Ph change ..what to do?

I finally got the chance to bottle the blonde last night and here's the latest results:

My beer pH was 4.0 having come down a full point from my pre pitch pH of 5.0 and if I wrote things down correctly in the notes I took from a Podcast that John Palmer was on, I'm a little bit to the tart side of where finished beer is supposed to be. My notes say that fermented wort is supposed to be around 4.2. Below that is headed for tartness and above is flat. Did I get that right? Are you more experienced brewers familiar with that benchmark? And yes, I'm still using litmus paper.

The batch was in the carboy for 12 days after becoming still at around 7 days. I wound up with just about 3.5 gallons which I am not happy about but all in all, what got bottled last night was not too bad. I expected more hoppiness out of this recipe and we'll see how that plays out with conditioning. Original SG was 1051 and last night I was at 1014 which the calculators on this site says I have and ABV 4.86, higher than the target of the recipe! Given that tartness, I used a whole bag of priming sugar, 5 oz or 141.75g for those watching in metric, to offset that tartness; so either I have made some bottle bombs or this may turn out to be a decent batch of brew despite things!

Also, HM...I have started in on the articles, great stuff and thank you for taking the time to share the knowledge.

W
 
"Given that tartness, I used a whole bag of priming sugar, 5 oz or 141.75g for those watching in metric, to offset that tartness; so either I have made some bottle bombs or this may turn out to be a decent batch of brew despite things!"

Priming sugar should only be used for carbonation. Table sugar is not going to add anything to charge the tartness. For a 3.5 gallon batch 5oz of priming sugar is a lot. Did you use the priming sugar calculator on here?
 
Blackmuse said:
For a 3.5 gallon batch 5oz of priming sugar is a lot. Did you use the priming sugar calculator on here?
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Um...no...didn't even know there was one...maybe I'll be posting to that "you know you screwed up" thread....
 
Ward Chillington said:
Um...no...didn't even know there was one...maybe I'll be posting to that "you know you screwed up" thread....
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I might suggest storing them somewhere where flying glass and spilled beer will not be an issue. Normal dosing for priming sugar is around 4 ounces, you just put 16 in, if you used a pound bag, around 4x what you need. Oh, and adding sugar to a beer will not reduce tartness unless you add an unfermentable sugar like lactose. Fermentable sugar will create more alcohol, thin the body and contribute no flavor other than the alcohol.
 
Ward Chillington said:
Um...no...didn't even know there was one...maybe I'll be posting to that "you know you screwed up" thread....
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Maybe... Putting the bottles in a tote as others have mentioned is not a bad idea. Putting them in sub 70 degree temps (like a basement) might not be a bad idea either as it might slow them down a little. Try one after a week and see what the carbonation is like. It will most likely taste "green" as they say.

For fun, go to the priming sugar calculator here and see what Co2 levels you are likely to get with what you added for the batch.
 
Actually, I just fiddled with the priming calculator myself and at 3.5 Gallons if your beer was 68 degrees at bottling time, you may end up with a volume of roughly 3.6 Co2... While you certainly weren't making a hefeweizen, you may not end up with bottle bombs. It'll be over-carbonated but my guess is you should be fine.

How cold was the beer when you bottled?

(I may be doing something wrong myself when I use the calculator but I tend to end up with more carbonation than expected when I follow the calculator. Thus, I have started to use the low end of the style guidelines.)
 
Was it a pound? If so, rough guess, I get somewhere over 6 volumes of CO2 - the calulator won't go that high! And I just saw you were bottling 3.5 gallons.... If you did put a pound of sugar in 3.5 gallons of beer, either vent them immediately or stay out of the storage area until they all go off. Our standard thin-walled bottles are considered "safe" to 3 vols, most of us have put more pressure on them than that and survived. You are putting well over six vols in them. This is a safety problem.
 
Nosybear said:
Was it a pound? If so, rough guess, I get somewhere over 6 volumes of CO2 - the calulator won't go that high! And I just saw you were bottling 3.5 gallons.... If you did put a pound of sugar in 3.5 gallons of beer, either vent them immediately or stay out of the storage area until they all go off. Our standard thin-walled bottles are considered "safe" to 3 vols, most of us have put more pressure on them than that and survived. You are putting well over six vols in them. This is a safety problem.
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Ah! I get now why you think a pound - he said "whole bag" (5lb?) but he meant a whole bag of the stuff you can purchase specifically for brewing. 5oz is what is recommended to beginning brewers for a 5 gallon batch to keep things simple.
 
Bottles in totes...totes in basement.....yeah...for fun!

Blackmuse, thanks for clearing up the dosing. Yes. 5 oz to keep it simple. The basement is gonna be around 67-68 degrees F which should slow thing down a bit. The temp of the beer when I bottled was around 70 degrees I would say. One thing I did do this time was to use a small plastic bottle water bottle as a control to see how much carbonation I was getting....harder bottle = more carbination was the thought process there and that seems to be true...that and the concave bottom has become convex!!
 
Thanks for the clarification! I've never bought corn sugar in amounts less than a pound. I was thinking your basement would be a war zone.... Instead, you're going to get some rather fizzy beer, but safe. Like the small plastic bottle idea but make sure it's sanitary; otherwise, you might be getting readings from bacteria breaking down unfermentable stuff.
 
I'd personally still play it safe but it's not the end of the world, during the most recent competition I saw one bottle gush to the ceiling and dump the entire contents on the counter. The bottle didn't explode though.
 
Nosybear said:
Like the small plastic bottle idea but make sure it's sanitary; otherwise, you might be getting readings from bacteria breaking down unfermentable stuff.
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Yeah, I can't recall where I read that but I thought it was a good way of getting an early indicator on things working right. This little guy took a soak in SanStar before getting some of the blonde brew. I'm calling this batch "lightning strike blonde" for the storm that took out my neighbor's microwave and ceiling fan while I was brewing this....now it just needs to stay in the bottle! Hmmm...lighting in a bottle....

botttle.jpg
 
Ward Chillington said:
Yeah, I can't recall where I read that but I thought it was a good way of getting an early indicator on things working right. This little guy took a soak in SanStar before getting some of the blonde brew. I'm calling this batch "lightning strike blonde" for the storm that took out my neighbor's microwave and ceiling fan while I was brewing this....now it just needs to stay in the bottle! Hmmm...lighting in a bottle....

View attachment 3456
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Oh yeah BABY!:p adds a new edge to opening a beer:). Chill em down good before opening day all week nice anf cold hopefully will absorb some of the explosive power waiting to be unleased.
 
Well, blondie stayed in the bottle and is not overly carbed….but, I do have a chill haze thing going on so I am dropping each bottle in an ice bath for about 20 minutes to get it a little cooler than the 68 degree basement.
20180726_204735.jpg
 
Ward Chillington said:
Well, blondie stayed in the bottle and is not overly carbed….but, I do have a chill haze thing going on so I am dropping each bottle in an ice bath for about 20 minutes to get it a little cooler than the 68 degree basement. View attachment 3580
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Awesome well thats a win! Carbonation must be good:)
 
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