Salutations from the Midwest!

[staticjacket]

Hi there. My name is Trey, I live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area. I just started getting into home brewing with a few friends that have equipment. So far, I've brewed a porter that has nutty notes (first brew, turned out pretty decent), and cloned Stone's Delicious IPA, which I think got contaminated It is way overcarbonated, and foam blows up out of the bottle when opened.. we tried to be very careful, but ruined my $120 batch. However, if you carefully pour, you can drink one and its pretty damn close to the real thing, sans the clarity.

Some of my favorite brewing companies are: Bells, Surly, Stone, Bent Paddle, Rouge, Two Brothers, and Ommegang just new name a few.

 

[Vandulus]

Welcome from another mid-westerner! Don't be discouraged by a less than stellar batch - at least yours sounds drinkable. I've had many undrinkable batches when I started brewing, but have learned better practices over the years (thank you StarSan!).

 

[TKWoody]

Welcome from another Minnesotan. I'm in New Brighton.

Brewing with friends is great, especially when you sample the results together.

 

[BrewerBrad82]

Welcome from Northeast Minneapolis!

 

[TeamAshBrewing]

Welcome from Prior Lake

 

[Homercidal]

Welcome!

Maybe you just overcarbed it? I've done that when trying a cold crash for the first time and bottling while the beer still had a lot of CO2 in solution. Adding priming sugar to that much CO2 just makes a foamy/gushy messy. Beer tasted ok.

 

[staticjacket]

Welcome from Prior Lake

I'm in Prior Lake as well!

 

[staticjacket]

Welcome!

Maybe you just overcarbed it? I've done that when trying a cold crash for the first time and bottling while the beer still had a lot of CO2 in solution. Adding priming sugar to that much CO2 just makes a foamy/gushy messy. Beer tasted ok.

Could you explain what you're saying a little bit further? I'm very curious.

My friends just recommend 4.5 grams of priming sugar (I'm pretty sure it's corn sugar, it's a very fine sugar) in each batch...I really was skeptical of that. Without prior knowledge, I would figure that you would calculate depending on specific gravity, which is in fact from what I understand part of how you determine.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Welcome from a Long Islander that lived in Nebraska for a few years, got stranded in your airport a couple times going to or coming home from NE.

 

[Michigan_Wolfman]

Shout out from Michigan. Welcome to our hobby!

 

[Homercidal]

Could you explain what you're saying a little bit further? I'm very curious.

My friends just recommend 4.5 grams of priming sugar (I'm pretty sure it's corn sugar, it's a very fine sugar) in each batch...I really was skeptical of that. Without prior knowledge, I would figure that you would calculate depending on specific gravity, which is in fact from what I understand part of how you determine.

Liquids will hold CO2 in solution at different amounts depending on the temperature. Colder beer will retain more CO2 than warmer beer.

So, if your beer is at 72 degrees and you bottle, there is an expected amount of CO2. For 5 gallons of IPA, 4.5 is just about right.

Now if you cold crash (Chill the beer in a fridge or someplace colder, in order to help clarify it), then there will be more residual CO2 in solution in the beer.

For example, if you just took your beer out of the fridge where it was cold crashing, and let's say the temp rose to about 40F, then you only need about 2.5 ounces of priming sugar (corn sugar I assume, since that's pretty common.) because there is already a fair amount of CO2 in the beer.

To prime you really need to know the style (or choose a "Volumes of CO2" for how carbonated you want it.), the amount of beer, and its temperature.

Of course it could be a few other things, like an infection, but those won't normally show gushing right away. Could be it got agitated, wasn't chilled well, some strange nucleation points in the bottle, etc.

Probably the most common overcarbing cause is simply bottling too early. If the fermentation wasn't quite complete, then there is even more sugar in the bottle when it's capped. It's pretty common for newer brewers to want to rush things. It's best to double check the Final Gravity and even let the beer sit for 1-3 days to clean up. Even longer if you want to give it time to clear.

