Foamy beer at bottling paranoia

[BeardedWonder]

Hello all,

I bottled a nut brown ale last night and there was a significant amount of foam developing as I was bottling.
It was enough to leave more head space in the bottle than normal (about 1.5 times the head space I would typically get from an un-foamy beer bottling).

I'm figuring that it was due to a bunch of causes, what I am more concerned with is that I haven't just bottled a bunch of bottle bombs.

I have a strong feeling that I'm being paranoid about it, but I would like to hear if anyone has had any issues with conditioning an excessively-foamy-at-bottling beer.

(I have a bunch of it bottled in PET and I'm using that as my control. If the PET gets rock hard in a few days, I'll go into damage control)

Cheers,

BW

 

[tavas]

How did you sanitise your bottles?
Were they clean before hand?
How did you prime your bottles? Dry sugar or bulk prime?

What were the causes you suspect?

 

[BeardedWonder]

Cleaned the bottles with 'brewclean' stuff and good hard scrubbing with bottle brush.

Sanitised with a no-rinse sanitiser (hydorgen peroxide solution).

Bottle primed with carb drops.

My prime suspects are: the beer was pretty naturally fizzy when I did a hydro reading; in the process of moving the FV into a higher position to gravity feed the bottles the FV got jostled a bit....not a huge amount and I left it to sit for a couple of hours before I continued, but it got jostled and mild sloshing was involved; the heat.....dunno why but I figure that might have an impact on the foamyness of a beer (no brew fridge and the beer had been outside of my 'temperature control' [eskie with ice packs] for a few days);
Number one culprit is the tubing that I use to connect the FV to the bottling wand. I take the wand TO the bottle, rather than take the BOTTLE to the FV/wand. This is a result of bugger all space to get the head room to use the wand in it's 'natural' position without having my back half bent (and thereby crippling myself after 23L of beer).
There was a lot of cavitation of the fluid in the tube, which caused bubbles in the bends of the tube.

I've used this system successfully before (which is no guarantee of continued success, I know) and had low to mild foam.

.....probably worth mentioning....the beer was in the FV for....achem....70 days in total.
Samples have tasted fine (including ones had at bottling), so I feel like the likely hood of infection is within normal parameters.

 

[manticle]

What was the gravity and what were the ingredients/process?

Dry prime? Sugar in bottles before or after? What sanitiser?

Loads more info needed.

 

[BeardedWonder]

Yeah, sorry guys. I lurk around here enough to know better....

Ingredients:
1.7kg Blackrock Nut Brown Ale
1.5kg Blackrock Dark LME
400g Dark Brown Sugar
15g Fuggles
15g Goldings
S04 Yeast

Boiled 657g LME in 5L water for 30min and added hops (do you need the full schedule??)

Added rest of LME and Dark Brown Sugar to pot at flame out to dissolve sugars.

Cooled via Ye Olde Sink o Water method (didn't take note of how long that took though....)

Added to FV with water to 23L, aerated when wort at 18C (used thermo sticker as my IR thermometer had flat batteries, so 18C is probably more of a guideline)

Rehydrated yeast as per Manufacturer's specs

OG 1.045 (adjusted)

Stored in Eski with frozen coke bottles/ice packs, changed twice a day (with the exception of the last week, where it was stored on the bench with ice packs and wrapped in three towels as insulation).

One week in, I got carried away with keeping the temp low and the ferment seemed to stall. Allowed FV to warm up, gave it a gentle swirl and tried to hold the temp in the 18 - 20C range.

Got three stable SG readings of 1.014 so "cold crashed" as best as I could, FV kept to 8 - 11C range for 29 days

Beer was left on bench for 10 days, back around the 18 - 20C range (at the whim of ambient temperatures).
Took FG and it had dropped 4 points in 25-ish days since last reading.

Beer left in FV for 70 days in total

FG 1.010 (adjusted)

Bottled into glass and PET

Bottles were washed with 'Brewclean' branded cleaner (dunno what it is exactly, it's what the LHBS sells to me)
Good scrub with bottle brush (especially PET bottles and their dimpled bases)

sanitised with hydrogen peroxide solution (same brand as the cleaner)
Mostly filled bottle (2/3), shake shake shake, decant into another bottle leaving a small amount in bottom of bottle (5mm??) then "cap" with foil until ready to bottle (in this instance it was about two hours between sanitisation and bottling....I was under orders from SWMBO)

Primed each bottle with Carb Drops (1 for stubbies, 2 drops for tallies)


That's all the info I have documented. Is there anything I've left out??

I .....may....have a graph of the temps.....

 

[Alex.Tas]

Graph? Ha you nerd! Only joking good job.

Hydrogen peroxide is a form of bleach as I understand, and as such should be rinsed shouldn't it?

 

[Ninegrain]

No, hydrogen peroxide (h2o2-) is not bleach or anything like that. It breaks down to water (h2o) and oxygen (O-) so it truly is a no-rinse sanitiser.
BUT you did tip out that last 5ml before adding the beer right? And rinsed the suds out from the brew clean?

