Question about priming before bottling

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brewd00d

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This is only to satisfy my curiosity, but how much "extra" sugar would one need to add to have exploding bottles?

Also, adding extra sugar besides the proper amount, that would only increase the final carbonation correct? It wouldn't increase the ABV anymore than usual would it?

I know some of you are thinking Halloween is coming up, and dont worry im not going to throw a **** load of sugar into a bottle and give it to someone as a trick :ban:
 
use 5 ounces for 5 gallons. that'll do ya. anything beyond is extra. beyond makes it foam over when opened, or blow up. if you want to increase the abv, do it before bottling. yes, after bottling it would increase abv, and that is what causes BOOM
 
lol. roger that.

i've had some beer in bottles for about 1 week now. is it normal not to see anything happening? looks perfectly clear and no bubbles (unless i jiggle it a tad). I just wanna make sure its being carbonated, even though there's no action happening.
 
While the beer is in bottles conditioning you will not see anything, It is fine.

If you are really impatient and want to waste what good be much better at a later date then open one, or wait for 2 more weeks and enjoy.
 
use 5 ounces for 5 gallons. that'll do ya. anything beyond is extra. beyond makes it foam over when opened, or blow up. if you want to increase the abv, do it before bottling. yes, after bottling it would increase abv, and that is what causes BOOM

No no no....that's not true. And bad information to boot.

Many Styles are carbed higher than the standard 4.5- 5 ounces of sugar/2.-2.5 volumes of co2 that comes with basic kits, and often that is more sugar than that. Think of belgian beers for instance, or some pilsners, or Autralian sparkling ales. They are all carbed higher than most basic beers, and except for beligians are often bottled in normal bottles and they don't gush or explode.

You can just look at beersmith and see the different amounts of sugar needed to carb by style.

For example the style volume of co2 range for an Australian Ale is 2-2.8 volumes of Co2, and if the beer is @ 70 degrees at bottling time, then you would need, 6.12 ounces of sugar if you wanted to carb at the highest volume for that style. and the beer would surely not gush or go boom if that were the case.

Putting extra sugar in is NOT going to automaticlly make your beer gush, or the bottle go boom....

That 4.5 - 5 ounces really just tends to be the baseline for most gravity/ styles of beer, (when bottled at 70 degrees) but there are plenty of styles that use less or more sugar to be less or more carbed than that.

Here's the volumes of co2 for most beer styles...you can see how high Belgians and German weizens can be carbed.

Style & Volumes of CO2
American ales 2.2–3.0
British ales 1.5–2.2
German weizens 2.8–5.1
Belgian ales 2.0–4.5
European Lagers 2.4–2.6
American Lagers 2.5–2.8

This from BYO should give you an idea;

Three-Quarters of a Cup?

You may be wondering — do I need to bother with all of this? Can’t I just keep adding 0.75 cups of corn sugar? The answer, of course, is up to you, but here are some facts.

Three quarters of a cup of corn sugar (glucose monohydrate), which weighs around 4.5 oz. (128 g), added to an ale fermented at 70 °F (21 °C) would yield about 2.5 volumes of CO2. However, if you add the same amount to a beer that was fermented and primed at 50 °F (10 °C), you get about 2.9 volumes of CO2. Using the equations

And I can't recall, its been a number of years, but a basic 12 ounce beer bottle, or as it is called the Longneck Industry Standard Bottle (ISB) can actually hold around 4 volumes of co2 without breaking. I can't find the numbers, but it IS greater than the normal 2-2.5 volumes of co2, it may even be 5 volumes. for safety reasons it would have to be much greater than the normal volume of co2 a beer is primed at. They are going to vary obviously in wall thickness. But NORMALLY they won't burst, unless as mentioned repeatedly you waaaay over prime, waaaay over heat, or have an infection.

What happens in a bottle infection is that the wild yeast usually can eat more of the nonfermentable sugars than normal yeast can, so they begin eating away at the beer (making it thin and cidery often) and most importanly begin generating more and more co2, until it exceed the capacity of the bottle (which is quite high) until it either finds a flaw in the bottle or the bottle can simply no longer contain the cos THEN boom.

But not under normal circumstances.....

And as to the idea that the ABV of the beer rises significantly because of bottle priming, I don't consider .005% to be considerable do you? That's about how much the abv increases with the miniscule amound of 5 ounces of sugar you add to the 5 gallon batch or beer.
 
lol. roger that.

i've had some beer in bottles for about 1 week now. is it normal not to see anything happening? looks perfectly clear and no bubbles (unless i jiggle it a tad). I just wanna make sure its being carbonated, even though there's no action happening.

Just have faith, and patience....if you've added your sugar, and the beer is above 70 degress...in three or more weeks you will have carbonation. It really is foolproof....

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience." ;)

Read the above blog, and come back to the beer in a couple more weeks.

:mug:
 
Revvy,

Really helpful post, as always. Thanks.

I posted yesterday about a mix-up where I put in 5oz of priming sugar (packet from a kit) into a 4 gallon batch. Someone plugged it into Beersmith (final gravity of ~1.017, style is German Alt) and said the volume was around 3.2 and suggested that this number is pretty high. The implication being that they could explode.

Looking at the numbers you provide, 3.2 doesn't look so bad at all (in terms of risk of bombs). Am I understanding this all correctly?

I'd just like to have a clue of whether or not I should be wearing a leather jacket and goggles when I go to open the first bottle in a couple weeks.
 
I wouldn't worry about them exploding, but I might be conserned that the beer may be too highly carbed for the style. If that is the case you may need to open and recap them once they are carbed up. But also a week's chilling might also pull the excess co2 in. But either solution is down the line.
 
I wouldn't worry about them exploding, but I might be conserned that the beer may be too highly carbed for the style. If that is the case you may need to open and recap them once they are carbed up. But also a week's chilling might also pull the excess co2 in. But either solution is down the line.

Great! I can live with too-carbed beer, or can chill/recap, but to not have to worry as much about getting shanked in the eyeball is the main thing. :tank:
 
always something new to learn. i guess one can never know everything about brewing. its like the universe. just when u think we've learned all you can know, BOOM!! something else to take in.

nice to have a devoted group of people. thanks guys!
 
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