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Nubie question about first ever brew.


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44 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

I never had lid loosen at anytime in their lives, I have some bottles that are two years in and no problems other than lack of carb sugar so in your case probably not tight enough in the first instance.   if you are getting a 1/4 turn extra later on then definitely not tightened enough to begin with.  As stated previously I just use one of those jar opening map jiggers and double check all the caps after I have cleaned up on bottling day.  No need for multi-grips with a gorilla like me. ha ha.  If I was to turn mine an extra 1/4 turn with multi-grips I would ruin the cap threads and strip it.

 

Not a quarter twist, definitely not that much

I hand-twist my caps on, and my hands tell me i twist 'em on securely

However, hand-twisting is obviously subjective and probably not consistent every bottle. I did mention dodgy wrists so while reading your reply, @iBooz2, maybe yes they are not capped properly to begin with...

I am more of a chimpanzee than a gorilla 😄

However I believe even a gibbon should be able to effectively twist-close the bottle caps as the videos demonstrate - no gorillas hand-wrenching caps with Ubertitanium grips in the vids! 

However II - for those like @Marty_G who have obviously evolved an opposable thumb, using multigrips or even a twist-style bottle opener are a great idea! 

However III - @iBooz2 also warns of the risk of stripping the thread by using tools (hands are pretty good at telling us a lot of info that tools cannot, too)

EDIT: However IV - @MUZZY provides a solution - a tea-towel! Half hand, half tool, best of both worlds... maybe this is the Missing Link...

Edited by Cee
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1 minute ago, Cee said:

 

Not a quarter twist, definitely not that much

I hand-twist my caps on, and my hands tell me i twist 'em on securely

However, hand-twisting is obviously subjective and probably not consistent every bottle. I did mention dodgy wrists so while reading your reply, @iBooz2, maybe yes they are not capped properly to begin with...

I am more of a chimpanzee than a gorilla 😄

However I believe even a gibbon should be able to effectively twist-close the bottle caps as the videos demonstrate - no gorillas hand-wrenching caps with Ubertitanium grips in the vids! 

However II - for those like @Marty_G who have obviously evolved an opposable thumb, using multigrips or even a twist-style bottle opener are a great idea! 

However III - @iBooz2 also warns of the risk of stripping the thread by using tools (hands are pretty good at telling us a lot of info that tools cannot, too)

 

I have only ever used my hands to fi the caps & only every now & then you might get a softish bottle or it has failed to carb, I make sure the are really tight & have checked some before fridging at times but never had any loose ones. 

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On 12/16/2021 at 11:31 AM, Mickep said:

I've had a couple of PETs which have carbonated well during conditioning, these bottles felt the same as the rest - solid as with no give. 9g/liter will do that. 😆 Put 'em in a fridge at 2.5 degrees and whamo these bottle's lost all their carbonation or near about.  

It's weird isn't it? Just recently I started cold crashing and bulk priming in the fv.

As with you a couple of bottles really flat after chilling despite feeling fully carbed before hand.

What the hell.....!

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2 minutes ago, Spursman said:

It's weird isn't it? Just recently I started cold crashing and bulk priming in the fv.

As with you a couple of bottles really flat after chilling despite feeling fully carbed before hand.

What the hell.....!

 

2 minutes ago, Spursman said:
On 12/16/2021 at 12:31 PM, Mickep said:

I've had a couple of PETs which have carbonated well during conditioning, these bottles felt the same as the rest - solid as with no give. 9g/liter will do that. 😆 Put 'em in a fridge at 2.5 degrees and whamo these bottle's lost all their carbonation or near about.  

It's weird isn't it? Just recently I started cold crashing and bulk priming in the fv.

As with you a couple of bottles really flat after chilling despite feeling fully carbed before hand.

What the hell.....!

Mate, @iBooz2has been addressing this in another thread on the same subject - food for thought.

 

iBooz2

  On 1/29/2022 at 3:11 AM, worry wort said:

thanks Shamus, the only issue with the priming sugar amount (I bulk prime) is that those that don't go flat are brilliant, good head and ringss all down the glass, its just one of lifes little mysteries....

Arh Har - there lies your problem, bulk priming and there is a scientific reason I do not do it with beer.

It is almost impossible to completely mix the sugar solution through the beer to get even distribution of the higher gravity sugar in every bottle.  You have a much better chance if you decant the beer off the yeast into another container and be able to mix it more thoroughly.

If you are just stirring the sugar solution in and trying not to disturb your yeast cake then you have pretty much no chance of even sugar amount in every bottle.  The sugar solution being a much higher gravity than your beer (maybe 1.060 or more whereas your FV beer maybe 1.010) will want to go pretty much to the bottom of your FV; the physics alone tells you that.  Stirring will arrest this phenomenon somewhat but not enough.

PET bottles are just plastic balloons and stretch when pressurized.  The problem bottles you are experiencing have not got enough sugar mix to overcome the bottle stretch and also provide enough head space pressure to force CO2 into the beer solution in those bottles and whats more important, maintain that pressure (carbonation) when the beer is subsequently chilled.  The beer in all bottles absorbs much more CO2 from the head space than if they were warm, hence some go soft when cold.

If you were to number and label your bottles at filling from say 1 to 30 you would find the first ones will be the best ones and somewhere near the end say 25 - 30 they will exhibit your problem.  WHY? Because the first filled bottle get slightly more than their fair share of the added sugar and the suspended yeast giving more than enough CO2 pressure to do the job even when chilled.  The last ones get short changed a bit so the head space pressure is not enough to overcome this absorption when chilled. 

If you were to line up your just filled bottles for 1 to 30 and do an accurate temperature adjusted hydrometer check on each one you will find they will all be different.

 

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