cernst151
Well-Known Member
OK, I feel like I've done everything and I'm completely at a loss. Maybe somebody here can help. I've brewed 40-50 batches (didn't keep great notes in the beginning and missed several since so I don't have an exact number) and have had overwhelming success. I even brewed about 15 batches for my wedding and they all came out great.
A year or two ago I made a mocha stout that produced a lot of bottle bombs and eventually I got dressed up in protective gear, popped the bottles and saved what I could into growlers to drink. I blame that one on not giving enough time for the sugar in the chocolate to ferment. After that, I didn't have a problem for about 20 batches.
Lately I've had a string of a few (but not all) batches producing bombs. Most recently I brewed 4 batches in 2 weeks. The IPA and red turned out great. The stout, and parti-gyle were heavily over carbonated and the parti-gyle was bad enough that a few exploded and last night I popped the tops and poured it all out. Very sad but at least it was a parti-gyle so essentially free. The Stout has had 1 explosion and the others I've tried are way over carbonated.
So, here's the relevant info. All are AG. On all 4 batches I tested the gravity and between testing it when I moved it to secondary and a test 1 week later the gravity stayed stable. Since I'd had some problems in the past I was very careful to move the beer into the bottling bucket first to get a measurement of how much beer I had and instead of using my standard amount of DME I downloaded the app Brewers Friend and calculated how much DME to prime with and stirred well. It seemed like too much but that's what the calculator told me to use. I'm sorry but I don't have the amount recorded because I couldn't find my diary that night. I chose a volume right in the middle of the recommended for the style, and since they're stouts they were on the low end anyway.
Still, several of the parti-gyle's exploded and 1 stout. I'm out of ideas and almost afraid to brew another batch, or even open one of the stouts. Should I use a different priming calculator? Should I switch back to priming sugar? Is there another way to tell if everything's fully fermented other than hydrometer readings a week apart? Please help!
A year or two ago I made a mocha stout that produced a lot of bottle bombs and eventually I got dressed up in protective gear, popped the bottles and saved what I could into growlers to drink. I blame that one on not giving enough time for the sugar in the chocolate to ferment. After that, I didn't have a problem for about 20 batches.
Lately I've had a string of a few (but not all) batches producing bombs. Most recently I brewed 4 batches in 2 weeks. The IPA and red turned out great. The stout, and parti-gyle were heavily over carbonated and the parti-gyle was bad enough that a few exploded and last night I popped the tops and poured it all out. Very sad but at least it was a parti-gyle so essentially free. The Stout has had 1 explosion and the others I've tried are way over carbonated.
So, here's the relevant info. All are AG. On all 4 batches I tested the gravity and between testing it when I moved it to secondary and a test 1 week later the gravity stayed stable. Since I'd had some problems in the past I was very careful to move the beer into the bottling bucket first to get a measurement of how much beer I had and instead of using my standard amount of DME I downloaded the app Brewers Friend and calculated how much DME to prime with and stirred well. It seemed like too much but that's what the calculator told me to use. I'm sorry but I don't have the amount recorded because I couldn't find my diary that night. I chose a volume right in the middle of the recommended for the style, and since they're stouts they were on the low end anyway.
Still, several of the parti-gyle's exploded and 1 stout. I'm out of ideas and almost afraid to brew another batch, or even open one of the stouts. Should I use a different priming calculator? Should I switch back to priming sugar? Is there another way to tell if everything's fully fermented other than hydrometer readings a week apart? Please help!