Space at top of bottle

[comicsandbeer83]

I am a little concerned about the amount of space at the top of my bottles of my brew I made. It is a brown ale with a 4.3 abv. And a handful of the bottles only have 3/4 inch- 1 inch of space between top of beer and cap. I know its supposed to be between 1-1.5 inches and I thought I was doing it okay, but apparently I cannot eye ball things. None at under 3/4 inch like I said and a majority are 1-1.5 inches of space. Do you all think this will be okay?

 

[dickproenneke]

I am a little concerned about the amount of space at the top of my bottles of my brew I made. It is a brown ale with a 4.3 abv. And a handful of the bottles only have 3/4 inch- 1 inch of space between top of beer and cap. I know its supposed to be between 1-1.5 inches and I thought I was doing it okay, but apparently I cannot eye ball things. None at under 3/4 inch like I said and a majority are 1-1.5 inches of space. Do you all think this will be okay?

I think that you should be just fine. I've overfilled bottles before and never had a problem with bombs or overcarbing

 

[twistr25]

If you primed at the proper level it should be fine. Do you use a bottling wand to fill your bottles? A good technique is to keep the wand at the very bottom and let the beer fill all the way to the top of the bottle. When you pull out the wand, it leaves the perfect amount of headspace.

 

[unionrdr]

Agreed. If you do it the way twistr mentioned,it'll be fine. But 3/4-1" head space would be minimum,imo.

 

[comicsandbeer83]

I used the spigot in the bucket for some reason, though I regretted it pretty quick. I plan to use the bottle filler next time.

 

[DocScott]

I used the spigot in the bucket for some reason, though I regretted it pretty quick. I plan to use the bottle filler next time.

Using the spigot leaves room for splashing and oxygen exposure which can lead to oxidation of your beer. I'm not concerned about the headspace...you should be fine there. Definitely use the wand next time with twistr's advice

 

[comicsandbeer83]

Thanks a lot. I'm eager to try another batch. I think I'm going to try a pale ale next I want something a little more hoppy. My brown ale is more sweet than hoppy. I wonder if that is more to due with how much malt extract I used. Recipe called for 5-6 lbs but I used 6.6. Has a good caramel flavor to it though. I can't wait to try it once it's carbonated.

 

[unionrdr]

Brown ales are more malty anyway,when brewed to style.

 

[comicsandbeer83]

Will the bottles with less space at top just take extra time to carbonate? And if so how long probably?

 

[unionrdr]

With the shorter head space,they might get more co2 into solution faster than the bottles with the proper head space. I say that because bottles I've tried carbonating with a good couple inches of head space didn't carbonate as much as the ones with proper head space. The right size head space seems to help the amount of co2 produced get into the beer properly,to produce the desired volumes of co2.

 

[dickproenneke]

Will the bottles with less space at top just take extra time to carbonate? And if so how long probably?

No. It will not take additional time to carbonate