Reprime bottles? or how I learned to be careful with math

[banesong]

So, yesterday afternoon I sat down and bottled my honey amber. The green beer tasted great - slightly sweet with a low malt flavor. As I was going to split the batch between one 5L mini keg and the remains in bottles, I placed 3oz of priming sugar in the bucket (yes, boiled in 2 cups of water). Racked the beer into the bucket, filled the keg and set the bung.

Examined the amount remaining in the bottling bucket, saw that it was just a bit above 3 gallons remaining. Used a carbonation calculator (actually three different ones) and it came out to about 2.9 oz of priming sugar for 2.75 volumes of CO2. Sat there a minute, thought 'well, I have this made - I put in 3oz to start with!' and then went ahead and bottled.

Fast forward three hours later as I am putting my 14 month old to bed and I have a sudden eye widening, light bulb moment. 'Oh crap! That meant 2.9 oz in 3 gallons, I put 3 oz in 4.3 gallons!'.

After I put the baby to bed, I ran out to the kitchen and did some math. Based on an initial volume of 4.3 gallons (give or take), I added 3oz of dextrose. That gives just under .7 oz per gallon, which means that the final volume of 3 gallons had 2.09 oz of sugar. Based on some playing with calculators, the final volume of CO2 should be around 2.15.

So, the question is, should I pop the tops (~24 hours later) and reprime the bottles, or just wait the 3 weeks and see how it comes out? I know, RDWHAHB, but I am curious of the general opinion on the board.

Additionally, the calculators that I used queried the temperature of the fermentation. Do they really mean the temperature of the fermentation, or the temperature of the beer when bottled?

Thanks
T

 

[Lumberg1]

I'm pretty sure that they are referring to the temp you condition the beer at.
You could maybe condition the beer at a slightly lower temp(maybe around 60) and a little longer, since co2 dissolves better at lower temps? Seems logical to me anyway, but I'm not sure.

I had a batch that I didn't use enough priming sugar and I decided to just leave it. Needless to say the beer was alittle under carbed but it was still pretty good.
The up side(if there is one) is that you will probably never make that mistake again!

 

[Yooper]

The temperature calculator refers to fermentation temperature. If the beer is warmer, it "holds" less residual co2 and so the calculator looks at that. I don't use a calculator, I just almost always use 4 ounces of priming sugar per 5 gallons for bottling. It works well.

So, you used 3 ounces in 4.3 gallons? That shouldn't be too undercarbed. 2.75 volumes (the volume you calculated) is pretty darn high, so you probably don't want that anyway. I like 2.3 volumes for most of my American ales anyway. I think you'll be fine.

 

[banesong]

The temperature calculator refers to fermentation temperature. If the beer is warmer, it "holds" less residual co2 and so the calculator looks at that. I don't use a calculator, I just almost always use 4 ounces of priming sugar per 5 gallons for bottling. It works well.

So, you used 3 ounces in 4.3 gallons? That shouldn't be too undercarbed. 2.75 volumes (the volume you calculated) is pretty darn high, so you probably don't want that anyway. I like 2.3 volumes for most of my American ales anyway. I think you'll be fine.

Thanks for the temperature advice.

The SWMBO had requested a more Duvel like carbonation level, and I was trying to oblige. However, in the past I have used 5oz priming sugar in 4.5-5 gallons and had a weak carb level.

I think I will just wait it out and see what happens.

T