No Fizz! Why?

[razyrsharpe]

my brother bottled a batch of Pale Ale two weeks ago (i helped). we tested the beer this easter weekend and there was great flavor with no carbonation. no head at all. little bubbles formed in the glass, but that was all.
now, i read about one week ago that you shouldn't aerate the wort prior to bottling. well, we did. so if this is the cause...will it help to leave the beer in the bottle for a longer period of time? or is it hopeless? just wondering.

 

[Whelk]

What temp did you carb and serve at? If you carb too low, then there's no carbonation. If you serve really cold, there's also less carbonation. If you pour too slowly, no head. Etc, etc, etc.

 

[FlyGuy]

my brother bottled a batch of Pale Ale two weeks ago (i helped). we tested the beer this easter weekend and there was great flavor with no carbonation. no head at all. little bubbles formed in the glass, but that was all.
now, i read about one week ago that you shouldn't aerate the wort prior to bottling. well, we did. so if this is the cause...will it help to leave the beer in the bottle for a longer period of time? or is it hopeless? just wondering.

How much priming sugar did you add? Was it dumped into a bottling bucket and mixed with the beer, or did you add a set amount to each bottle individually.

Aerating your beer at bottling time won't supress carbonation. But it will lead to off flavours (cardboard like) in your beer.

Assuming you added enough priming sugar (1/2 - 3/4 cup per batch is typical), I suspect your beer were stored too cold. Keep the beer at fermenting temperature for the first week or two in the bottle. If you didn't do this, gently roll your bottles down the length of your kitchen table to agitate and resuspend your yeast. Then move the bottles to a warmer spot and start over. That usually works.

 

[razyrsharpe]

thanks for the advice. the beer recipe came in a kit with the priming sugar. we made a starter for it prior to mixing it with the wort, as the directions told us to do. storage was @ room temp. appx. 68 - 72 degrees ( i really don't know where he keeps his thermostat set). i will advise him to agitate his bottles, which i think was reccommended in one of the above posts.
the reason i was asking about the effects of aeration on the wort prior to bottling was that i read, on this forum, that doing so might prevent proper conditioning. when i read that, i said to myself, "self, that is exactly what we did!"
when we opened a couple of bottles, we got no carbonation, which is what i was fearing. i will pass along the advice of you gurus to agitate the brew and try to store at somewhat higher temps. any other things you might think of will truly be appreciated. thanks again.

 

[the_bird]

You have to give it more than two weeks. The last time I bottled, I did two batches at the same time. The first carbed up great after two weeks, the second, bupkis. After three weeks, the second batch still had virtually nothing for carbonation. After FOUR weeks, it was perfect.

Don't ask me what was different; if anything, I would have expected it to have carbed a little quicker, since I used a little more priming sugar (it was a pale ale I wanted a little more bubbly). Temps were identical. I might have had a bit more yeast drop out, I don't know. In any case, don't worry one bit after two weeks, and really, I wouldn't worry until you get closer to a month.

 

[FlyGuy]

Just agitate and give them some more time. 68 - 72 F sounds like a perfect temperature, so don't warm them more than that. Like Bird says above, sometimes it takes more than two weeks, especially if a lot of your yeast fell out in the fermenter.