Second Batch Blues - Over Carb

Opened up my first bottle of my second all-grain batch, and as I popped off the cap the beer shot straight out of the Bottle !! LoL, it scared the crap out of me.

After whipping down the counter, I grabbed a 2nd bottle and eased off the cap this time and poured a BiG Glass of hoppy head, 3rd bottle eased off the cap, and slowly poured out a nice looking Brew !!! Drinking that brew I noticed that the Head was almost like a ice cream float. Beer was nice, just cloudy and the head just all floated on top of the glass

Beer fermented out after 2wks, moved over to a 2nd Ferm, and bottled the next week. Primed in the bottles for 14days and put in my supper cold beer fridge for a wk or so.

Have to say, you guys make this sound and look real easy ! BUT I am hooked, and my little IPA tasted great

What did I do wrong ? Did I over carbonate the Beer ?? Does the beer need to age longer at room temp and cold age longer as well ??

Looks good, tastes good, that's the main thing in life. But like my IPA its on the dark side. Not the evil Dark Side as in Star Wars. LOL

I am Shocked it tasted as good as it did !! I think I just messed up the amount of priming sugar I must have used, and or it needed to prime/cold age longer ???? You guys tell me, this is my 2nd batch ever

I guess the first question would be how much sugar did you use to carb? How did you add it to your bottling bucket and did you stir?

Yes... What was the batch size and how much priming sugar did you use and what kind of sugar? What was the c02 volume you were going for?

lgilmore said:

I guess the first question would be how much sugar did you use to carb? How did you add it to your bottling bucket and did you stir?

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bobeer said:

Yes... What was the batch size and how much priming sugar did you use and what kind of sugar? What was the c02 volume you were going for?

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I had 4.5 gallons of beer and used just under 5oz of Dextrous. I made up the priming sugar, cooled and added on top of my brew in my bottling bucket.
Did not stir. Bottled the beer, and it sat at room temp for 18days and put into my fridge.

Did not realize I need to shoot for a certain Co2 volume (not sure how to do that) ?? I thought it was a general 1oz sugar per 1gallon

I would recommend next time, to place the diluted priming sugar in the bottom of the racking bucket, then siphon the beer onto it using a whirlpool effect.

redrider736 said:

I had 4.5 gallons of beer and used just under 5oz of Dextrous. I made up the priming sugar, cooled and added on top of my brew in my bottling bucket.
Did not stir. Bottled the beer, and it sat at room temp for 18days and put into my fridge.

Did not realize I need to shoot for a certain Co2 volume (not sure how to do that) ?? I thought it was a general 1oz sugar per 1gallon

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Yeah, the typical method is to rack to a bottling bucket that contains the sugar slurry, thus thoroughly mixing the two different liquids. If you do add the sugar to the primary, it's recommended to stir to evenly distribute the sugar.

Based on what you've told us, I wouldn't be surprised if you find some flat bottles.

There are priming sugar calculators you can use online. You for sure want to put it into the bottom of the bucket so as you rack it dilutes evenly. You may get some bottles that don't have that much carbonation. Did you boil the sugar in water for 10min before adding it in? If not you might have an infection of wild yeast which is why it's so carbed... if your caps start to crown then you should start to worry...

Here's just one of the priming sugar calc sites. Keep in mind, you need to enter in the information in order to get the correct amount of sugar to use.

I would advise using the tool to determine the correct amount of sugar to use. I would also aim for the middle of the style range (carbonation amount/level) so that you don't go too far under/over if you mess up.

BTW, IMO/IME, the 5oz of sugar included with kits is too much. Using the entire thing can, very often, result in serious over carbonation. IF you use one of the calculators, you'll see how it can be too much. Especially since they include the same 5oz for ALL kits. A stout gets less carbonation than a Belgian. The kits would have you believe that they all can use the same amount of sugar AND be properly carbonated.

Also make sure that you reach final gravity before bottling. ie the same reading 3 days apart

You can fix the over carbonated bottles by opening them up, covering them with a square of sanitized aluminum foil, and letting them sit out for a while - a few minutes to an hour or so, depending on how over-carbonated they are. Recap them with sanitized caps.

Hopper5000 said:

There are priming sugar calculators you can use online. You for sure want to put it into the bottom of the bucket so as you rack it dilutes evenly. Did you boil the sugar in water for 10min before adding it in? If not you might have an infection of wild yeast which is why it's so carbed... if your caps start to crown then you should start to worry...

