Over carbonation with stouts

hypofix · January 11, 2012, 4:28am

Hello all!

I have 2-3 stout brews under my belt so far and I am having an issue with over carbonation in each one. I bottle only, no kegging. The latest I used about 3.5-4oz of the priming sugar I get with each of the northern brewers extract kits, and yet its over carb’d. At least I feel it is for a stout. My bottle conditioning temp has been a solid 70-72 degrees. Should I go lower than 3.5oz?

Also, while we are on the subject…Do different priming sugar options work better in different beer styles? For example, a honey may work well in a saison while a maple syrup works well in an imperial stout…I have studied the NB.coms sugar calculator, which I hope will help me in my future brews, but I have yet to read or find any info on specific priming sugars in specific beer styles…

Thanks for any help!

brewerbender · January 11, 2012, 4:42am

What is over carbed? Are the bottles spewing as soon as you open them, too much head on your pint? What temp are you fermenting at, this can make a difference as to how much priming sugar you use. As for what type of sugar you use to prime with there is not a huge difference in the caronation levels but some will tell you that you get a little bit of a flavor from one or the other.

BTW, the calculator I use suggested 3oz of corn sugar.

hypofix · January 12, 2012, 12:29am

its too much head on my pint. My secondary is fermenting at 70…give or take a degree or two…and the temp while I’m bottle conditioning is also at 70…give or take a degree or two…

I don’t have any bottles spewing out as soon as I open them, but I am getting some bubbling up.

Thanks for the help!

rbclay · January 12, 2012, 12:56am

couple suggestions:

always measure your priming sugar by weight NOT volume.
use an online calculator to tell you how much priming sugar to use. i like this one:

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/brew/widgets/bp.html

you need to base the amount of priming sugar on the volume of beer you are actually bottling- how much you have in your bottling bucket. rare is the 5 gallon batch that actually yields 5 gallons of bottled beer, yes?

also, the temp you want to plug into your calculator is the temp at which primary fermentation took place. that is not necessarily the temp at bottling. at least not in my experience.

the calculator will give you a range for the particular style you are bottling. ranges vary greatly.

take good notes so you can dial in what you like.

grainbelt · January 12, 2012, 2:30pm

[quote=“Hypofix”]Hello all!

I have 2-3 stout brews under my belt so far and I am having an issue with over carbonation in each one. I bottle only, no kegging. The latest I used about 3.5-4oz of the priming sugar I get with each of the northern brewers extract kits, and yet its over carb’d. At least I feel it is for a stout. My bottle conditioning temp has been a solid 70-72 degrees. Should I go lower than 3.5oz?

Also, while we are on the subject…Do different priming sugar options work better in different beer styles? For example, a honey may work well in a saison while a maple syrup works well in an imperial stout…I have studied the NB.coms sugar calculator, which I hope will help me in my future brews, but I have yet to read or find any info on specific priming sugars in specific beer styles…

Thanks for any help![/quote]

you need to use a priming calc to figure out what volume you want. Kist alwasy come with way more sugar than you need.
THere are a lot of factors that come into play when carbing

adam20 · January 12, 2012, 9:46pm

Ibrewmaster has the low end of a stout at 1.70 volumes C02. You should use just under 2.5 oz of corn sugar to carb to that level. According to ibrewmaster anyway.

adam20 · January 12, 2012, 9:49pm

I should mention the high end for a stout is 2.30 volumes of c02 and it takes just under 4 oz corn sugar to get there. So it seems like your carbing to the higher end.