First batch mishaps

After evaluating my first beer, I am very happy with my stout. However, I did experience some issues after bottling.

1) when pouring my beers out of bottle, it aerates TOOO much! Even with the slowest pouring method, it all turns to foam and I have to let it sit.

is this from too much priming sugar or inaccurate headspace amounts?

2) One bottle exploded during labeling. I wasn't at home when it happened. I don't know how it happened

They are BOTH due to over-priming it sounds like!

btw - who was labeling your beers when you weren't home?!?!?

Griz is most likely right. It could also be that you bottled too early so the beer was still fermenting while also carbonating. How long was the beer in the primary and/or secondary?

"2) One bottle exploded during labeling. I wasn't at home when it happened. I don't know how it happened "
Damn, do you have hired help that does your labeling?

haha no no. I did the labeling, but the bottle blew up a few hours after as it was sitting in the box. I used the dosage from John Palmer's book. It was fermenting for 2 weeks. I was going to let it go longer, but my airlock showed no signs of further fermenting. Next time I'll just let it go for 4 weeks or something

I'd recommend getting a hydrometer to be sure that fermentation is done. As I'm sure a lot of others on HBT are going to tell you, it's the only way to be sure that it's bottling time.

archiefl98 said:

I'd recommend getting a hydrometer to be sure that fermentation is done. As I'm sure a lot of others on HBT are going to tell you, it's the only way to be sure that it's bottling time.

Click to expand...

+1 on the hydrometer

+1 on the hydrometer

mendozer said:

I used the dosage from John Palmer's book.

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I have a feeling you're referring to chapter one where he says to use 2/3 cup of table sugar, and not chapter 11 where he shows the nomograph. 2/3 of a cup of table sugar is a very rough average, and is often not the correct amount for a given beer. Stouts typically have low carbonation levels, and depending on the temp of the beer before bottling, it may have had quite a bit of co2 already in solution. Here's a free calculator to figure out carbonation a little more precisely for next time-
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/brew/widgets/bp.html

I also always recommend measuring in weight and not volume. Two different 3/4 C's may look the same, but weigh different. If using DME, they could have different GU's.

+1 to the hydrometer. Stouts can take a long time to finish fermenting, so its very likely it wasn't done fermenting when you bottled.

here is what I think....+1 on the hydrometer, also gotta agree on the bottling sugar measured by weight, not volume

If the rest of these are not in the fridge I would put them all in there in an attempt to calm the yeast down. If you had one bomb, you could have another.

i see. well i have a hydrometer, but i didn't measure gravity, only %. Don't worry..before you all lecture me, i learned that gravity is better and will measure that next time. I used Palmer's more accurate measure, but then again it is still rough.

Thanks for that website, that widget looks great.

I'l go by weight for next brew, a belgian wit