to stir or not

the other day i bottled my fresh prince porter (Home Brew Exchange, Portland OR, recipe). i did not stir the sugar in just poured in a dissolved 3/4 cups of sugar in, in a circular motion. i bottled via auto-siphon.
mild foam. as i opened the foamy ones they erupted, or unleashed tremendous gas, some exploded before i could get to them. the head was thick and foamy but poured forth for about 30 secconds. i think siring the sugar would prevent this. what do you think?

I am currently brewing a English mild ( http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?group=7&item=6413 ) with soft ripe plum mash inside and want to avoid any more explosions.

also, how many rakings should i do for the beer? i know yeast is needed for carbonation but how much?

Read this entire chapter start to finish. Then read it again. http://howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11.html

1. Measuring sugar by weight is MUCH more accurate than by volume. 3/4 cup of sugar can be more or less than the last time you did it depending how how packed it ends up in the cup. 5 ounces is always 5 ounces. (or 4.5 or 4 or however much you choose to use on a batch)

2. If you add your sugar water to the bottling bucket first and then rack your beer onto it, it'll mix itself in well because the beer will swirl as the bucket fills.

Sounds like you definitely had some overcarbed bottles from the sugar solution not mixing in. You'll probably find some of the other ones are very undercarbonated.

I always rack my beer into the bottling bucket and after its half full, pour in the sugar water, let the rest of the beer transfer and then stir with my sanatized paddle very gently as to not create any bubbles. I seem to get a better consistency this way.

my syphon hose was bent as well so i think it might have been oxidized.