I brewed a 5 gal batch of Caribou Slobber back in February. On bottling day I ran out of bottles and ended up leaving half of the batch sitting in the 5 gal bucket with Syran wrap for a lid, overnight. The next day I bottled the remaining batch. Some of the bottles were not pop tops, they were twist tops.
The first half of the batch was bottled in pop top bottles and the overall taste is decent. The issue I have with the first half is that it has too much carbonation and thus the head blows over. Why is this happening? I can pour the bottle into a cup and the same thing happens, over flows with head.
The second half of the batch that was left over night came out flat in both pop top and twist top bottles. I am guessing this is because of the fact I left it over night.
Any suggestions on why the first half of the batch over flows with head? Could I have messed something up in the whole process? Did I miss something maybe?
Probably used a little to much sugar or fermentation wasn’t complete on the first half.If you left the bucket overnight the sugar fermented leaving you not enough sugar to carb the bottles of the second batch. Just a guess.
My CS does the same thing. It seems that NB has a default mix amount listed on all of their instruction sheets. CS needs much less sugar according to what others told me http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=124871
. If I recall correctly this must be common as when my ex-wife made this batch it did the same thing. At first we assumed it was infection but now with my second batch of CS duplicating the results I’m going to say it’s the NB instructions saying use 2/3 cup when you probably only need 1/2 cup. I think it’s based not only the style but also the yeast and as we know the Windsor is a beast when it comes to fermentation.
I followed the directions provided in the kit. There are actually 2 sets of instructions for the priming suagr…the instructions in the kit and the instructions on the primary sugar bag itself. I followed the instructions on the paper, not on the priming sugar bag.
It makes sense that the second half left overnight would have fermented enough tyo cause the batch to turn out incorrectly.
How do you test the OG/FG? How do you calculate the amount of priming sugar needed?
Was this the caribou Slobber extract kit? The OG for an extract kit is as the recipe states if you use all the fermentables, and don’t add any extra. FG is measured with a hydrometer. Here is a link to using a hydrometer.
I’ll take my first SG reading at about day 14 after active fermentation had begun… The second SG reading is about day 18. Quite often the SG reading on day 18 is the same as the SG on day 14. This verifies FG has been reached. The second SG sample is also for checking whether the beer has cleared. I’ll usually bottle about day 21. By day 21 most of my beers have cleared and the yeast/trub layer is compacted. This reduces the chance of siphoning trub into the bottling bucket.
Your first bottles could be foamy for two reasons. You may have used to much priming sugar for the volume in the bottling bucket, or fermentation was not complete before you bottled. The packets of priming sugar included in a kit may be 5 ounces, or more than 5 ounces. Weighing out your priming sugar is much more accurate than going by volume. NB has a nice priming calculator that has weights, but also volumes.
I bought a digital kitchen scale, output can be shown in pounds and ounces, ounces, grams, and kilograms. I also use it in the kitchen for weighing recipe ingredients, especially for bread.
The second half of your bottles could be flat for two reasons, or a combination of both. The yeast may have fermented out the priming sugar over night, which is very likely, and twist top bottles do not seal well.
For the foamy bottles try this. Begin the pour slowly, with glass almost horizontal, dump the initial foam without tipping the bottle back up, and then finish the pour very slowly. You can also lift the edge of the bottle caps to release pressure, and reseal immediately. This will have to be done several times to drop the CO2 pressure to an acceptable level. Laying a quarter on the bottle cap will prevent creasing.
Also, my advice is to ditch the screw top bottles if you’re using a capper. Those suckers can break easily! You also may have had bottles that weren’t completely cleaned and sanitized. That can easily lead to an infection, resulting in overly foamy beer. I soak all of my bottles in PBW that I save from carboy cleaning in a five gallon bucket. When I pour out a beer I immediately rinse it out with hot water three times and then add it to the PBW bucket. When the bucket gets full of bottles I scrub each bottle with a bottle brush, triple rinse with hot water, dry and then store in a cool, dry place. On bottling day I submerge the bottles for two minutes in StarSan, drain and then fill with beer.
