Am I risking bottle bombs?

[Shoegaze99]

Best I can tell I'm slightly on the edge but still in the safe zone, but I'd like to hear from folks with a lot more experience than me.

Bottled a summer weiss today. It spent 21 full days in primary. The FG was 1.020. I don't have an accurate OG reading.

I noticed when I moved it to the bottling bucket that there were four gallons, not five. I have no idea why; I'm sure I topped it off before pitching. But regardless, I had four gallons, so maybe I didn't.

At this point I had already added my priming sugar. Worried about having added enough for five gallons when I really only had four, I boiled & cooled some water, topped it to 4.5 gallons, gently stirred. (The 1.020 reading was taken before this; in my slightly flustered state I did not take a follow-up reading.) Not desirable to top off after fermentation, but didn't feel like it would be safe to bottle 4 gallons with enough priming sugar for 5, especially when the FG was higher than I'd expect.

The bottles are now in a safe, sealed plastic storage container.

So with the 1.020 FG and 4.5 gallon batch (with priming sugar enough for 5) am I risking bottle bombs right now, or is the FG just in the safe zone and did my topping off probably avert the risk?

 

[jonmohno]

what was the og? 3 weeks is usually as good as it gets,I dont do a three day check after 3 weeks because average ales will finish before 2 weeks from my experience. How much did you prime? your good i did a dunkle that i used 2.5 oz table sugar per 1.7 gal no bombs but i was nervous, but thats what the priming calc called for.
Im shure its ok it could be pretty carbed just check one after 2 weeks of conditioning to see how well carbing is use a icebath or refrigerate a few days.
With a tub your ok, keep it somewhere safer than normal but depends how much priming sugar you used?

 

[cms]

My guess is "No". Fermentation was probably finished in the primary (did you take consecutive readings over a few days to verify that it was stable at 1.020?) and as long as you didn't over-prime with dextrose, you will be fine.

I'm not sure I would have topped it off with water, but it will be okay. Topping off probably had no affect on the risk of broken bottles - like I said, the fermentation is probably complete. A gallon short is kind of a lot, but did you have an exceptional amount of trub? I lose a good half gallon to trub, wet hops, etc. every time I bottle. My last batch yielded 39 bottles from a 5 gallon batch, as an example.

 

[Shoegaze99]

A gallon short is kind of a lot, but did you have an exceptional amount of trub?

More than I expected, since I poured this through a strainer when I dropped it into the fermenter, but I don't know that I'd classify it as an exceptional amount.

Re: taking readings on consecutive days, no, I got lazy and assumed (which I know you shouldn't do) that three weeks put me past when fermentation should have finished. I did this recipe with some friends two summers ago and we bottled at the two-week mark.

Because I topped off to 4.5, if I over-primed I don't think it was by much.

 

[Yooper]

How much priming sugar did you add? If it was the typical 4 or 5 ounces, it'll be fine. Of course, that is assuming that at 1.020 the beer was done. If the beer was at 1.020 for at least a few days, it was done, though, so don't worry!

 

[Shoegaze99]

It was the typical 5 ounces.

Cool, this all sounds good. Looks like I can RDWHAHB.

 

[jonmohno]

In most cases beers can finish within a few days to 10 or so days.You just dont want to bottle that early. so it can conditon and taste good. I let time and temp tell me when to bottle and if i see a hydro reading i dont like when i bottle at 3-4 weeks i would let it sit.Havent had to let it sit yet longer to bottle yet. I have also only used good quality dry yeast also.
Its not such a bad thing to assume its ok at 3 weeks,from my experience its been done 100% of the time at 3 weeks with OG gravitys under 1.06.Using a recipe formualtion is nice to see what your FG is this is a way to see to bottle or not also.

 

[coryforsenate]

Your standard 12oz bottle is rated for about 3 volumes of CO2, so with 5oz in 4 gallons you'd be (theoretically, of course) at ~ 3.15 volumes, which could potentially be a bottle bomb.

Since you already added it to your beer, I think it was a good idea to dilute it to be on the safe side and you diluted it (theoretically) to about 2.7-2.8 volumes, which is a nice carb level.

I've had a single bottle explode in all the beers I've made and even that single bottle was a pain to clean up. It's definitely no fun.