Impending disaster

[Mojorizen]

Ok I made a 5 gallon batch from a extract kit. an amber red ale from a lbs. og was suppose to be 1.051 I got 1.053, fermentation went normally and after 14 days appeared to have stopped. I moved it to a secondary and took a reading 1.020, it should have been 1.012. I had no other activity in the secondary. I checked a week later and still 1.020. I rocked the carboy a little still nothing, I added a packet of safale us-05 and a few days later fermentation started again. after a week it dropped to 1.014. Three weeks later it was still at 1.014 but I still had some air lock activity. I bottled last Wednesday, last night I opened a bottle and had a geyser. leaving about 1/3 of the bottle left. I have the rest in a cooler, I have moved it outside the house in the cold. low 30s It tasted ok is there anything I can do to attempt to save this?

 

[Rob2010SS]

A week is a bit soon to open one after bottling but how did you prime them? Did you use carbonation drops or did you use priming sugar?

 

[Riverevir]

In this case, I don't know that I would consider this "too soon". If he catches some overcarbed beers before they full carbonate and cause big issues, this could be a blessing for him.

Knowing how much priming sugar you used is the biggest thing that would need to be known for anyone to help you here. Even though you say airlock activity was present, I'm inclined to think you over-carbed when bottling instead of having a dropping gravity. If the taste is fine, it would be hard to assume an infection even though taste is subjective. If you were asking this question and the taste was weird, you'd be describing it for us.

 

[Mojorizen]

I used the 3/4 cup of priming sugar that came in the kit. I boiled 2 cups of water added the sugar and dissolved it. let it cool a bit then put it into the bottling bucket with about 1/4 gal of the beer then siphoned the rest of the beer on top of it. I opened one of the beers tonight with no problem. then one from the case that the geyser bottle came from and had no problem with it at all. could be being out in the cold helped or just a problem with the one bottle? One side thought I had was after siphoning the rest of the beer into the bottling bucket I may have forgot to stir the beer and maybe the priming sugar was not mixed evenly throughout all the beer and the bottle I opened may have been one of the first ones I filled? Hoping for the best.

 

[cloudybrewer]

Less CO2 will dissolve at room temperature than at fridge temp. So the original geyser may have been due to temperature. I am not, however, saying for certain that they can't be over carbed.

 

[Riverevir]

You definitely have more vols than you should. I normally go by brewers friend’s calculators but they don’t give cups. Based on their conversion (weight of priming sugar is preferred by most here) you should have used .5 cups for an amber ale. You used 50% more and wound up with carbonation more typical of a Wheat beer or Belgian. The cooling will help it dissolve but I’m assuming it was still awfully bubbly when you poured the next few in.

Keep em cool and drink em but just be wary you may be a bit more gassy than usual. You should likely warn any significant others just in case

https://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I think you are right to consider how well your beer was stirred in the bottling bucket. If you put your siphon at the bottom of the bucket in the corner, it will “stir” the beer as you fill it from the bottom creating a circular current while you siphon. If that’s how you did it then I would consider another variable like bottle sanitation. If you let a bottle dry out before rinsing, it will make it much more difficult to wash and sanitize. Lastly, the temp of the beer when you open it is key. A colder beer won’t be as big of a gusher because cold beer can disolve more CO2.