A bottle grenaded

[Joerg]

Two days ago we had a mess in the kitchen. Beer oozing out of a cabinet,
glass everywhere inside. One of the Cream Ale bottles had grenaded.

I did use the full 5oz of priming sugar on the 5 gallon batch but
carbonation isn't excessive. I'd say about normal. Cabinet temperareu
was 68-69F. I will reduce to 4oz sugar next time but my question is: Is
it still such a fine line between grenading and enough cabonation?

It was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottle (small style 12oz brown glass).

[baloonon]

Post by Joerg
Two days ago we had a mess in the kitchen. Beer oozing out of
a cabinet, glass everywhere inside. One of the Cream Ale bottles
had grenaded.
I did use the full 5oz of priming sugar on the 5 gallon batch but
carbonation isn't excessive. I'd say about normal. Cabinet temperareu
was 68-69F. I will reduce to 4oz sugar next time but my question
is: Is it still such a fine line between grenading and enough
cabonation?
It was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottle (small style 12oz brown glass).

Be careful. It may just be the first. If you can, move them somewhere
cooler.

There's no easy answer why it happens. Sometimes it's an infection,
sometimes it's incomplete fermentation, sometimes it's a bad bottle,
sometimes it's poor mixing of the priming sugar. I suspect that
sometimes it's extra yeast getting in some bottles, or a lot of oxygen
getting into the beer at bottling time that is reactivating the yeast,
and I think some yeasts such as 1968 tend to go haywire, although I've
seen less testimony about these causes.

In general, though, I think priming calculators tend to call for too
much sugar.

If it's a regular recipe, experimenting is pretty easy. Transfer half
of the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket with one level of
priming sugar, and then bottle and mark the caps. Then transfer the
rest of the beer with a lower (or higher) level of priming sugar, then
bottle and put a different mark on the caps.

[Joerg]

Post by baloonon

Post by Joerg
Two days ago we had a mess in the kitchen. Beer oozing out of
a cabinet, glass everywhere inside. One of the Cream Ale bottles
had grenaded.
I did use the full 5oz of priming sugar on the 5 gallon batch but
carbonation isn't excessive. I'd say about normal. Cabinet temperareu
was 68-69F. I will reduce to 4oz sugar next time but my question
is: Is it still such a fine line between grenading and enough
cabonation?
It was a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottle (small style 12oz brown glass).

Be careful. It may just be the first. If you can, move them somewhere
cooler.

I did immediately :-)

Post by baloonon
There's no easy answer why it happens. Sometimes it's an infection,
sometimes it's incomplete fermentation, sometimes it's a bad bottle,
sometimes it's poor mixing of the priming sugar. I suspect that
sometimes it's extra yeast getting in some bottles, or a lot of oxygen
getting into the beer at bottling time that is reactivating the yeast,
and I think some yeasts such as 1968 tend to go haywire, although I've
seen less testimony about these causes.

This one was Safale US-05.

Post by baloonon
In general, though, I think priming calculators tend to call for too
much sugar.

Good point. Will keep it under 4oz of corn sugar tomorrow.

Post by baloonon
If it's a regular recipe, experimenting is pretty easy. Transfer half
of the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket with one level of
priming sugar, and then bottle and mark the caps. Then transfer the
rest of the beer with a lower (or higher) level of priming sugar, then
bottle and put a different mark on the caps.

Or just dial it in with the whole 5 gallons. I'll err a bit on the low
side tomorrow and see. My wife and I are ok with a lower carbonation and
head on the beer. I keep a computer database about the brew runs so
dialing-in should be easy over the long run.

Some day I might splurge and buy something like the BeerSmith software.

[baloonon]

Post by Joerg
Some day I might splurge and buy something like the BeerSmith software.

There's free software for Windows called BrewersFriend which is worth
checking out.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/windows/

There's an older version called BeerMate which you can also get for free by
googling around a bit.

They're not as detailed as BeerSmith but the price is right, and they're
useful for keeping records and doing basic calculations like IBUs and SRM
and gravities. There are other tools included like carbonation calculators
and boiloff calculators and the like. You can configure the inputs if you
like, so if you want to kohlrabi or something else weird into the boil, as
long as you can find info on it, you can modify the tables.

[Joerg]

Post by baloonon

Post by Joerg
Some day I might splurge and buy something like the BeerSmith software.

There's free software for Windows called BrewersFriend which is worth
checking out.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/windows/
There's an older version called BeerMate which you can also get for free by
googling around a bit.
They're not as detailed as BeerSmith but the price is right, and they're
useful for keeping records and doing basic calculations like IBUs and SRM
and gravities. There are other tools included like carbonation calculators
and boiloff calculators and the like. You can configure the inputs if you
like, so if you want to kohlrabi or something else weird into the boil, as
long as you can find info on it, you can modify the tables.

Thanks! That sure is worth cheking out. I am still a recipe kit brewer
but eventually I want to move towards own recipes.

The other more pressing problem I have to solve is the burner. Currently
I brew in our kitchen where the electric range has 2kW burners and that
works. But schlepping the heavy pot several flights of stairs to the
pool for cooling is tough and risky. The 1kW portable burner ain't
cutting it and 230V/2kW can only be obtained overseas. Which I might
have to do and then run 240V down there. Or I'll look into an
induction-compatible pot and get an induction plate (my current pot
won't work for that).

[Derek J Decker]

Post by baloonon

Post by Joerg
Some day I might splurge and buy something like the BeerSmith software.

There's free software for Windows called BrewersFriend which is worth
checking out.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/windows/
There's an older version called BeerMate which you can also get for free by
googling around a bit.

<snip>

I've been using BrewTarget <http://www.brewtarget.org/> pretty much since I've
started homebrewing. It's free and Open Source, and runs on Linux, Mac and
Windows. Worth a look.

For priming calculations, when I'm using a priming sugar that BrewTarget doesn't
contain in its priming calculator (like, er, honey) I go to the Priming Sugar
Calculator at Northern Brewer <http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/>

The calculators at quaff.org <http://quaff.org/brewblog/index.php?page=tools>
are also handy.

Hope that helps,

-Derek