Bottling too early & gushers

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I think I may have bottled one of my batches too early as all of them are gushers, not bad ones but enough. Taste is fine.

They were bottled after 14 days FG 1012 back in July. I measured the gravity of the bottled beer yesterday (8th Oct) once the head had died down and it was 1010. I was kinda surprised that a 2 point difference was enough to produce gushers - any thoughts?
 
I think I may have bottled one of my batches too early as all of them are gushers, not bad ones but enough. Taste is fine.

They were bottled after 14 days FG 1012 back in July. I measured the gravity of the bottled beer yesterday (8th Oct) once the head had died down and it was 1010. I was kinda surprised that a 2 point difference was enough to produce gushers - any thoughts?



Two thoughts - did you chill before opening ?

Don’t know if this is the right thing to do but I tend to take a few readings leading up to bottle time and only bottle when they don’t differ, ie I know primary has stopped.


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An approximation??
If you punch 600g cane sugar into Brewers Friend for 20 litres it gives an SG 1.012. Ditto 500g gives 1.010. There's a bit of +/- on sugar quantities for the same SG but as an approximation, and effect of alcohol on SG aside, that's saying there is roughly 100g of sugar difference, which is significant especially if you primed your beer for high CO2 vols.
 
I think I may have bottled one of my batches too early as all of them are gushers, not bad ones but enough. Taste is fine.

They were bottled after 14 days FG 1012 back in July. I measured the gravity of the bottled beer yesterday (8th Oct) once the head had died down and it was 1010. I was kinda surprised that a 2 point difference was enough to produce gushers - any thoughts?

depends what fg you were expecting from the yeast and the ingredients.

MJ's saison yeast will regularly get sub 1.006 but that's about right for their wheat beer. I've bottled early when a few points above what I want, I just use less priming sugar and that then works out ok although takes longer to carb up for some reason. if they are gushers super chill them and pour into a jug first seems to be the standard advice!
 
The difference between 1.012 and 1.010 is equivalent to (if my maths are correct) adding about 5.2g of table sugar per litre. That on its own is enough to carbonate to around 2.1 vol/CO2 so it is quite considerable.
 
I've had gushers in the past which I tracked down to one of my FVs which was getting a bit grubby. Took the tap off, bleached everything. No more gushers.
So I'm guessing wild yeast of some sort as they carry on slowly fermenting after commercial yeasts stop. The beer always tasted fine in mine as well.
 
Thanks guys.

I've also had gushers in the past that were due to wild yeast, they were accompanied by horrible tasting beer. This isn't the case: the beer tastes great and they are only midly gushing (the other ones literally hit the ceiling when I opened them!). If I chill them, I can pour them fine but the beer is gassy.

I wouldn't normally have bottled on Day14 but I was about to go on holiday and didn't want to leave the brew for another 2 weeks, Lesson learned I guess. As to target FG, it's always 1010ish as I tend to brew ales, I wouldn't know what a Saison is :)
 

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