 

[staticjacket]

Shout out from Michigan. Welcome to our hobby!

Some of my favorite beer comes from Michigan! Bells is in my top three favorite breweries.

 

[staticjacket]

Liquids will hold CO2 in solution at different amounts depending on the temperature. Colder beer will retain more CO2 than warmer beer.

So, if your beer is at 72 degrees and you bottle, there is an expected amount of CO2. For 5 gallons of IPA, 4.5 is just about right.

Now if you cold crash (Chill the beer in a fridge or someplace colder, in order to help clarify it), then there will be more residual CO2 in solution in the beer.

For example, if you just took your beer out of the fridge where it was cold crashing, and let's say the temp rose to about 40F, then you only need about 2.5 ounces of priming sugar (corn sugar I assume, since that's pretty common.) because there is already a fair amount of CO2 in the beer.

To prime you really need to know the style (or choose a "Volumes of CO2" for how carbonated you want it.), the amount of beer, and its temperature.

Of course it could be a few other things, like an infection, but those won't normally show gushing right away. Could be it got agitated, wasn't chilled well, some strange nucleation points in the bottle, etc.

Probably the most common overcarbing cause is simply bottling too early. If the fermentation wasn't quite complete, then there is even more sugar in the bottle when it's capped. It's pretty common for newer brewers to want to rush things. It's best to double check the Final Gravity and even let the beer sit for 1-3 days to clean up. Even longer if you want to give it time to clear.

So just to make sure I understand you correctly, the only way to truely tell if your batch is done in the secondary is by getting to your projected final gravity? What if my specific gravity immediately at primary is off, wouldn't that throw of my projected final gravity? I just would really like to know more about how specific gravity effects fermentation times and CO2 retention. I know that specific gravity is the density of a given substance to the density of water, I just want to know more about what that means in relation to my new found joy of brewing.

 

[d3track]

Greetings from SW Minneapolis

 

[staticjacket]

Welcome from Prior Lake

Wanna trade brew sometime?

 

[TeamAshBrewing]

Wanna trade brew sometime?

Sure, sounds like a good idea. However, I haven't brewed in a while due to selling our house and moving twice. I might be able to sneak a batch in next weekend (long shot), otherwise it will be July before I can brew.

 

[Homercidal]

So just to make sure I understand you correctly, the only way to truely tell if your batch is done in the secondary is by getting to your projected final gravity? What if my specific gravity immediately at primary is off, wouldn't that throw of my projected final gravity? I just would really like to know more about how specific gravity effects fermentation times and CO2 retention. I know that specific gravity is the density of a given substance to the density of water, I just want to know more about what that means in relation to my new found joy of brewing.

Ideally you would would the projected OG and FG each time. However, that isn't always (usually) the case, especially when starting out and gettign a feel for it and using new equipment and methods.

But, the recipe should give you an idea of what OG you are going to shoot for, and what the FG is based on the yeast and some other variables. Of course you won't always hit that exactly. Stuff happens.

But you will be close, and you can guesstimate whether the FG may be higher or lower than the recipes calls for by how far off your OG is.

Now if your FG is expected to be 1.015 and you are at 1.020 when you check, then you know you might want to wait a bit to bottle, or you may decide to warm the fermentor a bit, or rouse the yeast to get that last few points.

Then again, if your OG is 1.005 higher than the recipe calls for, then you may be pretty close with an FG at 1.020, rather than 1.015.

Just last month I kegged a witbier that was surely done fermenting because it had been in a temp controlled ferm chamber for just over 2 weeks. Turns out the controller had been programmed incorrectly and the witbier was not really fermented at all. Because I did not measure gravity, I went by "experience" and the calendar, I did not find out until I took a taste sample.

Had I been bottling, this would have been a nightmare.

Bottom line, until you get practiced at hitting OG and FG, always measure a few days between readings and make sure the measurement doesn't change in that time. Then you know the fermentation is complete (usually).