Hi all,
Last year I brewed a Brewferm Christmas Beer. I started it late July with a SG of 1065°, had difficulty getting it down to the bottling gravity of 1020° (took a month) and it ended up as fizzy is a fizzy thing - even blew the bottoms off a couple of bottles (all over my parents carpet!) and had a massive sediment bed in the bottom of each bottle which exploded into the beer as soon as the cap was popped making the beautifully ruby red crystal clear beer instantly cloudy again.
This year I started the same brew nearly 2 months earlier (beginning of June) and had the same problem getting it down to the 1020° but this time had extra time planned in to do a secondary fermentation to try to reduce the yeast bed. Unfortunately, before I got to the secondary fermentation our house got trashed with a minor flood which took weeks to get sorted and was then followed by weeks and weeks of busy weekends and summer holidays. Anyhow, after nearly 4 months in the primary fermenter, this weekend I finally got around to bottling. As the brew had been sitting so long it had got down to its FG of 1006° (giving an ABV of 7.9% B-)), in order to get some carbonation going over the next 3 months, I primed each bottle with ½ tsp brewers sugar. The instructions say not to do this but at the same time the brew was supposed to be bottled at 1020°, not 1006°.
After my experience of last year I'm rather keen to avoid bottle bombs. My question is: do think I've added the right amount of sugar, or have I even left it too late?
Many thanks!
Dave
Last year I brewed a Brewferm Christmas Beer. I started it late July with a SG of 1065°, had difficulty getting it down to the bottling gravity of 1020° (took a month) and it ended up as fizzy is a fizzy thing - even blew the bottoms off a couple of bottles (all over my parents carpet!) and had a massive sediment bed in the bottom of each bottle which exploded into the beer as soon as the cap was popped making the beautifully ruby red crystal clear beer instantly cloudy again.
This year I started the same brew nearly 2 months earlier (beginning of June) and had the same problem getting it down to the 1020° but this time had extra time planned in to do a secondary fermentation to try to reduce the yeast bed. Unfortunately, before I got to the secondary fermentation our house got trashed with a minor flood which took weeks to get sorted and was then followed by weeks and weeks of busy weekends and summer holidays. Anyhow, after nearly 4 months in the primary fermenter, this weekend I finally got around to bottling. As the brew had been sitting so long it had got down to its FG of 1006° (giving an ABV of 7.9% B-)), in order to get some carbonation going over the next 3 months, I primed each bottle with ½ tsp brewers sugar. The instructions say not to do this but at the same time the brew was supposed to be bottled at 1020°, not 1006°.
After my experience of last year I'm rather keen to avoid bottle bombs. My question is: do think I've added the right amount of sugar, or have I even left it too late?
Many thanks!
Dave
