon/oak character have really smoothed out into the background of a really nice porter. I plan on trying to keep the second case of this in the closet until fall.

NobleExpBeer said:

Saluki brewer, my OG was 1.080. In the end the beer is at 7.2% ABV.

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It simply needs more time. Low OG beers carb up faster, High OG beers carb up slower.

Give it 6-8 weeks before you start worrying about it being flat. It just needs time.

Just tried one after 3.5 weeks in the bottle and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. However, I can't seem to get any lacing on the glass as I drink it. Any opinions on lacing?