overcarbonation

I recently just bottled my imperial IPA, and I had a little over 5 gallons of liquid in the carboy so I racked that on top of 5 ounces of priming sugar. Well I dry hopped it with leaf hops and only got 4 1/2 gallons into the bottling bucket before everything got clogged and i didn't want to suck up trub and ended up with 46 bottles.

Will it be way too over carbonated and have to worry about bombs?? Or just a little more carbed than normal?

What temp was the beer at bottling time?

You didn't actually add priming sugar before hops, did you? Just want to make sure I understand your story.

I'm assuming you mean you dry hopped and then added priming sugar to that solution, then racked off of the hops. If this is the case, no worries. You left a proportional amount of sugar behind.

If you racked off the hops onto a sugar solution, you likely overcarbed, but only slightly. Keep in mind, you only lost about 10% of your volume. So basically, it was like getting the whole volume of liquid and adding about 5.5 oz of sugar.

Slightly overcarbed, but I don't expect bottle bombs.

I'm confused too. Did you add priming sugar then dry hops, then let sit for few days and bottle? Or did you add dry hops, let sit, then add priming sugar?

If the first, (sugar,hops,sit) you won't have any carbonation and likely little hop aroma. The yeast would have fermented the added sugar and gassed off the co2 and hop aroma in your fermentor

If the second, you should be good. In the future, id recommend making a priming solution (boil small amt of water with priming sugar) to help it evenly mix, if you didn't this time. Next time you can also look up how much sugar to use by using a priming sugar calculator.

Which order did you do? We can help better with more understanding

From what I get he is saying that during transfer from fermenter to bottling bucket it got clogged because he dry hopped with leaf hops in the fermenter and not all of the 5 gallons that he calculated the sugar for got in.

How long has it been in the bottles at 70 degrees or above before you put it in the fridge?

If it's been under three weeks, then it more than likely is gushing because the co2 isn't in solution fully and is coming out before the beer is really carbed, hence the fact that you say it's flat after.

We get this all the time from impatient folks who open their bottles WAAAAAYYYYYYY early. If you opened them at three weeks, or more, you never would have noticed.

If you watch Poindexter's video on time lapsed carbonation, you will see that in many instances, before a beer is carbed it may gush, that's not from infection, or mixing of sugars, but because the co2 hasn't evened out- it hasn't been pulled fully into the beer. Think of it as there's a lot of co2 being generated and most of it is in the headspace, not in the beer, so there's still "over pressure" in the bottle, so it gushes when it is opened.

But when the beer is truly carbed it all evens out, across the bottles.

wow, didn't really read what i wrote, it was a little early. sorry for the confusion

here is what happened

after about 25 days in the fermenter, i dry hopped the beer with leaf hops NOT in a bag (just floating around)
10 days later i put the 5oz of priming sugar solution in the bottling bucket and racked 4 1/2 gallons of beer instead of the 5 i was hoping for on top of the solution. seemed i was about 5-6 beers short of what i should have roughly had.

its been a little on the chill side here and was probably 60-65 inside my apartment when i bottled the beer and it's only been in the bottle for 2 days, i just want to make sure there aren't going to be grenades in my closet in a couple weeks.

I would think you are fine. I throw a towel over the top of my bottle box just in case.

JuiceyJay said:

it's only been in the bottle for 2 days,

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Quit wasting your beer. WALK AWAY FOR 19 more days. You don't have bottle bombs you have impatience.

If you break down the 1/2 gallon difference you lost in terms of the usual 5 ounces per 5 gallons to produce between 2 and 2.5 volumes of co2, (or 1 ounce per gallon of sugar) you're only adding a tiny bit of more co2 to the beer. Think of it as 1 and 1/8th of an ounce...hardly any more.

Each beer has a range of volume of co2 that you can choose when actually carbing to style, and 2-2.5 is an overlapping mid range for most styles, that's why it's used.

All you going to be doing is raising the carb level a tiny bit higher, and since you're more than likely an American who grew up on fizzy yellow beer that was highly carbed....you'll actually probably not even notice.

Now leave your bottles alone...I Can't even conceive why you'd open a bottle after ONLY 2 days....

Revvy said:

Quit wasting your beer. WALK AWAY FOR 19 more days. You don't have bottle bombs you have impatience.

If you break down the 1/2 gallon difference you lost in terms of the usual 5 ounces per 5 gallons to produce between 2 and 2.5 volumes of co2, (or 1 ounce per gallon of sugar) you're only adding a tiny bit of more co2 to the beer. Think of it as 1 and 1/8th of an ounce...hardly any more.

Each beer has a range of volume of co2 that you can choose when actually carbing to style, and 2-2.5 is an overlapping mid range for most styles, that's why it's used.

All you going to be doing is raising the carb level a tiny bit higher, and since you're more than likely an American who grew up on fizzy yellow beer that was highly carbed....you'll actually probably not even notice.

Now leave your bottles alone...I Can't even conceive why you'd open a bottle after ONLY 2 days....

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lol! my question was more out of curiosity with carbonation levels.
lets get a few things straight though.
I haven't opened any bottles (nor will i for at LEAST 3 weeks if not 4)
no where in my posts i said anything about opening beers.

also, i haven't grown up on "fizzy yellow beer" (though i am american) started with hefe and went to stouts and now the last few years been stuck on ipa and iipa beers.
tried drinking bud and coors and but i just can't do it, not a fan.

Revvy, I don't think he opened a bottle, he was just preempting whether or not to expect bottle bombs with the loss of beer transferred and the seemingly excess, to him, priming sugar.

This -----^^

You will be just fine. Ride it out. Nothing is going to explode on you. You mixed your priming sugar well and you had the standard amount of sugar for the amount of beer you have. Set it in a corner. If you are paranoid, go buy a Rubbermaid tote for your bottles and put the lid on. Check em in 2-3 weeks. It'll be worth it.

Wow... Stepped away for a while and this thread blew up! Op, thanks for clarifying your process. You'll be fine. Slightly over carbed from what you intended but no bombs here. As I said before, look into a priming calculator for future beers so you can hit the carb level more accurately but it's tough to account for unexpected losses due to your hop clog.