I am really struggling to get the carbonation of my beers right. They either seem to turn out too flat or too carbonated. I take care in calculating the correct amount of bottling sugar for the beer style, but results always seem unsatisfactory.
Since I don't like overcarbonated beer I always now err on the low-side but it's annoying that I can't get this right, and not getting this right can ruin an otherwise good beer.
I have two hypotheses :
(i) for a 3-5 gallon batch the sugar quantities are so small that small inaccuracies in my measurements translate to large differences in carbonation.
(ii) homebrew carbonation has a different quality to commercially brewed beers for some reason.
I know that carbonation has already been discussed a lot here, but has anyone got any specific pointers?