Lack Of Carbonation

My Belgian Pale Ale has been in the bottle for two weeks and testing one of the bottles last night there seems to be little or no carbonation.

Should I worry or just relax and let it age more?

I would relax and let it age more. I had this problem recently, one of my beers had been in secondary for about a month, I bottled it and waited three weeks.... no carbonation at all. I tried a couple more with the same results. On a whim I picked one up yesterday, and now after over a month and a half in the bottle it is carbonated.

- magno

PanzerOfDoom said:

My Belgian Pale Ale has been in the bottle for two weeks and testing one of the bottles last night there seems to be little or no carbonation.

Should I worry or just relax and let it age more?

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You might try moving it to a warmer location.

I have a saison that I bottled almost three weeks ago. I followed my usual routine of 2 weeks bottle conditioning on the main floor (averages about 68), then to the basement.
I opened one last night, and it;s great, but kindof scantly carbonated, especially for the style. I'm going to move them up to the second floor tonight for a week and see what happens.

Did you by any chance use Wyeast 1244 Belgian Abbey? If so, than maybe we've discovered that it's a slow bottle conditioning yeast.

Don't worry. Two weeks is way to early based on my experience. I usually don't get full carbonation until 4-5 weeks. (I keep my bottles in the basement, where temps range from 55 in the winter to 68 in the summer, it takes a while for the bottles to condition at those temps.)

Give it time and you will be rewarded with great beer.

Ok, I have an amber that I recently did. Let it sit for about 3 weeks after bottling, put a couple of the bottles in the fridge, tested them--great head retention, great carbonation, tasted great. Put the rest in the fridge. . . only about 1 in 3 has decent carbonation now. Some are down right FLAT. Others are simply awesome. What gives??

Biermann said:

only about 1 in 3 has decent carbonation now. Some are down right FLAT. Others are simply awesome. What gives??

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did you prime the whole batch before bottling, or did you prime each bottle individually?

If you did the former, did you make sure the sugar solution was stirred into the beer evenly before bottling?

If you did the latter, try the former next time.

-walker

FWIW....my batch of amber ale took 3 weeks sitting in a 70-75 degree bedroom, but now it's perfect

Biermann said:

Ok, I have an amber that I recently did. Let it sit for about 3 weeks after bottling, put a couple of the bottles in the fridge, tested them--great head retention, great carbonation, tasted great. Put the rest in the fridge. . . only about 1 in 3 has decent carbonation now. Some are down right FLAT. Others are simply awesome. What gives??

Click to expand...

I agree with what Walker said. When you add the priming sugar, you need to gently stir it into the beer to get an even distribution. Here's what I do.

Boil 1-2 cups of water
Add 3/4 cup of corn sugar
Boil and stir for 5-10 minutes
Add this to the bottling bucket
Gently siphon beer into bucket
With a sanitized spoon, gently stir the beer for 30 seconds or so. Do not splash, just gently swirl the beer around, making sure the beer is mixing well.
Bottle.

You should boil the corn sugar for a couple reasons,

1) boiling sanitizes the priming sugar
2) boiling helps the sugar dissolve into the water.

Once the sugar is dissolved, its much easier to mix with the beer because grains of undissolved sugar tend to settle to the bottom of the bottling bucket causing some bottles to be over carbonated, while others seem flat.

AHHHhh. I don't think I stirred, now that I think about it. I was sick that day, and I'm sure I absent-mindedly left out that step. Thanks.