EMERGENCY (to save my batch)

RASteel

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So, I recently brewed a Pale Ale that smells delicious and looked like it was going to turn out to be one of my best brews yet. However, last night I saw that they had begun to leak out the tops when I went to check on them. I bottled them roughly 48 hours ago. (This happened with my last batch too, so I dialed back the C02; so I thought)




I quickly went to degas all them and then recapped them. Should this be enough to save them?

There were a few that I combined to make full beers as a few had leaked a significant amount. Will they still carb properly?



Should I monitor these bottles and degas them again? Or will they typically be fine? I was also carbing them upside down (something I thought was necessary, but found out not everyone does this) They are not right side up.

It is weird; I used cane sugar to prime 2 gallons of beer at 65F at roughly 2.2 volume of CO2. This gave me 1.27 ounces via a calculator to prime.
Did I calculate correctly?
My last 2 batches using this sugar have caused bottles to leak like this... thinking I might just purchase corn sugar as I have never had problems with it.




Any tips or advice would be appreciated!
 
My first thought is did you check for a stable final gravity before bottling? My guess is that the beer wasn't fully fermented when it went into the bottle. I have had some luck with degassing, but in reality it is a bit of a crapshoot. Monitor the bottles and degas again if necessary, but in the meantime keep them in the fridge to slow down fermentation.
 
My first thought is did you check for a stable final gravity before bottling? My guess is that the beer wasn't fully fermented when it went into the bottle. I have had some luck with degassing, but in reality it is a bit of a crapshoot. Monitor the bottles and degas again if necessary, but in the meantime keep them in the fridge to slow down fermentation.

If I keep in the fridge won't this ultimately stop that carbing process all together? Considering I degassed them, I would want some C02 to gas before doing so?

The beer had fermented for 3 weeks, however did not use a hydrometer this time around because of the small batch size and did not want to waste some of the beer. I used Safale US 05. Surely the beer had been fully fermented.
 
If I keep in the fridge won't this ultimately stop that carbing process all together? Considering I degassed them, I would want some C02 to gas before doing so?

The beer had fermented for 3 weeks, however did not use a hydrometer this time around because of the small batch size and did not want to waste some of the beer. I used Safale US 05. Surely the beer had been fully fermented.

I can't imagine being over carbonated after only 48 hour unless you grossly over primed or low temperature had stalled fermentation and it restarted after bottling. Since you stored them upside down, I'd suspect a capper/cap problem or bottles that aren't compatible with the capper. If it turns out that this is the case, get a bench capper.
 
What he said^^^
With properly sealed caps, if they're over carbed, they'll blow before they leak. If they leak, they were never going to hold carb pressure anyway. I'd have simply run the existing caps through the capper again to tighten them up and hoped for the best.
 
I missed the part about them being stored upside down, I would agree with Bob that you seem to have a capping problem.
 
What he said^^^
With properly sealed caps, if they're over carbed, they'll blow before they leak. If they leak, they were never going to hold carb pressure anyway. I'd have simply run the existing caps through the capper again to tighten them up and hoped for the best.

I bought these caps from northern brewer and use the standard capper?? I mean, there is a chance this may be the case. Might just got ahead and buy all new caps as they are inexpensive. Just seems odd that my last two batches have had issues with this cane sugar I have been using..

Any recommendations?
 
I can't imagine being over carbonated after only 48 hour unless you grossly over primed or low temperature had stalled fermentation and it restarted after bottling. Since you stored them upside down, I'd suspect a capper/cap problem or bottles that aren't compatible with the capper. If it turns out that this is the case, get a bench capper.

Low temperature does not seem likely. Temperature hovers around 68-72 in the closest that I keep the beer during fermentation.

So, to be clear, I do not need to condition the beer upside down? For some reason I had read that it was necessary to do so.
 
What he said^^^
With properly sealed caps, if they're over carbed, they'll blow before they leak. If they leak, they were never going to hold carb pressure anyway. I'd have simply run the existing caps through the capper again to tighten them up and hoped for the best.

I mean, they kind of blew in a sense. As in the beer had spewed out the sides over night once the beer had C02?

If it were a capping issue wouldn't I know almost immediately after I turn those bottles upside down?
 
Low temperature does not seem likely. Temperature hovers around 68-72 in the closest that I keep the beer during fermentation.

So, to be clear, I do not need to condition the beer upside down? For some reason I had read that it was necessary to do so.

Bottles should not be conditioned upside down. I have read about people upending bottled to resuspend yeast when it settled out before a beer was fully carbonated due to cold temperature.
 
I bought these caps from northern brewer and use the standard capper?? I mean, there is a chance this may be the case. Might just got ahead and buy all new caps as they are inexpensive. Just seems odd that my last two batches have had issues with this cane sugar I have been using..

Any recommendations?
Well, it's true that you may have an issue with over-carbing if you've been using a different sugar and have grossly miscalculated with the cane sugar. There's no inherent reason that the cane sugar should cause problems in and of itself...it's probably the most widely used priming sugar in homebrewing by far.
As for the leakage, all I can say is that when I was bottling a lot, I had my share of bombs and gushers and I never had a single case of a cap leaking.
And, like Bob says, no reason to condition upside down, anyway.
 
I bought these caps from northern brewer and use the standard capper?? I mean, there is a chance this may be the case. Might just got ahead and buy all new caps as they are inexpensive. Just seems odd that my last two batches have had issues with this cane sugar I have been using..

Any recommendations?
Unless all of these capes were from the same bag/package, I'd tend more to believe either a problem with the capper or bottles that aren't compatible with this style of capper.


Did you use different bottles for these last 2 batches? Were the caps you used for these batches from the same bunch of caps? EIther one of these things were different or your capper has developed a problem.
 
If it happens again I'd take a few bottles to northern brewer with your capper and some unused caps and ask them to help you figure it out.. that's what I'd do..
 

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