Does my beer have a gucher infection?

[Catoshy]

I made a 1 gallon batch of a rye stout and it was in secondary between 1 and 2 weeks. At bottling time I was nervous since it had been a while, so I looked for the rest of my yeast packet. I couldn't find it, but was sure it would be fine since it wasn't tooo overly long in secondary in my mind. I tried to figure out how much sugar to use and came up with 1/8th cup table sugar for the priming, which came out to add only about 2 points gravity wise when I did the math. But when I opened it after a month it gushed out the second I cracked the cap and the head filled nigh half the pint when poured. Was it overtaken by a gusher infection? I didn't drink it, but it didn't smell off as far as I could tell.

 

[beermanpete]

You need to taste the beer to know it has an infection or was simply over carbonated. Try a few more bottles to see if they are all the same. If it is an infection it could be limited to the one bottle.

 

[RPh_Guy]

How did you measure, prepare, and add the priming sugar?
Do you have a hydrometer?
What was the O.G.? The F.G.?
If the next bottle you open gushes, take a sample, shake it to remove all CO2 and take a gravity reading when the bubbles subside.

Might want to do this sooner rather than later. If too much pressure builds, bottles can break or explode. Be careful.
If the next one is over-carbed, you could move them into refrigeration which would help reduce pressure and slow further fermentation.

 

[JimRausch]

Using the priming sugar calculator on the Northern Brewer website, for 1 gallon of stout, figuring 65 degrees, all you needed was 0.59 oz. of table sugar. If your highest temp was 70, then 0.62 oz. 1/8 cup is 1 oz., so you did overcarb it by almost 2. Stick what you have left in the fridge and let them chill for a couple days before opening the next one.

 

[Renegade Brewer]

I’d suggest visiting your local homebrew shop and picking up a bag of carb tabs. There are usually 800 per bag for about 6.00, so at one gallon batches a bag will last you quite a while. The carb tabs make it a lot easier than trying to guess and weigh out tiny amounts of priming sugar.

Also, like I’ve stated many times before, there is no reason to transfer your beer to a secondary fermenter. At one gallon using carb tabs you could feasibly rack straight from your fermenter into your bottles; just keep your racking cane above the trub in the bottom of the fermenter.

At any rate, get those beers cold and start drinking them. Even if you picked up an infection it won’t hurt you. If anything it’ll teach you what an infected beer tastes like, but dollars to doughnuts your beer is fine.

 

[Spyderbyte07]

1/8 cup is 1 oz., so you did overcarb it by almost 2...

1/8 cup is 1 fluid ounce, but table sugar only weighs about 6.5 ounces per cup. Using the same priming calculator, that 0.81 ounces of sugar at 65 degrees will yield 2.4 volumes.