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boiled the sugar for 10min, but added it onto of the beer. Noticed the caps are 'crowning'

CaptnCully said:

Also make sure that you reach final gravity before bottling. ie the same reading 3 days apart

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Being my 2nd batch, I may have racked it over to the Secondary premature.

J187 said:

You can fix the over carbonated bottles by opening them up, covering them with a square of sanitized aluminum foil, and letting them sit out for a while - a few minutes to an hour or so, depending on how over-carbonated they are. Recap them with sanitized caps.

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Did not know I could do that.


ThX all, I have clearly made a few newbie errors in the the whole process. Even with a few mistakes, my beer is very drinkable, just need to be careful when opening !!

Golddiggie said:

Here's just one of the priming sugar calc sites. Keep in mind, you need to enter in the information in order to get the correct amount of sugar to use.

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Goldiggie or anyone that can help , Have a question about the Carbonation Calc you linked up.
What do I enter in as the "Enter the desired volumes of CO2" ??

ThX All !!

redrider736 said:

Goldiggie or anyone that can help , Have a question about the Carbonation Calc you linked up.
What do I enter in as the "Enter the desired volumes of CO2" ??

ThX All !!

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You check what the brew style range is. I would normally figure hitting around the middle of the style. While many styles overlap in the range, they can also be vastly different.

They provide a good amount of style ranges in the pull-down menu next to (of all things) "Styles"... :cross:

Two Problems I see:

1) if you only had 4.5 g of beer you added too much sugar if you added the whole 5 oz. Use a calculator.

2) seems like the method you used to add the sugar was a little off. get some boiling water and add the dextrose to make simple syrup. No need to boil for ten minutes unless your water is bad. Simply boil and stir, then cool to room temp. Pour the syrup into your bottle bucket and syphon beer into the bucket. Then stir every ten bottles or so, being careful not to splash.

I say all this because my first IPA was way way way overcarbonated. I still have a few left and its because I hate opening them and waiting a hour for the head to drop. Still, it was a great beer.

bacchusmj said:

Two Problems I see:

1) if you only had 4.5 g of beer you added too much sugar if you added the whole 5 oz. Use a calculator.

2) seems like the method you used to add the sugar was a little off. get some boiling water and add the dextrose to make simple syrup. No need to boil for ten minutes unless your water is bad. Simply boil and stir, then cool to room temp. Pour the syrup into your bottle bucket and syphon beer into the bucket. Then stir every ten bottles or so, being careful not to splash.

I say all this because my first IPA was way way way overcarbonated. I still have a few left and its because I hate opening them and waiting a hour for the head to drop. Still, it was a great beer.

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Thanks !!

I added to much, and did not mix it seems.

bacchusmj said:

Two Problems I see:

1) if you only had 4.5 g of beer you added too much sugar if you added the whole 5 oz. Use a calculator.

Click to expand...

Even for 4.5 gallons the sugar he added would only produce ~3 volumes of CO2. That's well-carbonated but not enough to make the beer go shooting out of the bottle.

He either didn't mix his priming sugar well enough into or he bottled before the yeast was done fermenting. Infections can sometimes cause this behavior as well.

I used this andriod calculator for my carbonation. For IPA's I usually shoot for 2.2-2.3 of c02 volume. The app has a drop-down list of different styles and the corresponding c02 level range. I usually go for the high middle of the range and I've never had an issue. Good luck!

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/lifestyle/home-brew-calculators_bokm.html

If your caps are crowning be super careful because you could have bottle bombs! If you can I would put as many or all of them in the refrigerator to make the beer absorb the C02 and make the yeast as inactive as possible.

I appreciate all the advice and help !! The things I love the best about this Hobbie or Illness is the DIY factor and the comuinity of Home Brewers that are willing to help out the Newbies and answer all the GreeN Horn questions !! ThX Guys !!

It's all about the beer hoss... Getting better beer means you'll brew more/longer and then strive to improve the beer even more. It's not difficult, IMO, to get great beer. Provided you're willing to do what it takes to get there.

If your caps are crowning chill em fast and start the great part of brewing.... DRINK EM... I would not sit on this batch.. Which is what i usually would recommend.. I dont think the problem was racking to secondary to soon so much as bottling them b4 they were really done. Use that hydrometer and let it tell you when your beer is done instead of the calendar.. Remember that its hard to let your beer ferment to long if you secondary and get it off of the yeast cake. Learning to wait on your beer is one of the hardest things to do when you first start out with this addiction.