Home Brewing with Kingnat

[kingnat]

Kingnat,

Well I did it! Made the first batch , an amber ale, came out good! One question, I noticed some bottles have more or less carbonation in them? has this ever happened to you or anyone who homebrews here?

next batch will be a belgian ale

Congrats on the first batch, the more you do the more addicting it is. Personally I need to invite friends over every now and then to help me finish my backlog of beers because I make more than I'm capable of drinking. My version of philanthropy, win-win.

Regarding carbonation issues....
Books will tell you that over carbonation is either one of two things: 1. bacteria. 2. Over-priming. I think the problem you describe is neither, since some bottles are over, some are under.

My best guess is that you've got to make sure your priming sugars or malts are mixed really well and evenly in with the wort before bottling. You can't violently stir (since you don't want to introduce a lot of oxygen) but you still have to make sure all parts of the wort have gotten its fair share. I like to stir in a circular motion then sort of lift it up and push it down while it swirls to get a good even distribution before establishing your siphon. I stir for a good 60 seconds as I slowly mix in the sugars.

Other thing to keep in mind is it helps to dissolve your sugars in water, boil, and let cool (keep covered) before you prime. Putting it in as a liquid is good because it will distribute easier and more evenly in the wort (no clumps of sugar involved), and boiling is good because if there are any stray airborne bacteria on the crystals you take care of any problem they might introduce.

I'm sure there are other techniques but this is a primitive but effective way to deal with the issue. Happy brewing

thanks. I actually did dissolve the sugar in boiling water, per the instructions, but maybe i didn't stir it thoroughly enough I am guessing? Hopefully the issue won't happen again. And yes, can't wait to make the next batch

Alright.. finding people posting in the Home-brew thread (even from several weeks earlier) makes me happy too. If you want to stir it up, make damn sure you sanitize that spoon AND be gentle. Oxygen is NOT our friend at this point. Just a quick check... I'm assuming you are using pop-top bottle caps only. I had a neighbor who used twist offs, and roughly half of them didn't seal properly and were totally flat.

I don't stir and do mix the appropriate amount of sugar with boiling water and put that in the bottom of my bottling bucket. Then as I syphon off the beer (it's not really wort at his point is it Saucy?) I make sure I have enough hose to wrap at least a little bit around the bottom of the bucket, such that it automatically creates a swirling action. Does that make sense?

Another side note on carbonation... I used cane sugar during bottling a couple of times. Wow. DO NOT WANT. GL!