Fizzy Beer

[DaveR1]

Hi,

 

We're pretty new at the Homebrew game and so far have sampled lager, dark ale and bitter. We were not impressed with the lager beer so moved onto darker ales but have so far found them to be really fizzy. We have tried using either dextrose or normal sugar then followed with the "coopers carbonation drops" but the result seems the same - REALLY fizzy beer. We let this last batch sit for 6 weeks prior to drinking and there hasn't been any real change.

 

Any suggestions for making the next one smoother and less "burpy" would be really appreciated.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[MatR1]

What's your priming rate? How many drops, how much sugar and what size bottles?

[PB2]

Along with MatR1's (you can change your alias if you want, by clicking on your name at the top left of the screen) questions...

 

What was the recipe and what was the SG when you bottled?

[DaveR1]

MattR1

- 2 carb drops/750mL bottle.

- 1kg sugar to 23L of water

 

PB2

- the recipe was off the coopers brew can (latest was dark ale) calling for 23 L of water, 1 can brew, 1 packet yeast, 1kg sugar.

- We've made 3 brews (dark ale, bitter, dark ale) SG at bottling 1008, 1012, 1016 respectively.

 

Thanks for any suggestions you guys might have.

[MATTB8]

i made the mistake recently of bottling Coopers blonde after 6 days. Way to early ,too fizzy and undrinkable,nearly. the yeast hasn't gobbled up all the sugar. Wait 12-14 days, especially in cold weather, maybe 10 in summer.

[PB2]

Looks like the brew still had fermentable sugar in it before you bottled. A colder brew will take longer to reach final gravity.

 

If you have used 1kg of white sugar (sucrose) you should expect the brew to finish fermenting at around the 1004 - 1006 mark.

 

If you have used PET bottles, you could try releasing the head pressure off a few bottles to normalise CO2 levels - just like you would if somebody shook up your bottle of soft drink. It might need a few pressure releases over a week to come right.

[Slurtis Staggersalot]

I tried the carb drops and didn't like them, I bulk prime now that I have a bottling bucket. The beauty of bulk priming is that you can adjust your priming rates to suite your preference of fizz I recently made an english bitter and it turned out too fizzy, so I open two beer at once and let one start to go flat on the counter while I drink the other. Next time I'll just use less priming sugar...