What did I do wrong? And is it too late to fix it?

How much priming sugar did you use? Getting them all cold now will help.

 

How much priming sugar did you use?
How many actual gallons of beer made it into the bottling bucket?
How thoroughly did you mix the priming sugar with the beer?

 

Yes, carbonation levels are very sensitive to volume. If this was a typical 5 ounces of corn sugar that some kits come with and you used it with 4 gallons of beer, you probably ended up with almost 3.2 volumes of CO2 on average. That's a bit high. Not really high enough to cause gushers all by itself, but if any of the bottles got more sugar than the others, you might get gushers. Or dirty bottles could have nucleation points to cause gushers, in combination with relatively high CO2 levels.

I would keep the bottles refrigerated and in a safe place. I would also open very carefully.

Here is a calculator. It's one of many on the 'net. You should use one.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

 

Just so you know... normally, bottle conditioning is not something that needs to be "shut down" at all. i.e. if you get the priming right and evenly distributed, carbonation should be allowed to continue to completion.

 

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Nope. Gentle thorough stirring is the way to do it.

But did you say you bottled from your secondary fermenter? Trub in the bottles could be nucleation points. Also, note that if you mix sugar into your secondary, you're resuspending the stuff that has been settling out. Most people rack from either primary or secondary to a bottling bucket, where the beer is mixed with the sugar, leaving most of the trub behind.

ETA: Are you sure fementation was finished before you bottled?

 

What was your OG and FG?

What did the recipe say you should finish at.. Chance are, I'd probably say around 1.018-1.020 if you did extract.

 

When I bottled, I would mix the sugar into a small amount of sanitized (boiled then cooled) water. Turning it into liquid helped ensure better distribution.

I also had a carbonation problem similar to yours. I put the beer in the freezer and got it as cold as possible before opening it. Then, I'd wait for a while for the beer to warm up. It was a PITA but it was better than losing the beer to a gusher. It was a good beer...just too much priming sugar.

 

This should be included in the basic homebrewing kit:

The standard 5 ounce bag of sugar should come with a warning note: "Do not use all of this" . . . would make a lot of first batches easier. You really want to use the carb calculator and measure your sugar with a scale, the one above is available on Amazon for 8 bucks. When you start buying hops in bulk you'll use it . . . when you treat your water you'll use it to measure chemicals . . . can even be used as a postal scale.

 

Did you measure your FG once, and then wait a couple days before moving it to secondary? Or did you just assume the recipes directions?

Not saying thats the issue, but for the future, it's not a time based system. Yeast don't work on your time, or someones directions.

Chances are you didn't adjust for boil off rate, had too little wort, has some losses along the way of transferring and trub, and like you said, had too little beer, added all the sugar they provided (which is usually too much by the way). You overcarbed the beers, and the one you had early, was carbed enough and assumed done while everything else was still carbing up even more.

I'd get them cold, sooner than later, and I'd also keep them somewhere where a mess wouldn't be a big deal incase something happens.

 

Did you stir the sugar directly into the beer? If so, it may not have dissolved fully,leading to in inconsistent carb levels. You may have grabbed a bottle w/ higher that received higher than average sugar. In addition to using a priming calculator to determine how much sugar to use, first dissolve it in a small amount(1-2 cups) of boiling water. Allow it to cool, covered, then add to the beer as you fill the bottling bucket.


Also fwiw I stopped using corn sugar. If that's what comes with kit, go ahead and use it, but if you are putting ingredients together yourself, you'll find there is little if any difference between the corn sugar and your basic table sugar.

 

After an hour in the fridge were they actually cold? I way over primed a beer a while back. I think it was 4 atm. If it was ice cold when drunken it didn't foam over. I would give it 5 minute once open to de carb a bit. It did taste a bit off, kind of metallic from the carbonic acid

 

Thats more like 6.56% ABV

 

Good to hear !