??Too much sugar = big mess

[lovemyholden]

Is it true that adding too much sugar at primary fermentation is the main reason why bottles end up exploding? Previously our brews (we tend to do brigalow alcoholic ginger beer) have been a little "flat" - they start out looking hell fizzy but end up tasting like ginger cordial with very little fizz. In an attempt to fix the problem, my husband decided to add extra sugar to the wort this time {extra sugar = usual 1kg dextrose, plus 500g brown sugar and 100ml honey}. Is this a recipe for disaster???

 

[homebrewer_99]

Not really.

"Bottle Grenades" as we call them are caused by 1) bottling too soon (fermentation not complete), 2) overpriming (and not paying attention as to when the bottles are carbonated. You need to place them in the fridge to render the yeast dormant which retards/stops the carbonation process), and/or 3) bottle conditioning temperature is too warm (above 75F, but again this goes back to paying attention as to when they are carbonated).

As long as you brew is done fermenting you can add up the normal 5 oz corn sugar or 1.25 C DME for priming and you should never get a bottle grenade.

Adding more fermentables (as Mr. Lovemyholden did) is fueling the fire.

 

[DAAB]

With a regular beer, idealy you want to let the fast fermenting sugars and some of the slow fermentin dextrins ferment out before bottling. Under these circumstances a good rule of thumb is to add 1 tsp of sugar, dextrose/glucose/brown sugar etc, per litre to get a good level of carbonation.
You can add as much sugar as you like before bottling but if you let it ferment out it wont effect carbonation, you'll know it has fermented out because you'll get 2 hydrometer readings the same within 24hrs. If you dont let it ferment out you are chancing over carbonation.
This can lead to exploding bottles because as the yeast ferments the sugars it not only produces alcohol but it also produces co2 and therefore too much pressure and potentialy 'bang'!
Just as bad though is a beer that is too lively to pour. An over carbonated beer can foam so much once the bottle is open it will virtualy empty the bottle. You can over come this to a certain extent by chilling the bottles as much as possible as the colder the beer is the more co2 it will absorb and keep in suspension.