Excessive Head

[Flagg]

Last year I had my first go at a lager. See my previous post "Lager to disaster - Brew antics" if your interested. Any way without going into the details I'm drinking it now and althouth it tastes great There is way too much head! The ingredience were as follows:
1.5kg can of Black Rock dry Lager
1kg of Coopers Brew enhancer #2
500gm of white sugar
Saflager 23.
OG 1.040. This was allowed to ferment at 12degC for two weeks which came down to SG 1.020. Unfortunatly I tasted it and thought that it would be dry so I added a 1.7kg can of Cascade Spicy Ghost? As I had to surrender the fridge to my good wife I let this brew out at 18degC for another week FG 1.002, bulk primed the 23l. with 200gm of Dextrose and bottled in stubbies.
As I mentioned above I'm drinking the beer now and it tastes great and is very alcholic. No idear how alcholic as the addition of the second extract has upset any claculations, I'm guessing its about 8 or 9 percent. However the problem is I get too much head! Currently I open a stubbie let it sit in the fridge for half an hour with a glass in the friezer. Then I can usually manage to carefully pour the contents into an English style pint glass. Two thirds Beer and one third Head, this lasts all the way to the bottom of the glass.
Finally my question is, Why do I have so much head? the problem I have is that I have to anticipate opening one by half an hour and can't simply go to the fridge and grab one. I tried opening one and pouring it into a jug. Half way through the pour I had to stop as I had a jug with an inch of Beer at the bottom of a jug of Head!
Any way I starting to rant so let me appologise for the lenght of this post. I'll shut up now and just be glad that the beer tastes good and that I'm getting any head at all.

 

[Steve]

I would say you've overprimed it with the 200gms. Try 140-150 next time.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Paul H]

Too much head.......& the problem is???????

Cheers
Paul

 

[RobW]

Try easing off the cap on one a little so you lose some pressure but no beer, then reseal the cap, refrigerate and wait a while. If it's still too gassy repeat until it's right, but often once is enough.

... or buy a kegging setup

 

[pint of lager]

I agree with Steve, too much carbonation.

Have a read of a topic that was active in the last 24-48 hours, on exploding bottles. It also discussed the relationship between overpriming, overcarbonation and too much head.

Excess carbonation kills the flavour of your beers.

Excess head makes it impossible to assess the aroma of a beer.

What happens when you open the bottle of beer? Can you leave it opened for a few hours, in the fridge, without pouring it? This will allow some of the excess carbonation to be released. Or it might just slowly foam everywhere.

You can go around the rest of the batch with a bottle opener, one of the style that has a bar across the top of the cap and operates on at least three crimps. Just ease up the crimps, allow the excess gas to escape and then let the lid resettle back down. You can if you can still hear it hissing, run your capper back over it. Do this a few times over a few days and this will help.

You really want to do this as soon as possible as they could becomes bombs. Nasty.

 

[Aaron]

I would say you've overprimed it with the 200gms. Try 140-150 next time.
Cheers
Steve

[post="110138"][/post]​

Yep spot on. 200gm is a lot for 23l in my experince. Try using the calculators in Beersmith or Promash. I'm sure there are others about is neither of those apps suit you.

 

[wiggins]

That fg is excellent for that amount of malt,meaning the yeast must have very good attenuation.I've been using safale so4 with my ales and can't get an fg below 1010,especially using all malt. :beerbang:

 

[Flagg]

Actually I did have three explode! So like a couple of the suggestions above I went arround and eased up the cap of every bottle. Maybe I should do it again.
In answer to Pint of Lagers question I can sit an open Beer in the fridge and it will not foam out of the bottle. Addmittidly I was aming for a highly carbonated beer so I guess it's my own fault. And as suggested above, next time I'm going to be a little move conservative with my priming sugar.
As a final note I ran into a guy the other day and he suggested that there could be some wheat in the Spicy Ghost that whould also contribute to the ammount of Head I'm getting.
Thanks.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Instead of priming with castor should I prime just plain sugar instead to be on the safe side, bulk priming isnt possible for me.

 

[Steve]

Drew - why isnt it possible? You have 4 fermenters? Regarding your question about castor sugar or plain sugar - just buy a bag of home brand plain sugar, its probably cheaper than castor sugar.
Cheers
Steve

 

[DrewCarey82]

Generally when I bottle 1, I rack the primary and when thats empty I chuck another brew on.

BTW I am not an alco I only brew about 3 months of each year Plus entertain a fair bit as well.

 

[Steve]

Then you need an odd number of fermenters - I find 5 does the job - always have a spare one for such instances.....Go on get another - you know you want too! :beer:
Cheers
Steve

 

[mika]

Can you have too much head ?... No...Oh, you mean on beer ? then yes

Agree with RobW, crack the lids, whenever I get a brew that starts popping bottles this generally sorts it out.
And does sound like the carbonation sugar rate was a little high.