Would un-fermented carbonation tablets make sweet beer?

[Grampa_stu]

I’ve had two batches that bottle conditioned with tablets and they both turned out super sweet with essentially zero carbonation. My hypothesis is that the tablets dissolved but didn’t get eaten for some reason. I let both batches sit in primary for quite a while and I’m wondering if there was just no yeast left to eat the tablets. Does this seem reasonable?

 

[doug293cz]

Agree, the sugar carbonation drops did not ferment, so no additional CO2 was created in the bottle. Just leaving something in primary for a long time shouldn't drop out enough yeast prevent carbonation from occurring.

How long did you bottle condition for, and at what temperature? (A required question in all threads about lack of carbonation in bottles.)

Brew on

 

[Grampa_stu]

I guess they weren’t even fermenting that long. The latest batch was 16 days in primary and 16 days in the bottles. Both stages were in the basement at a pretty constant 70-ish. The primary had great action at first and slowed down and bubbled along nicely as expected for a few more days. At about 14 days I put it in the fridge and dropped it to about 40 before packaging.

If anything I thing I think the learning to just use the remaining tablets to sweeten my coffee and go back to table sugar...

 

[doug293cz]

Give the bottles a few more weeks at room temp before giving up on them. Sometimes carbonation can take much longer than expected or normal.

Brew on

 

[william_shakes_beer]

is the beer adequately carbed? what was your calculated alcohol content?