Problem with stout brewing

[greyhound78]

I'm new to this forum but have been successfully home brewing using Mr. Beer products for many years. But since I began brewing stout recipes, I'm having problems with the final product. Although closely following recipes and instructions, have experienced over pressurization that has on several occasions burst 12 oz glass bottles - and those that don't burst foam excessively with the bottles are opened for consumption. I've never had this problem until now and have brewed dozens of recipes over the years.

Thoughts on what the problem could be would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Snuffy]

Prepare to provide more info:
Volume brewed
Yeast used
Type of kit (I assume extract)
Length of fermentation
Bottling method
Specific Gravity numbers if available
etc

All those have a bearing on the advice you'll get.

 

[Ninoid]

More or less, the problems are always the same: too much sugar for carbonation, beer bottled before fermentation is complete or beer infected with foreign yeast or bacteria, so fermentation continues and CO2 is produced which causes pressure, bottles are overfilled.

 

[Snuffy]

Yeah. It pretty much boils down to too much sugar still in the beer when bottled. Either not fermented long enough for the main yeast to get finished or some uninvited party guest working on sugars nobody else wanted. And of course how much priming sugar was added.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

What all these guys said.

 

[greyhound78]

Prepare to provide more info:
Volume brewed
Yeast used
Type of kit (I assume extract)
Length of fermentation
Bottling method
Specific Gravity numbers if available
etc

All those have a bearing on the advice you'll get.

1. Volume - 2 gallons.
2. yeast - S-04 dry provide by Mr. Brew in this recipe.
3. Mr. Brew kit.
4. 14 days recommended; for this recipe; some recopies call for21 day periods. I extend this one to 16 days as Mr. Beer recommended as a conservative fermentation completion safeguard. I very closely monitor the recommended fermentation and carbonation temp windows for this recipe.
5. Use 12 oz bottles adding somewhat LESS than the Mr. Beer recommended 3/ 4 teaspoon of sugar per bottles.
6. Specific gravity N/A
7. I am very cautious about pre fermentation sanitation following Mr. Beer recommendations prior to beginning a new batch.

 

[day_trippr]

Greetings, @greyhound78, and welcome to the forums at Homebrew Talk

While my inclination is to line up behind the opinion already expressed here of a residual sugar problem, there are other possibilities. You already stated of your awareness of one - infection - so my default would be to assume your sanitation habits would prevent that. But another could be hop creep. You haven't posted the actual recipe you used, but if it includes some dry hopping, depending on strain you could have the residual yeast partner up with whatever dextrin-degrading enzymes (like alpha-amylase, beta-amylase, and limit dextrinase) your hops were packing to create enough simple sugars to over-gas your bottles...

Cheers!

 

[HM-2]

I reckon you might be have two things at play here, incomplete fermentation and overpriming. Priming calculator reckons about 1.7g table sugar in a 12oz bottle for a typical stout CO2 volume of 2.1ish and 3/4tsp is probably near double that so unless you're massively cutting back on the MrBeer recommended quantity you're almost certainly putting in too much. You want maybe a1/4 to 1/3tsp. But I don't think that's enough alone to get you bottle bombs.

More pressing is the fact I basically don't think you're fermenting your beer out before you package. It's kind of hard to offer too much more by way of advice as MrBeer does loads of different "stout" kits and without knowing the OG and measuring FG your fermentation times are going to be a crap shoot as you have literally no way of knowing when it's actually done. 2 weeks would usually be fine for a lower ABV Irish stout or similar but even then isn't guaranteed. Anything big could easily be double that.

In your position I'd be inclined to triple check my sanitation process, then brew another batch and leave to ferment for a month before bottling with 1/3tsp priming sugar per 12oz.

 

[greyhound78]

Thank you all for your input. As I said, this recent problem is very frustrating because I have had so much success brewing dozens of 2 gallon Mr. Beer recipes over the past 12 - 15 years. I am going to reach out to Mr. Beer customer service - specifically zeroing in on confirming appropriate fermentation duration and carbonation sugar quantity for their stout recipes. One or both of those appear to need adjustment even though I'm following the brewing instructions they provide for each recipe to a "T". Again - thanks for all your input.

 

[MaxStout]

If you think overcarbonation is the suspect (or even if you don't) it's a good idea to use weight, not volume, for sugar additions. You can get a good gram scale for $15-$20 on Amazon. There are free online calculators that can help you determine the right amount of sugar to add.

 

[mac_1103]

I am going to reach out to Mr. Beer customer service - specifically zeroing in on confirming appropriate fermentation duration and carbonation sugar quantity for their stout recipes. One or both of those appear to need adjustment even though I'm following the brewing instructions they provide for each recipe to a "T".

I doubt that they will tell you anything different than what the instructions say. But the thing is that your beer doesn't read the recipe sheet and is going to ferment on its own schedule. The only way to know it's done is to monitor the SG and wait until it stops changing.

 

[Ninoid]

If you are sure that you have measured the priming sugar correctly and that the yeast has had enough time to complete fermentation, all that remains is infection.