Too much priming sugar
Friday, April 30th, 2010I think I added 3-4 times too much priming sugar to 8 bottles that I filled from the keg yesterday.
For some reason I thought that 10g sucrose (boiled and dissolved in 50ml H2O) per 22oz bottle was the amount to use.
After thumbing through How To Brew today, I came across the priming schedule and calculated that I should have added 3g to each bottle (or a little less, 4oz sugar per 5 gallons = 112g per 5 gallons = 112g per 39 bottles = 2.9g per bottle).
The beer in the keg was 6 months old, and had been in and out of the kegerator a couple times.
So I have no idea what condition the yeast in suspension is in.
Some questions:
1) Is there enough yeast in the bottles to wake up and prime after 6 months? Or, if that is impossible to answer, has anyone ever successfully primed kegged beer in bottles after 6 months?
2) These were bottled cold with little foaming though the beers were fully carb’d in the keg. Is that enough in and of itself to provide sufficient carbonation in the bottle? (I am a rank amatuer at bottles. I’ve probably done it 5-6 times in 20+ years of brewing.)
3) If the yeast are dormant/useless, will the 50ml of sugar water significantly affect the beer? (One is a coffee stout the other is probably closest to an 80 shilling.) If so, wil this effect fade over time?
4) Will the bottles explode or will they push the cork out first?
5) Should I just prime for less time (normally I’d leave them out of the fridge for 1 week), or does the age of the yeast mitigate the excessive quantity of sugar?
6) Is there a greater chance that I’ll get autolysis here because of the age of the yeast?
7) I’d like to drink a few with a friend tomorrow night. Is that too soon? Will we just be drinking sweeter beer than normal?
Lots of questions, I know, I appreciate any help.
it was left at 30 psi for … 4 days! 
