Carbonation - large bubbles

I've made 5 batches now (extract kits). The carbonation came out pretty nice on the first 2, but my last 3 seem over carbonated to me. Not only that, but the bubbles in the head seem larger than they do in commercial beers.

The recipes I've been using call for 1 cup of priming sugar... should I just knock that down to 3/4 for my next brew? Is there anything else that could cause over carbonation or larger bubbles?

It's really a factor of what grain proteins and other fermentables are in your beer, not just the amount of sugar that is going to determine the size of your bubbles.

Although the 4.5-5 ounces of corn sugar/3 weeks at 70 degrees tends to be the standard for most folks many of us carb to style, which means more or less sugar will produce more or less volumes of co2...And that along with certain proteins evident in certain styles of beer will run the gamut from slow and syrupy barleywines, light and refreshing pilsners and champagne like belgians.

Do some reading on head proteins, as well sa carbing to style and you'll get a handle on it.

That's why even you 1 cup of sugar (which sounds high to me to begin with, it's better to measure by weight then by volume) will have different effect on different beers.

+1 on what Revvy says.

Try this link from the Beer Recipator.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

There will also be slight deviations for temperature as well.
This page/link has treated me well in my 60+ extract batches.

Thanks guys, good info. Is there anything I could be doing that would make the individual carbonation bubbles larger than they should be?

MaxPower49 said:

Thanks guys, good info. Is there anything I could be doing that would make the individual carbonation bubbles larger than they should be?

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It's really NOT about the bubble size. If you've ever poured a Belgian, you will see lots of tightly packed small bubbles, and those are some of the most highly carbed beers there are.

Revvy said:

It's really NOT about the bubble size. If you've ever poured a Belgian, you will see lots of tightly packed small bubbles, and those are some of the most highly carbed beers there are.

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Yeah, I know... it doesn't seem to have an impact on the taste at all. You can just tell the bubbles are much larger in my homebrews than commercial beers. Not a big deal... just curious.

MaxPower49 said:

Yeah, I know... it doesn't seem to have an impact on the taste at all. You can just tell the bubbles are much larger in my homebrews than commercial beers. Not a big deal... just curious.

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I've been wondering that for a long time too. Larger bubbles don't look nice.