Flat beer concern

[Sevric]

My beer is all flat, or various levels of barely carbonated, not entirely sure what I did wrong.

I brewed a Mr. Beer kit, following the instructions (though instead of using the yeast that came with the kit, I used some Nottingham Ale yeast and probably too much of it that). I waited the alloted two weeks and bottled, there was a nice layer of yeast cake on the bottom of the fermenter and when I filled the bottle I got some foaming, so it definitely seemed to be carbonating at this point. I put approx. 3/4 teaspoon of corn sugar in each 12oz bottle, capped, and gave it a shake as per directions. Then I let it condition for 2 weeks.

As I eagerly opened my first homebrews I was disappointed at the flatness of it, so I'm just curious if I'm missing something obvious or if this is just something that happens from time to time.

Any input would be great.

 

[MalFet]

It's probably just not done yet. Give it another week or two. Do you get a psst when you open the bottle?

 

[beaksnbeer]

You need to let them sit out at about 70* for the 2- 3 weeks. I f they are in the fridge take them out .

 

[ETCS]

When you bottle your next batch, don't add the sugar directly to the bottles. Add the required amount of sugar and about 5 oz. of water, bring it to a boil, let cool and add it directly to the bottling bucket and rack your beer into the bottling bucket. This way you won't have to shake the bottles and try to dissolve the sugar. There are several posts on here about bottling and priming sugar.

 

[Sevric]

Well after 2 weeks @about 68-70F and 3 days in the fridge, one kind of went psst and though the carbonation was barely noticable. I'll pull them out of the fride and give them a bit longer down in the basement... and hold off on my instinct to just poor them all out I'll definately change up my priming technique for batch two, which was made with non-Mr. Beer equipment.

Wierd question on bottling though, I once had a Scotch Ale that actually had a little scotch poured into every bottle. It was delicious. Is this easy to do, or would the extra alcohol% interfere with the bottle conditioning?

 

[Revvy]

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

 

[Shift]

Assuming that the beer has "normal" alcohol % and that the amount of scotch isn't gigantic it will be fine.

Just compare the percentage of your beer and how much the yeast strain can handle.