Lawrence Brewers Guild

Brewed an IPA 5 weeks ago today, it sat for three weeks in a 6.5 gallon carboy and we bottled it. We hit our numbers, OG was 1055 FG 1010. Some temperature issues in the fermenter but nothing too extreme. Tried a couple bottles at a week old and they were green, but seemed well on there way to greatness. The next week we drank a couple more that were awful. Off tastes, over carbonated ( I followed the applicable table for priming sugar) a little bit of a cleanser feel. All that said, I popped one open last night and it poured perfectly and tasted great. So what happened with those two foul bottles? I baked all the bottles for an hour at 350 covered and wet. used star san on all bottling equipment. Mixed the boiled and cooled priming sugar into the bottling bucket gently after racking. any ideas?

All being the same, I am wondering if it doesn"t boil down to the bottle caps themselves... How were they treated on bottling day?

they were swingtops, pulled them out of a bucket of star san and plopped them on.

My guess is that you did not get your priming sugar distributed evenly into your beer. If it was just powder, it had not fully dissolved.

The extra carbonation was too much sugar and the foul taste was yeast bite.

Just a guess

i boiled the priming sugar, about 3/4 cup of corn sugar, in 2 cups of water and allowed it to cool. Transferred beer from primary to bottling bucket and then added the priming solution to that and stirred gently. Perhaps I was a little too paranoid about stirring up sediment and oxidizing the beer and didn't stir it up enough?

I don't fault your technique, which appears fine.

What can happen is that concentrations of higher specific gravity sugar can stratify into a layer which is generally at the bottom of the bottling bucket. after adding the sugar solution use your spoon and pull from the bottom up to the top of the bucket. The small amount of oxygen that is pulled into the beer plus the head space oxygen in the bottle will be consumed by the yeast when it consumes the sugar to carbonate the bottled beer.

3/4 cup of corn sugar is not an over amount of sugar, about 2.5 to 2.75 volumes of CO2 depending on the free CO2 in the beer at the standing temperature.

As you consume your bottles of beer take notice as to whether some are over carbonated and some appear to be fine. As the beer ages, the yeast bite will go away and carbonation is all that is left behind. The yeast will settle to the bottom of the bottle so look for varying layers of sediment.

Looking at the layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottles will indicate if there was extra sugar available for the yeast to consume which turns into more yeast.

I, like you will be priming with corn sugar before long on a Belgian that has been in the carboy for 3 months. In this case, fresh yeast (50 ml) of yeast and bugs will be added at high foam for a 5 gallon batch of beer.

You should be fine and enjoy your beer - good stuff!

Assuming that there was enough of a mix of the sugar and beer, I would not worry about bottle bombs since a standard bottle can take about 3 volumes of CO2.

I can tell you stories of watching at PET cola bottle taking all the winkles out of the bottle with an experiment of excess sugar

Enjoy!