Under-carbed: Questions about possible causes

[ManiacalJ]

I brewed a milk stout a few weeks back, and bottled it 2.5 weeks ago.
I was out of corn sugar for priming, so I used DME, weighed according to http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/.
I cold crashed first, but it was in the fridge about a week before I got to bottling it.
Presently it is minimally carbonated. I noticed when I sampled it during bottling though, that there was basically no pre-existing carbonation. When I have bottled other beers that I have made, there hass already been some carbonation to it when coming out of the fridge.

I can think of a few possible causes for the low carbonation - possibly needing more time, or just less previously dissolved CO2 than the calculator assumes (I don't know if this would be due to the time it was in the fridge, the relatively thick style, or something else).

The question that comes out of all this - What can I do to ensure that I achieve the desired level of carbonation for a given beer?
Should I let it warm to room temp, and calculate from there?
Is there any way to account for pre-dissolved CO2 before calculating?

 

[kh54s10]

The temperature you input in the calculators it supposed to be the highest temperature reached during fermentation.

Heavy beers take longer. 2 1/2 weeks is a bit soon. I have had some that took longer than 3 weeks. I don't cold crash, so I don't have that experience, but it may have caused a drop in yeast in the beer. I would bet that it will just take longer.

I have never done any adjusting based on pre-dissolved co2.