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I am brewing a batch using the basic Mr. beer brew kit. Carbonation usually takes 10-14 days. However, this time the bottles are hard as a rock within 3 days.

Is this normal? Shall I open the bottles to let the extra carbon dioxide out and wait for entire 2 weeks or is it ok to start freezing the bottles now?

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  • how much priming sugar did you use ? what do you mean by bottles are "hard as rock" ?
    – JeanMi
    Apr 12, 2018 at 6:34
  • I've used carbonation drops which came with the kit. The kit comes with plastic bottles and the manual mentions checking the firmness of bottles to see if carbonation is complete.
    – Ankit Seth
    Apr 12, 2018 at 16:31
  • Why are you going to freeze the bottles? Do you mean refrigerate?
    – Mr_road ♦
    Apr 13, 2018 at 10:35
  • Did you check your Final Gravity (FG) before bottling? Did you notice the beer in the bottles being murky or cloudy with yeast after bottling?
    – Mr_road ♦
    Apr 13, 2018 at 10:42
  • That was a poor choice of words on my part. I did mean refrigerate (and not freeze). The beer was not cloudy or murky when I begin bottling. I do not have the required equipment for checking gravity. Hence, I couldn't check that.
    – Ankit Seth
    Apr 15, 2018 at 3:50

1 Answer 1

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2

The speed at which your brew carbonates is dependant on a number of factors: temprerature, yeast cell count, residual CO2, residual sugar. Sometimes your beer can carb up this quickly especially if it is warm in your house.

The fact it has carbed up so quickly suggests that either you have:

  1. carried a lot of yeast over into your bottles, which will chew through the sugar more quickly.
  2. the brew had not reached FG, and had a lot of residual sugar.

I suspect 1 if you did not leave it long enough to settle, or knocked the FV during racking/bottling.

If you did not take a gravity reading before bottling then 2 is a posibility, in which case letting a little gas out could save you some bottles popping.

At least it sounds like you are bottling in plastic, which saves you the danger of glass bottle bombs, which are terribly dangerous.

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