I think your problem is your method of bottle filling. The extra length (and bends I assume?) is likely knocking the co2 out of solution giving you a lot of foam. Try and use only the wand if possible. If your worried about it next time you could fill them then sit a sanitised lid on top, without sealing it, and leave it for a couple of minutes so the extra gas can escape without letting bugs in.


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[barls]

youve answered most but how did you fill.
was it with a bottlng wand like one of these http://morebeer.com/products/bottle-filler-removable-spring-38.html
or just from the tap.
if just from the tap theres your answer

 

[Ninegrain]

Yeah I use a wand like that. I move my FV out of the fridge onto a bench that places the outlet of the wand at knee level when I'm sitting down on a chair. Just the wand including the hard pipe. attached to the tap, no hose in between. Doesn't foam up for me, but if they are really gassy I do like I suggested with the caps before sealing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

If you are talking about a normal height (170-180cm) fridge, you've got way too much pressure head that is required, especially if no inline filter (you haven't mentioned whether you filter and it does not appear you do).

When bottling with a standard 23L batch having it on a normal dining table, me sitting on a chair and the wand directly connected in the tap is plenty of head to fill the bottles.

So I'd say the sheer flow rate into the bottles you are getting is too great, if you MUST bottle on top of the fridge then try closing the tap to restrict the flow rate down.

 

[BeardedWonder]

No, hydrogen peroxide (h2o2-) is not bleach or anything like that. It breaks down to water (h2o) and oxygen (O-) so it truly is a no-rinse sanitiser.
BUT you did tip out that last 5ml before adding the beer right? And rinsed the suds out from the brew clean?

I think your problem is your method of bottle filling. The extra length (and bends I assume?) is likely knocking the co2 out of solution giving you a lot of foam. Try and use only the wand if possible. If your worried about it next time you could fill them then sit a sanitised lid on top, without sealing it, and leave it for a couple of minutes so the extra gas can escape without letting bugs in.

Yeah, I rinse the bottles (three times each....the magic number) after using the cleaner and tipped out the last 5mm of sanitiser before putting beer in.

youve answered most but how did you fill.
was it with a bottlng wand like one of these http://morebeer.com/products/bottle-filler-removable-spring-38.html
or just from the tap.
if just from the tap theres your answer

I attach a length of hose (I think it's about 600mm in length) attached to the tap and the bottling wand attached to the end of the tube.
This way I can stand at the bench, fill a bottle and cap it (all one handed) then put it into a storage tub and fetch the next empty bottle.

If you are talking about a normal height (170-180cm) fridge, you've got way too much pressure head that is required, especially if no inline filter (you haven't mentioned whether you filter and it does not appear you do).

When bottling with a standard 23L batch having it on a normal dining table, me sitting on a chair and the wand directly connected in the tap is plenty of head to fill the bottles.

So I'd say the sheer flow rate into the bottles you are getting is too great, if you MUST bottle on top of the fridge then try closing the tap to restrict the flow rate down.

The FV is sitting on a milk crate, which in turn is sitting on the bench, so the tap is around nipple height.

I should mention that this all happens inside, over a carpeted floor (literally the only room I can do this in. We have a galley kitchen and had to sell the dinning table when we moved in because there is no room for it!). The intent behind using the tubing was to control where the drips and dribbles are (I hold the bottling wand in my right hand, suspending it into a bottle half-filled with sanitiser while I cap and fetch the next bottle. The only time I set the wand down is if there's an issue. I won't even go answer the front door until I'm done bottling!).

Sounds like I'll either have to adjust the system to allow for direct wand connection or get used to foamy bottling.

My concern stemmed primarily from bottling a beer that has foamed.
I feel like it shouldn't be a problem (aside from an increase in head space in the bottle, which may effect the carbonation rate) but I'm still concerned that there's a chance they could be grenades.

Graph? Ha you nerd! Only joking good job.

Haters gotta hate, playas gotta graph, we rollin'.

 

[pat86]

Well after 70 days in the FV at least you shouldn't have to worry about having bottled before complete fermentation!

That and over-priming are the usual suspects for bottle bombs right? And it would be quite tricky to do that with carb drops

Good luck!

 

[BeardedWonder]

Pretty much!
Although if the ferment has stalled then you're still in trouble.

And the beer was crystal clear, which is a difficult thing for me to achieve without finnings or clearing agents considering I can't REALLY cold crash.
Even after jostling the FV there wasn't any crap floating about. That said, I was more concerned with managing the foam, so there could have been a bunch of sediment that passed through into the bottles that I hadn't noticed.

 

[thebigtwist]

70 days!!!! you must be thirsty by now :drinks: :chug: :beerdrink:

 

[BeardedWonder]

Fortunately I was away for two and a half weeks of it, so the impact was lessened.

However, I still have the three week wait for carbonation.....damnnit