Bottle bombers!

[ducas]

Ok, so my last brew had a single bottle blow, and the others were fairly over carbonated. But now the second brew had roughly 20 blow! It's been 3 weeks, so I have a bunch of questions. I guess let me restart here:

I'm making a Munson's American Light hopped LME kit and adding raspberries and rose petals. I broke my hydrometer, so I didn't take a reading for this brew. I primed with 1 lb of brown sugar. The way I brew it is boil the DME, berries, and roses with the LME for about 10 minutes and then split it between two 4 gal fermenters. Then top both with the yeast and cover. Here are my questions: (and thank you in advance for your help!)

1) Why am I using DME? On the can directions it doesn't say anything about that.
2) Nearly all other kits call for 5 gallons, this can calls for 6. And of course since I know nothing and pretend I do, I used 5... Could this have caused it?
3) It's been just over three weeks in the bottle, will they keep blowing? I asked this last time I had a bomb and Revy said they usually only go for about the first 2-3 weeks.
4) Is there any other way to relieve some of the pressure. I went through and lifted a piece of the cap to let some out. How long should I do this? Until it foams, let it calm, and repeat? I also know I can cool them to calm it down, but they're for a wedding in late July. If I cool them now and then take them out of the fridge for space will that ruin them for the wedding/cause them to blow when they heat back up?
5) Since I have so much sugar from the berries, should I cut back on the amount of brown sugar? If so, halve it?

Thanks again guys. I'm tripping out a bit cause it's for my wedding and I'm trying to stock pile as much as I can, but I'm already sick of cleaning up glass...

Best,

-Ducas

 

[zachattack]

I'm a little confused... you're adding DME and then asking why you're adding DME? Maybe you should answer that question?

Why are you priming with a pound of brown sugar? No matter what else you're doing, 1 pound of priming sugar for 5 gallons is way, way, way too much. Probably about 3x the amount you should be using. Use a priming calculator like this one:

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like your understanding of what's going on during the brewing/fermenting/conditioning process could use a boost. Do you have How to Brew by John Palmer? You can read the first edition online for free, it's the best basic brewing book and it should answer all these basic questions for you. Much better than half following can instructions

 

[duboman]

You don't mention anything about your fermentation temps, duration, secondary, etc. when you racked to fruit did you check gravity first?

+1 on a lb of sugar, that's a ridiculous amount since most 5G batches take 5oz or less?

I would think if all the bottles have not blown yet they will, safety goggles, gloves and body armor are good ideas right now.

I agree that you need to brush up on your brewing research before you consider doing another batch

BTW, congratulations on the upcoming wedding!

 

[ducas]

Obviously I could use more knowledge with this, so I guess we don't have to waste our time typing that anymore...

I'm adding DME because that seemed to be the consensus everywhere I researched and at my local store.

Other than that, none of my questions were answered so thanks for nothing...hah

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Other than that, none of my questions were answered so thanks for nothing...hah

Are you sure about that?

Why are you priming with a pound of brown sugar? No matter what else you're doing, 1 pound of priming sugar for 5 gallons is way, way, way too much. Probably about 3x the amount you should be using. Use a priming calculator like this one:

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

You don't mention anything about your fermentation temps, duration, secondary, etc. when you racked to fruit did you check gravity first?

+1 on a lb of sugar, that's a ridiculous amount since most 5G batches take 5oz or less?

I would think if all the bottles have not blown yet they will, safety goggles, gloves and body armor are good ideas right now.

I agree that you need to brush up on your brewing research before you consider doing another batch

I'm going to agree. 1# of sugar = waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much sugar for priming. Just be sure to wear safety gear when you go to handle them. Remember, glass shrapnel doesn't show up in x-rays

I'd also recommend that you brush up on your brewing knowledge. If you haven't read Palmer's "How To Brew" you should. If you've already read it.... reread it.

How to Brew

 

[montecristo]

I saw all of your questions answered in this post.

Do you have How to Brew by John Palmer? You can read the first edition online for free, it's the best basic brewing book and it should answer all these basic questions for you.

 

[ducas]

Look I'm not trying to cause problems or argue. I understand that I need to brush up on my brew knowledge, that's why I'm here asking questions and not just guessing anymore. So I'll leave it at that.

Side note, I put the 'hah' on there so people wouldn't confuse a joke with me being seriously disrespectful. Guess that doesn't work on a forum so well...'haha'

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Who's arguing?

I don't think anything snide or malicious was said.

 

[stratslinger]

I think your comment about "none of my questions were answered" when, in fact, pretty much all of your questions were answered, was more than a little off putting.

But now that that's out of the way:

As folks have stated, you're getting bottle bombs because you used WAY too much priming sugar. Palmer's How to Brew is an excellent source with lots of good info to go on. You can also do a couple searches right here on HBT for priming tables and you can get some very good information on correct amounts of different types of sugars (or DME) to use when batch priming, depending on exactly how much carbonation you're going for, so you can avoid this particular pitfall in the future.

