Unusual Carbonation!!!

I've submitted many questions about problems with the carbonation of my "Lite Ale".

Originally, I posted my concern about 4 oz. of corn sugar instead of the 5 oz. I've been used to. I let the beer condition in the bottles for 3 weeks and upon opening them found near flat beer.

I moved the bottles to a warmer location and agitated to stir up the yeast and waited two more weeks.

Last weekend I chilled a 6 pack. 2 were near flat, 2 were great and the last 2 were over carbonated to the point that upon pouring into my glass it was totally foam!

When I added the corn sugar to the bottling bucket, I racked my 2ndry over the liquid and didn't stir.

Anybody have any idea?

your bottles will have varying amounts of sugar in them if you did not stir. You could have bottle bomb potential.

..maybe (and I am not sure about this) : empty all back into bucket and rebottle?

When I bottle, I dissolve the priming sugar into 2 cups of boiling water and boil until dissolved. I throw the solution into my bottling bucket and let cool. Then, when I rack, I put the tubing under the top of the solution and let it swirl to mix. I don't ever stir, but let it swirl without splashing. It mixes fine.

If you have some that are not carbed, some good, some over-carb, it does say that it didn't mix well. I'd say this time you just have to suck it up and drink it that way (and pretty quickly!) I would NOT dump and rebottle. You'll oxygenate all of it, and I'm not sure at this point you would be any better off. Refrigerate all of them, realizing that some will be flat. But the rest will be good!

I would recommend getting them all on the fridge if it didnt mix properly, you could have some bombs on your hands, be carful handling them.

I also just let some excess tube go around the bottom of my bottling bucket and let it swirl itself as it siphons in, works pretty good.

Good luck

Same here as the rest. I boil the priming sugar or the DME or honey or whatever I am going to try to use as the primer and make sure that it is all dissolved. I then pour that into the bottling bucket. I use an auto siphon (one of the best inventions in the world) and drop one end into the priming bucket. It curls around a bit on the bottom and the other end goes into the fermented flat beer and I start to siphon. The swirling action of the beer being transferred seems to mix itself just fine and I siphon out about 4.8 gallons of beer, leaving the trub behind. I don't usually take a long handled sanitized spoon and mix although I have done so. I then use the bottling bucket spigot, bottle filler, and bottle. That seems to eliminate any problems in priming. I have had "flatter" beers before because of lack of yeast or not enough priming sugar, etc., but I haven't had disproportionate amounts in varying beers within the same batch. My advice is make sure that you boil your primer and mix well without aerating.

Same here: dissolve the sugar in boiling water first, cool it, then put it in the bottom of the bucket as you start to siphon in the beer, and let the swirling action mix it up. The only time I've stirred is when I added an extract flavoring near the end of a bottling session when I wanted to experiment with part of a batch. But it's gotta be dissolved sugarwater.

Or if you're like me, just slowly pour the boiled and cooled solution into whatever you are siphoning from (primary or secondary)as you swirl gently (no splashing) with the sanitized racking cane for about 30 seconds or so and let it settle for about 10-15 minutes.