What did I do wrong

You should probably describe the recipe and process you followed. Unless you want dozens of probably irrelevant theories thrown around.

 

You followed kit instructions and didn't read 'How to Brew' by John Palmer. That's what ya did wrong.

 

Numbers 2 and 3 are likely easily answered... Number 1 can be any of a number of reasons.

#2: Too much priming sugar
#3: Fermentation temperature likely too high

 

They usually give you 5 oz of corn sugar to prime with. That's usually pretty excessive for priming sugar.

Edit: If you get the beer as cold as you can, without freezing it, you'll probably do better on your pours.

 

Especially if it's not well mixed. Or if there wasn't actually 5 gallons of finished beer. Or...
Which is why I think the OP should tell us about his recipe and process.

 

Ooo, pick me! I have one involving aliens, GW Bush and the Illuminati...

Probably this.

 

Most likely causes for over-carbed home brewed beer are:
1) too much priming sugar and / or
2) incomplete fermentation and / or
3) poor sanitation.

Since this nano-batch was brewed from a kit at room temperature, I'll take door #3.

 

I think others have given you some good answers re the carbonation problem.

Regarding the presence of more 'booze' than anticipated, my guess is that this was the result of too high a fermentation temperature. I know the yeast packet usually says 65-75F is fine, but for best results, you usually need to be at the lower end of that scale. And you need to measure the wort itself, not the room temperature. If you ferment at the high end of the range, or as happens with many new brewers, above 75, you will get usually get more of what they call fusel alcohols, which tend to be "hotter" and more prominent in the beer flavor. They also will give you a worse hangover. So you might have a beer that is well within the expected ABV range, but has a lot of fusels and thus tastes boozier (and probably leaves you feeling a little worse than expected the next day). If that is the case, you would see a big improvement if you lower your pitch and fermentation temp. Generally, I like to pitch at about 64F for most ales, and ferment at 66-68F.

As for clarity, there are a lot of variables complicated variables here, not the least of which is water chemistry. I would suggest that, since clarity is mainly a cosmetic issue, you might focus on the other problems first.

 

Any beer that I've ever cracked open with excessive foam and head (a.k.a. gusher) meant the beer was infected.

 

How much beer actually made it into your bottling pot? (BTW, a pot doesn't make a good bottling bucket...very hard to sanitize properly.) With a one gallon batch, there's not a lot of room (percentage-wise) for error. You can use the 'right' amount of sugar (assuming whatever came with the kit or was specified by the recipe was appropriate) in significantly less beer than intended...i.e. over-prime and overcarbonate the beer. But also, I don't see anything to indicate that you sanitized anything. So infection is still a small possibility. (And if that's the case, it could also help explain the cloudiness.)

If there's a homebrew club in your area, you might want to take a bottle for someone to taste for you.

 

I generally use a pot (my boil kettle, actually) as a bottling bucket. I make sure it is nice and clean, and then I add a small amount of water and the priming sugar. I bring it to a boil (stirring to make sure the sugar doesn't scorch), put the lid on, and leave it on the heat for several minutes. Then I turn off the heat and let it cool down to room temperature (leaving the lid in place), and when I am ready I rack the beer into the kettle, mix well, and then bottle using a siphon. It may be a bit more labor-intensive than using StarSan in a bottling bucket, but it works for me, and I've never experienced an infection.

 

My guess as to the overcarbonation is still too much priming sugar rather than infection.

A lot of new brewers are overly scared of infections and are quick to jump the gun on blaming an infection for issues. Generally speaking, unintentional infections are quite rare.

 

Can you elaborate here? How did you cool the wort? How did you pitch the yeast? What temperature was it at when you pitched?

It doesn't take much boiling to kill infections, so sanitizing your kettle isn't really a thing. If your beer is infected, it almost certainly happened after you turned the heat off.

 

A cup or two is a significant percentage on a one-gallon scale. If your priming sugar measurement was already on the high side, then subtracted a pint (2 cups = 16 fluid ounces), that's 1/8 of your total batch.

Unless you cold-crash, haze can be a persistent, though mostly harmless, aspect in homebrewing, depending on racking skills and technique. Generally speaking, my beers are clearer after a week in the fridge (essentially a cold crash - yeast falls to the bottom), and usually taste a little better.

Boozy taste was almost certainly from fermenting too warm. Assuming you used a typical pale ale strain (I'd guess your kit came with Safale US-05), 68-70*F ambient temp means it could be up to 72-75*F inside your fermenter, which is beyond the yeast's optimal range. You probably got fusel alcohols, which is what you're tasting.

 

Did you sanitize the funnel?

I'd say if the overcarbonation gets worse over the next couple weeks, it might be an infection. If it stays the same, it was probably just overcarbed with sugar and fermented a little too warm. You can rig up a swamp cooler pretty easily for next time.