ninjai

Recipes 

I just made my first fruit beer, (it was a recipe from here) a Strawberry Wheat Ale. It called for 8lbs of frozen dole strawberries but I used 8lbs of real ones.

Anyways, last night was day 5 of being in bottles and the carbonation is strong. I'm using grolsch bottles and I heard it's possible my bottles will explode or something.

Should I be worried?

rod

Recipes 

was your specific gravity stable for 3 days before you bottled?
did you use the correct amount of priming sugar for the volume of beer?
i have had bottles carb in 5-7 days when i added extra yeast at bottling.

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ninjai

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I'm still fairly new to the brewing scene, I've only made 4 or 5 batches before. If by gravity you are talking about the hydrometer... then it was 6.1% before I added the sugar at bottling. I used 1 cup of sugar. It was a normal bucket size (5 gallons?). I assume I shouldn't have added as much since the strawberries have a lot of sugar..?

ksbrain

Recipes 

You let the strawberries ferment out before you bottled, right?

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Revvy

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You're reading a scale on the hydrometer that we don't use in brewing. The scale you need to read is specific gravity, and it is given in numbers like this.



I think what you read was the "potential alcohol scale" which isn't used in beer brewing, and wouldn't give you any information as to if the beer was finished brewing yet.

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ninjai

Recipes 

Oh no . Well I have the gravity on the same scale... but I don't have the scale here with me. 6.1% is what it was at. Anyone know what that would make the gravity? (since all that's needed is to rotate it and check)

Yes the strawberries were stuck in secondary for 6 days as the recipe called for.

SweetSounds

Recipes 

The real question is, how long was it at "6.1%"?
Gravity readings must be repeated over several days to determine if fermentation is complete.

In other words, If you check the gravity on Monday and it's 6.3, and on Wednesday it's 6.2, and on Friday it's 6.1, you know that fermentation is not complete yet. If you check it on Monday, and on Friday it's reading the same, then you can assume that fermentation is complete, and proceed to bottling.

If your beer wasn't done fermenting, and you added priming sugar, you may be looking at bottle bombs.

It may be best to place your bottles in a rubbermaid tub with the lid on, just in case. (To contain the shrapnel )

And from now on, read your hydrometer on the SG scale, where 1.000 = water (0% sugar)

ninjai

Recipes 

Thanks sweetsounds. In primary it was at around 7.2 or 7.6 (can't quite remember). Bottling was 6.1. I really hope I'm not looking at that. I just bought all grolch bottles!!!

edit:

sorry the hydrometer read around 1.2 or something and the subtraction equaled out to 6.1%. So I think it was around 1.015 in the end...

SweetSounds

Recipes 

Depending on your recipe, yeast, and OG, 1.015 is pretty low - So you might be OK.