dextrose to water ratio/overcarbed?

[Gravity]

I know the rule of thumb tends to be about 113grams (4oz) of dexrtrose to carb up about 20L(5g of beer), however, how much water are you using?

Normally, I prime 20L with about 56grams (2oz) of dextrose to about 473ml (2 cups) of water regardless of style as i'm not a fan of overly carbed beer. This ratio has always worked well for me, and when i make bigger batches I make a bulk priming solution and then pour a 437ml / 2 cup mixture in the bottling bucket for each batch. For exampls: 20L batch = 56g(2oz):437ml(2cups), 40L = 112g(4oz): 874mll ( 4cups)....etc

Using the logic above, i had some extra dextrose i wanted to get rid of and some beer that needed priming - so for this 80L batch I made a bulk priming solution of 339g (12oz) dextrose to 1748ml (8 cups) of water - and what I got was gushers.

I was expecting a little bit more carbonation due to the extra dextrose, but not gushers. I haven't had gushers since my rookie days of brewing, alas, it seems like I made a rookie mistake. It seem like such a waste of time, money and effort to dump 180+ bottles of booze especially if the beer is good, just overcarbed.

I've read in the forums about putting the bottles in the freezer to slow down the gushing for about 20min or so, then opening the bottles, to quickly recap them. This sounds doable, but for so many bottles i'd rather drink over-carbbed beer for the next few months...haha. I'm losing about a little less than 1/4 of the beer by just opening as such.

Anybody try the freezing and recapping method? (i've read the posts where others have tried and succeed.) or perhaps something else
How long after initial priming do you think i can recap - as i figure that with doing 40 bottles over a month sounds more reasonable.

any advice would be apprecitaed.

 

[Vale71]

You have about 0.3 vols more carbonation than what you usually aim for and that doesn't really seem enough to cause gushers. I would suspect some other issue might be causing this.

 

[Gravity]

You have about 0.3 vols more carbonation than what you usually aim for and that doesn't really seem enough to cause gushers. I would suspect some other issue might be causing this.

Dang - thats what I was afraid of as I know my math isn't off — but I reckin the beer might be
I didn't notice anything off about the beer; no off flavors, infections...etc..all seemed normal
all signs pointed to normal fermenation, although i did finish at 1.005 (expecting 1.010) but I hardly think finishing lower caused this ..hmmm.

 

[Vale71]

Did you recently use a saison yeast. Diastaticus yeast contamination could explain both the lower FG as well as the gushers.

 

[Gravity]

Did you recently use a saison yeast. Diastaticus yeast contamination could explain both the lower FG as well as the gushers.

interesting - I did actually!

I had read about this prior, but didn't actually give it much thought. Having said that, i did bleach bombed my 4L starter jar and let it soak in boiling water for about 20 min or so - I did not do the same with the fermentors. I don't recall if any any of the ones where used to ferment the saison, I did however clean and startsan them - I wreckin i can bleach bomb those also with some boiling water.

Thanks for that - really helpful, i'll do some more reading.

 

[Vale71]

You should take extra care in sanitizing any bottles you used for your saison batch as well.

 

[Gravity]

You should take extra care in sanitizing any bottles you used for your saison batch as well.

Wow - Didn't know the bottles would be effected also
Luckily, I use different bottles for botting saisons - I only use the Steinie (Duvel style) for saisons - so they would be easily to tell apart.

might have to introduce new steps into my cleaning process