Second time with carbonation issues

[mainbutter]

I fermented a cider on top of my IPA's yeast cake and bottled after three weeks. I siphoned the 1 gallon of cider on top of a simple syrup made with 1oz of corn sugar before bottling to ensure an even sugar distribution. Three weeks after bottling, pretty flat.

Bourbon barrel porter kit from Northern brewer was bottled with the sugar drops that come with the kit after 24 days in the fermenter. 20 days after bottling, also flat.

These are my most recently bottled batches. The four previous batches were all carbed up within two weeks after bottling, and temperatures where I store my bottles has maybe gotten warmer by a couple degrees.

My plan is to be very patient and give 'em another 3 weeks before cracking open another, but what if one or both batches still isn't carved?

Is there any reason to think that the beer going from fermenter to bottle after 3 weeks might not have viable yeast for carbonation? I'm kind of at a loss and hoping patience pays off.

 

[rawlus]

What temp are the capped bottles sitting at? How did you determine how much corn sugar to use? Did you use 1 fluid oz. or 1 oz. (i.e. How did you measure) and what was the fermentation temperature? And what was the yeast?

 

[Jtk78]

In addition to the questionside above, are the bottles carbed consistent, or are some flat and some carbed? What kind of capper are you using?

 

[mainbutter]

Fermenting at 65-68f, but now room temps are between 67 and 70.. A little chilly, but I had better results when it was colder a few months ago.

I am measuring sugar by weight. The porter used the premeasured sugar drops that came with a kit - also had good results after 3 weeks in the bottle.

I am using a cheapy red capper, but I don't think that is the issue, my porter was flat and very sweet, as if none of the added sugar had been converted. I also "tested" the capper by capping an empty bottle, holding it underwater at various angles looking for leaks.

US-05 for the cider

US-04 for the porter

Both yeasts did great for me in batches from Dec-Jan.

So far I have only opened two ciders and one porter, all flat as flat could be.

Temps here in DC are warming and really all I can do is hope that kicks fermentation into gear and that time will fix all things.

 

[mainbutter]

update:

4 days later and the next cider was perfectly carbonated.

The only things that changed were a slightly warmer temperature, tilting the bottles twice to disturb any sediment, and a short bit of time.

Either I had unevenly primed bottles, or the yeast just wasn't done yet.

I guess right now my question is - if I'm making a simple syrup as my primer, and siphoning a fermented brew on top of it, my method is to point the end of the siphon so that I get a "whirlpool" effect in my bottling bucket. I assumed this would pretty evenly distribute the added priming sugar. Are there any potential mistakes I'm making that would result in unevenly distributed priming sugar? I don't want to stir the whole batch before bottling and risk oxygenating much and creating a stale product but I don't know what other options I might have to mitigate uneven priming.

I have not opened another porter yet - Any suggestions on how I might be able to "guess" if a bottled beer is carbonated?

 

[javert]

I blame my previous irrelgularly carbonated bottles to that cheap red capper. If the lip of the bottle isn't wide enough, it won't come down enough to properly bend the teeth downward. Those bottle may appear to be closed since they don't leak but ANY contact with something can loosen them and then they leak gas. It is possible to actually use your fingers to try to open them and a hissing can be heard. When cooling them resting on the side they may leak some drops once they are carbonated.

I recommend you to look to the lip's width and whether the crown cap's teeth are pointing vertically downwards or they are diagonally oriented.