One of the big rookie mistakes I made the first time I brewed beer was when I forgot to properly mix the bottling sugar in the bottling bucket after I had filled it with beer from the fermenter. Luckily, none of the swing top bottles I used exploded from being over carbonated. What I ended up with was 30% of the bottles were almost flat, 30% were near exploding, and the other 40% were just right. The picture below shows what you get with one of the ‘over carbonated’ bottles. Nice head, am I right? I had to pour the beer out into glasses and let them sit so the foam could to die down before I served them. My buddies didn’t mind too much though, who can argue with fresh, still delicious, and free beer.
The lesson: It is important when brewing beer to not get distracted as you go about the brew day and better yet keep a checklist so you don’t forget an important step.
This rounds out Rookie Mistake 101: Mixing Priming Sugar.
