[messary7]

Hello all. Forgive the simplicity of the question as I am BRAND NEW to home brewing. I recently completed my first batch, an "all-in-one" kit given to me by my wife as a Christmas gift. I followed the directions to the letter and when I went to open the first bottle you would have thought I cracked a bottle of champagne....bubbles EVERYWHERE. And they kept coming. I let the bottle sit for a short while before pouring beer into a glass and even then the beer seemed to have a resurgence of energy. Liquid took up only 1/4 of the glass, the head the rest. So......anyone have any insight as to how the beer became over carbonated? Thank you advance!
Marc

[denny]

Generally, there are 2 causes of what you describe.  Both relate to continued fermentation in the bottle beyond what would be normal for carbonation.  One possible cause is contamination.  How does the beer taste?  It if tastes OK, this probably isn't it.  The other common cause is bottling to soon before fermentation is complete.  Did youuse a hydrometer to check the beginning and ending gravity of the beer to make sure it was dine before bottling?

[messary7]

Thank you for the quick reply! Addressing contamination: I followed the cleaning instructions well and the beer tasted..."ok". Not that it was sour by any means, but it was an IPA kit and it didn't really grab my attention. That said, I could always do better in preparing the tools for beer making. As far as checking the hydrometer: no. It was suggested, but not a mandatory step in the process. Sounds as if that may be my next purchase at the home brew store. I left the beer in the fermenting jug for the required time, but at what range on the hydrometer will I know the beer is "done"?

[Robert]

Thank you for the quick reply! Addressing contamination: I followed the cleaning instructions well and the beer tasted..."ok". Not that it was sour by any means, but it was an IPA kit and it didn't really grab my attention. That said, I could always do better in preparing the tools for beer making. As far as checking the hydrometer: no. It was suggested, but not a mandatory step in the process. Sounds as if that may be my next purchase at the home brew store. I left the beer in the fermenting jug for the required time, but at what range on the hydrometer will I know the beer is "done"?

Hydrometer is a must, and a cheap one will do you for now. 

If you take two hydrometer readings 48 hours apart  and they don't change at all, you're safe to prime and bottle.  The actual final gravity will vary by recipe, but its usually in the ballpark of roughly 25% of tje starting gravity. 

When you get a  hydrometer it should come with instructions for correcting for the temperature of the sample you're testing, pay attention to that (density of a solution decreases as temperature goes up so you need to convert it to a reading at the temperature your hydrometer is calibrated at.)

[messary7]

Thank you Rob. Great info!

[brew inspector01]

 So what was the "required amount of time"?  Instructions are rarely specific and just following instructions like "let ferment for 7 days" or "ferment for about a week" don't always work in every situation.

Also, how did you go about priming your bottled beer? Even if the beer was done fermenting when you bottled, it is possible that you added too much priming sugar for the amount of beer you had or primed bottles unevenly if you did not batch prime.  Kits often come with a certain amount of priming sugar for the amount of finished beer expected.  You may not have had the greatest possible volume expected resulting in over primed bottles.

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