As to DME vs LME, in many cases it comes down to personal preference. DME tends to keep better than LME. If you're buying your ingredients from a vendor with a high rate of turnover (say, Northern Brewer or the like), then chances are their LME hasn't sat on the shelf very long and you're likely to get pretty fresh product. But if you don't really know how fresh the extract is, or you suspect it's not fresh, you're better off going with DME over LME. How to Brew gets into the coversion between the two (I don't remember off the top of my head, but you need more of one than the other to make wort of the same gravity - it's been a little while since I've done much with extracts).

As for your question 3 and 4 - sounds like you're on the right track. Yes, those bottles can and will continue to blow until you alleviate the pressure, and what you're doing is a viable way to alleviate said pressure (I had to do the same with one of my own batches - took several repetitions of just lifting the cap enough to let it off-gas, then settle overnight and repeat again). Just do a few nights running (with that much sugar, give it 4 or 5 repetitions at least) then carefully open one up and sample it to see where it's at. If they're still over carbonated, continue the process a few more nights and sample again, repeating until you get where you want to be.

 

[brewingmeister]

Ok. First off forget the berries. Unless you added a bucket full their sugars are the least of your worries.
You didn't really give us a recipe per se. If you tell us or throw the amounts of lme, dme and water used into a recipe calculator you can get an approximation of og.
Yes 1 lb of brown sugar was too much. 4-5 oz of corn sugar would have been more appropriate.
Now you have to deal with the mess. I would suggest carefully getting them nice and cold. Opening them warm will likely result in a volcano of beer mess. Take off the caps and let them sit out till they warm to room temp. The head pressure will be released and when they warm co2 will slowly be released without gushing. Sample one...or two. You probably want them to be undercarbed when you recap them if you are going to store them warm. If you are going to keep them cold recap when they have the carb you want.
-cheers

 

[duboman]

Not put off at all.........

If you would like some additional assistance, put the recipe you are working off of here and any one of us can chime in so your next batch comes out the way you would like and is ready to be served at your wedding, Planning a wedding is a PITA but brewing good beer shouldn't be.............

 

[ducas]

Ok so here is the basic process. Again I understand I'm probably not doing everything correctly, but I kind of assume any of these recipes are like any cooking ones, with personal preferences and taste altering them somewhat.

I have a can of hopped Muntons LME as my base kit.

Here is my process in as normal vocabulary as possible: (please be gentle, I'm obviously sensitive haha)
I boil down 2 lbs of DME in 2 1/2 gal water. (until the foam dies down)
I then add the Muntons kit and stir
I add 24 oz frozen raspberries and roughly one handful of rose petals, along with the LME, for about 5-10 minutes.
I remove from heat and cool in sink of ice water to chill.
I then split the wort between two 4 gal fermenters (donated frosting buckets from grocery)
I pinch the yeast evenly between the two.
Let ferment for two weeks.

Bottling:
I previously boiled 1 lb (have since realized my error...) brown sugar for priming in 2 1/2 cups water and cooled.
Bottled, capped, and stored.

Thing I'm planning to alter:

LESS SUGAR! From other threads on here, particularly via Revvy, it looks like 2/3 cups brown sugar should be plenty of sugar.
Stir the priming sugar a bit more after racking, although I've been doing that. But it seems like only one case was affected, which leads me to think I didn't stir enough and some bottles got even more sugar.

Questions:

This is basically the process I ran by my local shop and they signed off on it. That being said, I'm not sure how much they really paid attention. They did tell me to get the DME and add that to the wort, I just basically added the brown sugar and berries. Should I cut back on sugar even more since I'm using DME? Everything besides over carbing seems fine. The taste and coloring is great, just a little champagne -esque as of now...

Thanks again guys for your help.

EDIT:

Here is the link to the chart from Revvy

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/index9.html#post1114892

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Okay, sounds better but you still shouldn't do priming sugar in volume, ESPECIALLY not brown sugar.

With solids, volume is not a constant. Solids have different densities and different properties. For instance, 2/3 cup of table sugar or lightly packed brown sugar is probably a significant amount less than 2/3 cup hard packed brown sugar.

Not only that, but "lightly packed" and "hard packed" are very subjective and can vary wildly.


I highly highly highly recommend you get a scale of some sort. Mass is the best way to go with solid ingredients, especially ones that need to be a little more precise like priming sugar.

 

[ducas]

Ok cool I'm happy to hear I'm on the right track. I'll get a scale and go for it. So just to clarify though, more like 5 or 6 oz rather than 2/3 cup right? But other than that, I should be good?

Thanks again man

 

[HawksBrewer]

5 oz of priming sugar is a great starting point for most beers. I wouldn't worry about specific carb volumes for different styles as of yet. One thing at a time...