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Bottling and carbonation of Beer
Hi All,
My biggest challenge so far has been successful carbonation of my beers. I've had drastically over and drastically under carbonation levels, but I think I've finally worked out all the bugs. I was just wondering if anyone had any little trick up their sleeves used to tell when beer in the bottle is sufficiently carbonated. My last batch (the one that was dangerously overcarbonated) was sufficiently carbonated in about three and a half days. It tasted good for about three or four days then it was overcarbonated. Anyway.. Is there good way to tell if the beer is carbonated?
Hi wesley,
I leave them for at least a few weeks. I also keep them at higher temps 80ish. It’s also good to keep notes on how much priming sugar you are using. I use 3/4 cup usually, 1 cup for bubbly beers. Also I stir the priming syrup around in bottling bucket every now and again to keep the level of sugar even in each bottle.
I sound like you may be erratic with the amount of priming sugar you are using. The LHBS I go to sells pre-packaged bags of priming sugar that are 5oz. 1 bag in 2 cups of water at bottling time has been pretty much spot on every time for me. I could see for some styles maybe wanting to tweak that, such as wanting more carbonation in a hefe, but so far I haven't deviated. I should mention this is for 5gal batches.
Once the bottling is done, the bottles are stored in my basement at roughly 74F degrees and after 7-8 days I put one in the fridge and pop it when it is cold. Every time so far it has hissed as it was opened but the carbonation is almost non-existent. By the end of the second week, I put the next beer in and it is very close to what I expect. Any beer that has bottle conditioned for 2+ weeks so far has come out properly carbonated for my tastes. *knock on wood*
I guess the question would be, how much priming sugar are you using? Is that amount being changed each batch or are you being consistent? What are you using to prime your beer?
Good Luck!!
also, are you bottling at the same time after fermentation each time. are you checking the gravity of your beer before bottling? i only ask this, because my carbonation levels were equally erratic before i began monitoring my fermentation, to be sure it was complete before i bottled. i think sometimes i was bottling too early, and getting over carbonated beer even though i was careful about using equal amounts of priming sugar.
Go to a corny keg first.... Right from the secondery... add your CO2... no priming sugar needed since your brew will be getting it carbon from the keg... Once this is done you can use a counterflow setup... You'll already have the CO2 and the bottles.... All carbonated all the same.... Very Nice.... TheJet
Jet, he's talking about bottles, your post makes absolutely no sense.
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