Over carbed bottled beer

Hey:

So I've been brewing about a year now, and the one issue that consistently bugs me is: over-carbonated bottles. Yes, I bottle my beer, with corn sugar for priming.

I've cut back on the amount of corn sugar I use. I religiously check that fermentation is complete before bottling (hydrometer). Most of my beers are fine for a few weeks, but more often than not, after a month or more in bottles, the percentage of over-carbed bottles starts to climb -- from 5% to 10% to ... up to 50% of my bottles.

I'm not super careful about temperatures after bottling, but all my bottles stay in my house, which probably maxes out at 76F this time of year (I'd say the range is probably 68-76F).

Is there anything special I should be doing? Should I give up bottles and start kegging? I'd rather have flat beer than the over-carbed stuff I get sometimes...

Thanks!

 

More often than not, when one of my bottles gushed or overflowed, it was probably due to contamination. Once I had a bottle bust apart, luckily the glass broke into only 4 or 5 pieces.

Just had to make sure to stay on top of sanitizing everything including the bottles, the caps, the siphon tubes--everything! I boil my caps/crowns for 10 minutes. Everything else gets a quick soak in bleach solution (a cap full of Clorox per 5 gallons of water and a thorough rinse in clean water).

As far as over-carbonating in bottles--I discovered my latest batch of mead has bulging caps. Without removing the caps, I used a bottle opener to allow gas to escape by only slightly applying leverage to them. It's taking some time to 'air' all of them out (thankfully they are in bomber bottles) but it's better than gushers of strawberry-lemonade everywhere. I used only 3/4 cup of sugar to prime, so I'm pretty sure it's because I bottled before fermentation was complete.

 

Do you weigh out the sugar and properly mix it or do you measure by cup? Measuring by volume instead of weight is far less exact than weighing out to the gram and is a typical issue in over priming.

Infection can certainly cause the same issue but usually the beer will taste off if an infection has developed.

 

I would start aiming for a lower target Co2 level and also input a higher bottle storage temp when using one of those carbonation calculators. Maybe shoot for 1.8 volumes instead of 2.3 and also maybe 80F instead of 76F. That should help lower the carbonation levels. Also make sure that you truly have 5 gallons of beer to bottle instead of say only 4.5 gallons. Lastly, once you open a bottle and it is at the carb level you like, take the rest of the unopened bottles and throw them in the fridge to put the yeast to sleep for good. Cheers!