Uh oh?? Is my Porter in danger of too much fizz?

[rockfish]

I bottled a couple brews last night and after I finished cleaning up and settled in bed it occured to me, my beloved Porter may be overcarbed. Here's the skinny - I mixed 5oz of sugar in 16oz of water (lukewarm of course), poured it in the bottling bucket, siphoned off the beer for mixing and proceeded as normal. The problem is that I didn't have a full 5 gallons of beer and mixed with all 5oz of sugar. I was about a half gallon shy by the looks of it. What should I expect when I pop the top and dive in for a taste?

A side note: the other beer, a Nut Brown, should be fine. I had a full 5 gallons. Sweeeet!

[bub]

1. you will probably not notice it at all
2. it is probably best practice to boil the water and sugar first..

[rockfish]

I did boil the water and sugar so at least that much was on track.

Thanks for the response. I sure hope your right.

[Lufah]

I think you'll be overcarbed, but not very bad. I wouldn't normally do 5oz for 5gal of porter . The difference of a half gallon of beer shouldn't make a whole lot of difference tho.

Travis

[Danno]

It'll be 10% more carbed than you intended. Like someone else said, that was probably on the high side already.

[rockfish]

Yea, the more I think about it I'm expecting a little too much carbonation. What amount of sugar would be better for a full 5 gallons of Porter?

[Steve]

Yea, the more I think about it I'm expecting a little too much carbonation. What amount of sugar would be better for a full 5 gallons of Porter?

I usually go by the method that worked for me in my earlier brewing days. Papazian recommends the use of 3/4 cup of corn sugar or 1 1/4 cup of DME. This priming rate will work for any five gallon batch. You can add or subtract from that to suit your particular taste. Like before you should mix that with a cup or so of water and boil then cool it to address any sanitation issues.
Steve

[Speyedr]

Any decent brewing software will have a calculator to help you out with how much carbonation, natural or forced, etc. For instance, Promash has choices for HIGH, MED and LOW carbonation, or you can dial in exact volumes if you like. Then, use common sense. A Porter from the UK will probably be more on the low side, but from the US it will likely be Medium (since we're more used to bubbles..) Witbier and alot of other Belgians are high. So are most Pils...

As for the Nut Brown, you will probably STILL be higher than normal. Nut Browns are probably LOW carb, and 5oz in 5 gallons will give you 2.80 volumes of CO2, which is HIGH carb.

All that said, you will still have GREAT beer! Don't fret and if it is too bubbly, stir it up