No carbonation in my California Common

[joejoe]

I brewed a batch of California Common Lager a month ago and just cracked open my first bottle to give it a taste test. No carbonation!
Course of events:
1. Primary for 6 days with very active fermentation. OG 1.048
2. Secondary for 14 days. FG 1.010. Tasted like beer.
3. Bottled with corn sugar disolved into the bottling bucket.
4. In the bottle for 7 days with each bottle showing a little bit of sediment in the bottom.

Why is there no carbonation?
This is my 5th batch of home brew and the other 4 came out perfect and all had adequate carbonation after one week in the bottles and all got much better with time. If I leave this batch in the bottles longer will they begin to carbonate?
If they don't I'll have to dump the batch.
What did I do wrong?
Has this ever happened to anyone?
Help! I don't want to repeat this bad situation.
I will shed a tear for every bottle I see go down the drain....
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[Tweek]

What temperature have you been storing your bottles at? If they are too cold/hot the yeast can go dormant or even die. For about 2 weeks your bottles need to be kept at around ferment temperatures so the yeast can continue to do its work. If you ahve been storing them in a cold environment bring them back into ferment temperatures give them a gentle shake to get the yeast back into suspension and let them sit a while longer.

Another thing that is a possibility is that you may have some bottle variation. Maning that your priming sugar did not mix well into your beer leaving some bottles highly carbonated and some flat. You might want to sample a couple randomly to see if this is the case.

Another thing I can think of as well is that your caps may have a slow leak. A month time is long enough that if the leak was slow you might not notice it. I have never seen this before but that doesnt mean it is not possible.

There are probabaly a few things I am missing but that is all I can think of now.

[YamahaXS]

my guess is that your bottles were stored at a temperature that the yeast did not like.

move bottles and wait for 7 days, test again.

[joejoe]

The bottles are stored at the same temp as the primary and secondary ferment temp, around 66 degrees.
I'll move them to a little warmer area and see what happens. granted, it has only been a week so I am a bit early to test. Luckily there is some sediment in the bottom of the bottles so I assume that there is some yeast there. I have 3 other batches in bottles so I'll just get into them and let this CC sit for at least a few weeks.
Thanks for the good advice.

By the way, what is the best way to ensure that the priming sugar is mixed well into the batch before bottling? Stirring I suppose, but aeration is a big concern. Has anyone use priming tabs instead? This sounds like a sure fire way to make sure that each bottle has enough sugar.
________
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[Tweek]

Hehe I misread your first post. I thought you meant that you bottled a month ago. if you only bottled a week ago and your temp is at 66 then it is reasonable that you would not have much by the way of carbonation yet. 66 is low for ale yeast and the ferment works real slow at that temp. The best thing to do would be to move them to some where warmer and wait another week or two.

[YamahaXS]

I have observed too, that just a day or two can make the difference between a 'flat' beer and a 'good beer'. Sounds like you might of jumped the gun a little bit...

cheers and beers!
:D

[paul84043]

I would try to store them in a place that's actually a few degrees warmer than your ferment temp, say 72 to 75 for the carbonation period. 66 is getting to the lower end that's for sure.