Ongoing bottling issue.

I've been bottling for some time, and have an ongoing issue. When I bottle my brews seem to meet a peak at about 3-6 weeks. After that my beer seems to over carbonate and get super fizzy/chlorinated flavor. Suggestions (other than moving to kegging which I've done )?

Don't know what to say about the chlorine flavor. As for fizzy, it may be that you are not totally fermented out, and you you are therefore adding too much priming sugar. Or, it may be that you aren't correctly calculating the amount of co2 in the beer before priming (which is dependent upon the highest temperature reached in fermentation).

I usually use yeast starters and ferment in my basement @ about 60 degrees. I suppose since they are ales mostly they could sit a bit longer or bring them upstairs to ferment at a warmer temp? But when I carb I use the standard 3/4c priming sugar and pint of water per 5 gallons.

I am not sure how you are prepping your bottles?

I have been refining my techniques with yeast starters, stir plate
and yeast and priming calculators. Beers have been improving.

I always used 3/4c or 5 oz of priming sugar that came with my kits.
Not priming by style of beer.

Looking at Northern Brewers priming calculator a Stout only
requires 3.11 oz or.44 cup of corn sugar vs the 5oz I have been using.

So you may be over priming.

My basement is 62 degrees. Beers carb fine at that temperature.

What I found interesting was if you play with the temperature on the calculator the higher the temperature the more priming sugar.
Which was opposite of what I would have thought.

I usually just wash my bottles in the dish washer and then sanitize with a light bleach water mixture (about 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons of water) when I do my starters I just let them sit in a glass 1/2 gal handle for a day or two and give them a good swirling once or twice. The beers carb up fine but like I said, after about 2 months they taste fizzy and chlorinated.

If you rinse your bottles good after consuming the beer
they rarely need washing.

If you see anything in the bottle add about a 1/4 teaspoon of
oxy clean and a little water, let set over night. Shake then rinse.

On bottling day I fill my double bowl sink one side I add about
a 1/4 cup bleach, the other a cap full of iodophor.

Put about 6 bottles in the bleach for a couple minutes then empty
and transfer to the side with iodophor. Add bottles to the bleach
side then transfer the bottles from iodophor to the tines in an empty dishwasher.

When all done rinsing bottles, rack on your priming sugar in the bottling bucket and go.

You might also try using the priming calculator and backing off on you priming sugar a little.

jazzbass said:

I am not sure how you are prepping your bottles?

What I found interesting was if you play with the temperature on the calculator the higher the temperature the more priming sugar.
Which was opposite of what I would have thought.

Click to expand...

That's because the temperature in the calculator refers to the highest temperature reached in your beer's fermentation, not the temperature you intend to carb your bottle. Because there is already co2 in solution in your beer after fermentation, before you add sugar you need to adjust for that. And since the colder the solution, the better gas is absorbed, therefore, beer fermented cooler needs less sugar to get the same co2 into solution than a beer fermented warmer. If you are just using one amount for all your beer styles and fermentations, you're missing out on some flavor, IMHO.

I know there is a kegging co2 chart, but is there a bottling chart? How do I calculate the amount of sugar needed to bottle?
SO MANY QUESTIONS AAAHHHHH!!

Thanks for everyone participating tho!

Here you go.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/

I've been brewing for 3 years and have bottled every brew. I had the same problem for the first 10 or so beers, using the amount included in the kits. Once I switched to using the online calculator (I personally use http://tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html but they should all work for you) I started getting much better results! Good luck

I had a similar issue with cleaning. I moved to cleaning my bottles with unscented soap rinsing well them heat sanitizing them in the oven. I then wrap the bottle opening with foil and it keeps for a while. It has worked very well.

jmlivingston10 said:

I usually just wash my bottles in the dish washer and then sanitize with a light bleach water mixture (about 1/2 tsp per 5 gallons of water) when I do my starters I just let them sit in a glass 1/2 gal handle for a day or two and give them a good swirling once or twice. The beers carb up fine but like I said, after about 2 months they taste fizzy and chlorinated.

Click to expand...

Dishwashers do not do a great job with dirty bottles as the water does not get all the way into the bottle.

You're using a chlorine bleach mix to sanitize but just swirling some water around is not really ensuring you are getting it all out

I would change your process and soak in oxy to clean and thoroughly rinse and then use Star San to sanitize. I think if you try this method your problems will disappear.

This is the process I use, I only bottle and have never had a bottling issue over a few hundred gallons of beer.

In addition, while most kits include 5oz of priming sugar, I have found that for most beers it's still a little too much.

Is it still necessary to boil 2 cups of water and dissolve the priming sugar in that for 5 minutes and add that to the beer? Or do most of you just add the priming sugar to the beer, stir and bottle?

Yep and for 2 reasons. You want to sterilize the water/sugar mixture and I would bet it helps to mix into the beer better when it's dissolved

I would just add. When your water/priming sugar mix cools
to add to the bottom of your bottling bucket.

The swirling motion when you rack will help get the solution mixed into
the beer better.

Let us know how your next brew turns out.

I will for sure. I have an IPA right now in primary and moved it out of the basement. Temp in the bee went from 60F to 70F. Fermentation picked up when I moved it, so I suppose I'll try calculations for my next bottling and I'll post in here how it turns out in a month or so (beer is only a week old).

Just to update the brew turned out pretty good. It has been a couple weeks that I have been drinking on it and have yet to taste that odd flavor, I took a previous brew to my LHBS and they said it may be an infection. Anyway thanks for all the info!

I've been having a similar problem since switching to all grain. Beers all turned out great but after a month or two in the bottle they start to seem overcarbed (gushing when opening). None of them taste any different as far as I can tell so it seems like just a carbonation issue.

I've also been trying to carb to style using the online calculators so haven't been using the 5oz of dextrose that typically comes with extract kits... more like 3-4oz depending on style.

FG has always been stable before bottling but maybe I still just need to give them more time in primary?

Guys, if your beers carb fine, and are good for a few weeks, then they become gushers, then you have an infection.

Normally, once a beer reaches it's carb level, (which is when the yeast has eaten all the sugars you add at bottling time.) and is stabilized, it can't carb any further, UNLESS something is breaking down the unfermentable sugars, and eating them.

And that means a bug of some sort.

You need to look down the chain, like in your bottling process, for something you're missing in regards to sanitization.

Take a look for example at your spigot, hop matter an other gunk can often get lodged inside, and cause you problems. There's a pic of one broken apart to show the gunk lodged deep inside. But I can't find.

I've opened beers of mine that were carbed 5 years ago and they didn't gush. Unless there's a problem, in terms of carbonation, beers reach their level of co2, and stabilize, they don't then start gushing unless something's wrong.

Beer Fridge just quit. I hate washing bottles and trying to get carb right.