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**MrMeans** · 02-10-2013, 01:07 AM

SO I have been fighting off this problem for some time and something tells me that its not how things are supposed to work. My bottles beers keep building pressure. The first 3-8 weeks the beers are fine in the bottle over time they keep building pressure. I just opened some beers I forgot about that were 6 months old and they might as well have been champagne. It was carbonated to the point of being undrinkable.

Here is my process post boil/chill:
Primary for 2-4 weeks. If I need to clear the beer with a secondary its generally a 10 14 day primary with at least a 2 if not 3 week secondary.
My beers ferment in a temperature controlled fermentation chamber that I keep at 65 degrees.
When I bottle my bottles are scrubbed with a bottle brush and star-san. I then run them through the dishwasher and instead of soap I use a powdered no rinse food grade sanitizer. The LD Carlson stuff.
As soon as the dishwasher is done doing its thing I immediately begin bottling.
I have a spreadsheet the i sue to calculate the amount of priming sugar to use. When all is said and done I generally end up using about 3.5-4.5 ounces of priming sugar.
I bring 2 cups of distilled water to a boil as soon as it hits a boil I turn off the heat and add in the sugar and stir. I allow this to cool in a covered vessel that has been sanitized.
I add half of the priming solution to my bottling bucket then transfer the wort on top of it. When the bucket is roughly halfway full I add in the rest of the priming sugar. To aide in mixing I leave my transfer tubing around the edge of the bottling bucket during the transfer so the wort has a very gentle whirlpool to aide in mixing.
all tubing, caps, bottling wand, etc are soaked in sanitizer prior to use and I keep my caps soaking until they are crimped onto the bottle. I use this open bowl of sanitizer to keep my hands clean too during the process.
Bottles are stored in a closet, away from light and for the first two or three weeks if I don't have another beer going I keep them in the ferm chamber at 70.
The foaming happens no matter how long the bottles have been in the fridge. Two days two weeks or two months makes no difference

What the flip am I missing here or doing wrong?

Dynachrome · 02-10-2013, 01:10 AM

Do you get any sour or grapefruit taste?

What yeasts have you used?

Are you doing wheat beers?

Sorry for all the questions.

**MrMeans** · 02-10-2013, 01:17 AM

I get a carbonation bite from them but if I let them mellow that dies down some. I generally use WLP001 for most of my beers or WYEAST English Ale. None of them are wheats. My beers are pretty boring run of the mill APA's Brown Ales, and Stouts.

The only thing I can come up with is there might be some nastiest hanging out somewhere but there is no evidence other than obnoxiously over carbed beer after a few weeks.

**PackerfaninSanDiego** · 02-10-2013, 01:22 AM

I'm on the other side,last two batches have hardly any carbonation

**MrMeans** · 02-10-2013, 03:45 AM

I jsut came across some beer that its the first time the bottles were used, there is one chilling out in the fridge. I figure it can tell me if its my bottles putting nasties into my beer.

lgilmore · 02-10-2013, 04:40 AM

Do you use a bottle jet washer for the inside of the bottles? I wonder with some of the brushes if you scrub out a bad bottle, and go to the next, are you adding stuff to the next bottle?

I use the dishwasher, but nothing, no chemicals of any kind. Make sure you don't have a rising agent (jet dry) in your dishwasher as it messes things up too.

Could be something else, but you seem to be following a good pattern.

**whoaru99** · 02-10-2013, 05:04 AM

Do you completely disassemble the bottling bucket spout for cleaning?

**MrMeans** · 02-10-2013, 06:44 AM

I disassemble it completely and give it a good soaking in star say with everything else, reassemble it put it ont he bucket and then sanitize my bucket and drain the sanizier through the spout, through my line and bottling wand into a growler that I keep the wand in when its not in use. The more and more I think about this I am starting to wonder if somehow I am not getting something out of the bottles.

The only other thing that pops into my head is I have been trouble with my mash temps and keeping them up. The only other thing that comes to mind is that from my mash temps dropping that more complex sugars are extracted from the beer causing it to continue to ferment very slowly. I feel like I am reaching with this one.

Dynachrome · 02-10-2013, 04:18 PM

Bugs should give you off flavors. I don't think you have that going on.

Are you bottling at 65 degrees? You might consider adjusting your Specific gravity for your temperature. That is just ever so-slightly on the cool side. Your SG may actually be a tidge - wait no - getting warmer would lower that... Cooler temp might let some CO@ expand out at warmer temps, but then again you are chilling it in the fridge before drinking...

Is it every bottle? I had someone suggest to me a long time back - give the beer in the bottling bucket a swirl about three times during bottling to keep the priming sugar well mixed. I have arguments for/against that warring in my head.

**chickypad** · 02-10-2013, 05:00 PM

Don't know if this has anything to do with your issue, but are you using star san like a cleaning agent? I would soak your bottles and spout in hot PBW to clean, then just sanitize everything with star san at bottling time - making sure there is at least a minute of contact time and the bottles are still wet when bottling. I wouldn't expect the sanitizer in a dishwasher to get up inside the bottles well. I think you need a sanitize setting to use the dishwasher to sanitize with heat.