Over carbonated?

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Afternoon folks. I finally got round to trying my IPA which was bottled on the 3rd of July. The problem is the bottles fizz over like champagne that has been vigorously shaken leaving me with probably less than half of the 500ml that should be in the bottles.
I followed the bottling instructions to the letter which was 3 tablespoons of honey for a 1 gallon batch.
Here's my recipe so if anyone has any ideas as to what may be wrong it will be gratefully received.

Pale malt 820 grams
Caramel 20 170 grams
Biscuit malt 90 grams
Munich malt 45 grams

Columbus hops 3.0 grams
Cascade hops 3.0 grams 60mins
3.0 grams 45mins
3.0 grams 30mins
3.0 grams 15mins
3.0 grams 0mins

Dry hop with 3.0 grams Amarillo hops on the 28th June
Fermentation started again 28/06/17



OG:- 1.060
FG:- 1.008

Bottled 03/07/17
 
Been there, had that problem. Try one of these solutions. If you're lucky like I was then just sticking them in the fridge for a few hours will be enough to to tame the reaction. You also might want to keep the bottles somewhere where the damage will be contained if one explodes.
 
If they're screw top bottles you can relieve the pressure by undoing and redoing the lid quickly. I've done this a couple of times with a brew before and then they all settled down and opened as normal.
 
Afternoon folks. I finally got round to trying my IPA which was bottled on the 3rd of July. The problem is the bottles fizz over like champagne that has been vigorously shaken leaving me with probably less than half of the 500ml that should be in the bottles.
I followed the bottling instructions to the letter which was 3 tablespoons of honey for a 1 gallon batch.
...
3 tablespoon of honey per gallon is about the same as the usually quoted 1 teaspoon a pint (EDIT: It was 1/2 tsp, not one, see later post). But that will result in fairly lively beer. If on top of that the yeast finds some residual sugars to munch on (or it has had over a month to munch on sugars it found difficult to manage) that would explain the over-carbonation suggesting it should have been bottled later or with less priming sugar.

But advising what should have been is no help at all (except you can stop beating yourself up about it). The advise to get the temperature well down for a while is perhaps the best: If it is then too cold to drink put the glass aside for 1/2 hour or so before drinking.
 
Thanks for the answers folks. It's swing top bottles that I'm using so I won't be able to relieve the pressure a wee bit at a time.
I'll try sticking the remaining bottles in the fridge for a few days and see if that helps.
 
Where did the instructions come from? Making some rough calculations, for 1 gallon of beer you'll need about 15-20g of sugar to carbonate. However, you used 3 tablespoons of honey which is around 60g. Even allowing that honey has a slight water content, I estimate you added around 3 times the sugar required. Did it say Tablespoons or Teaspoons?

OG:- 1.060
FG:- 1.008

Gives 86% attenuation, which is expected, so I disagree with Peebee about bottling too soon. A month in the bottle isn't a really a long enough time for a small amount of yeast to make much further progress.

Use table sugar next time, using this calculator
 
Where did the instructions come from? Making some rough calculations, for 1 gallon of beer you'll need about 15-20g of sugar to carbonate. However, you used 3 tablespoons of honey which is around 60g. Even allowing that honey has a slight water content, I estimate you added around 3 times the sugar required. Did it say Tablespoons or Teaspoons?
I got the instructions from the Brooklyn Brew Shop book. However although I enjoy the book and it's ideas for new recipes, I think I'll only use it for a base idea in future.
This is because a previous recipe I followed by the letter for their Edelweiss recipe (wheat beer) cleary stated no bottle carbonation and although the beer tasted good I hated the fact that it was as flat as a pancake; I managed to rescue the remaining 4 bottles by adding honey and thankfully they weren't bottle bombs [emoji6]
So as I've said the book will be used for recipe ingredients from now on and I'll ask on here for any other aspects I'm not sure of.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
A google of "brooklyn brew shop overcarbonated" returns a fair few results.:doh: Possible typo in the instructions?
 
... which is expected, so I disagree with Peebee about bottling too soon. A month in the bottle isn't a really a long enough time for a small amount of yeast to make much further progress. ...
Damn, I've been rumbled. I failed to notice it had got down to 1.008. Although my last brew got to 1.003 (I consider that to be pretty weird).

Where did the instructions come from? Making some rough calculations, for 1 gallon of beer you'll need about 15-20g of sugar to carbonate. However, you used 3 tablespoons of honey which is around 60g. Even allowing that honey has a slight water content, I estimate you added around 3 times the sugar required. ...
The "old way" was add 1 level teaspoon (see EDIT below!) sugar per pint; at 4g per level teaspoon that's 32g per gallon. Which makes for pretty fizzy beer, but not unmanageably so. So I was looking for something else that might have resulted in the over-carbonation.

My information actually had more grams of honey per tablespoon - 30g, so the instructions are asking for a total of 90g of honey (3 tablespoons so 3x30g). Because of the water content that's going to be about 75g sugar.

So "Sadfield" and I might have arrived at a conclusion differently, but the conclusion has to be the same. Far too much priming was added, probably because of a mix up with teaspoons and tablespoons.

Anyway, enough sleuthing. Advise is the same. Get the bottles cold (1C if you can - careful not freeze them or they will break), open, pour and allow to warm up to a drinkable temperature.


(EDIT: Oops, back in distant history when I used to bottle it was 1/2 teaspoon sugar per pint, not one! That's 16-20 grams per gallon; I'm in agreement with "Sadfield" on that one now. But one teaspoon was quoted for highly carbonated drinks like "lager" - the definition being somewhat simplistic back then. So I haven't suggested anything dangerous; well not too dangerous.)
 
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A couple of days in the fridge has done the trick, thanks folks
 
Hmm...
Just made a honey ale - and the recipe calls for adding the honey 5 minutes before the end of the boil to sterilise it. Reason being that honey contains all sorts of wild bacteria and probably yeasts too. Which would account for your fizzy bottles. Wild yeast often is the cause of `gushers' - in my experience the beers taste is unaffected but because wild yeasts can slowly eat sugars that commercial yeasts can't you get serious overcarbonation.
So personally I'd stick to ordinary sugar for bottling.
 
Hmm...
Just made a honey ale - and the recipe calls for adding the honey 5 minutes before the end of the boil to sterilise it. Reason being that honey contains all sorts of wild bacteria and probably yeasts too. Which would account for your fizzy bottles. Wild yeast often is the cause of `gushers' - in my experience the beers taste is unaffected but because wild yeasts can slowly eat sugars that commercial yeasts can't you get serious overcarbonation.
So personally I'd stick to ordinary sugar for bottling.

Thanks I reckon I'll stick to normal sugar for bottling duties from now on. :thumb:
 

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