insane carbonation

[mwc9711]

So i bottled five days ago and used 2/3 cups of brown sugar to prime my first batch. It was a five gallon batch and it had finished fermenting. Today I opened one to test, and it foamed out of the top for about a minute, until i poured some into a glass. I dont think it is infected, but I from everything I have read, five days usually equals flat beer. Im worried that either something is wrong with the batch, in which case i would be incredibly bummed, or that I have twenty four (or 23 now) bottle bombs waiting. Any help?

 

[Yooper]

2/3 cups of brown sugar seems like a lot. Did you pack it down when you measured? I always measure with a scale, by weight, so it's far more accurate. My guess is that 2/3 cup of brown sugar is way too much but I've only ever used corn sugar, table sugar, and malt extract. I use 4 ounces of corn sugar in a 5 gallon batch- I guess that might be pretty close to 2/3 cup, but that's a different sugar.

 

[mwc9711]

It was 2/3 cups of loose brown sugar, but the beer may have been too warm when I opened it, which I found caused gushing (only after having opened a bottle). Still, it seemed like a ton of carbonation for only 5 days.

 

[Smokeater233]

It was a five gallon batch and it had finished fermenting.

And the amount of sugar aside - you know that the ferment was finished for sure and you tested with a hydrometer, correct?

 

[mwc9711]

i didnt get an OG, but i checked the gravity 3 time 2 days apart each after two weeks and there was no change so I bottled.

 

[Smokeater233]

Ahhhh - but what was the final gravity?

 

[mwc9711]

it was 1.012

 

[Smokeater233]

Well, if it was actually 1.012 then fermentation should have completed meaning that it may have been an overdose of priming sugar. I just went through this with one of my batches... If you are finding that most of your bottles are gushing when you open them, it's time to cold crash them in the fridge to get the yeasties to chill out (pardon the pun) and at least cease creating new carbonation. If you are using caps you could also consider cracking them open slightly to release some of the air in the headspace, and then recapping, thereby helping to further slow any new carbonation.

At the end of the day, an over carbonated beer is still beer, and if you let it sit for a little while after you pour, perhaps you'll find it to be just perfect...

 

[frazier]

Is it also possible that the priming sugar was not thoroughly mixed? Perhaps the next bottle you open will be flat. So it's too soon to diagnose.