Gas Coming Off Conditioning Beer

[deebee]

I brewed a Bock almost a month ago and racked it into two 10 litre mineral water containers for lagering. I only had room for one in the family frig and put the other in an esky in the coolest room in the house. The one in the frig has been at 2C and the one in the esky has been fairly constant at about 12C for about 3-4 weeks now and I'm getting ready to bottle them and looking forward to testing the difference between the final products.

Interesting thing is that the one in the esky has continued to produce lots of gas throughout this storage period. Every couple of days I have to vent the container and squeeze all of the gas out. A few days later it has ballooned out again.

This has happened consistently for nearly a month and I reckon would be easily enough to have carbonated the beer without priming if I had bottled it instead of storing it. The gas does not smell off, just beery. The one in the frig has produced no gas at all.

Questions:

1. Is this just CO2 coming out of solution or is it a byproduct of the conditioning during storage? Why does it come off one and not the other?

2. Does this mean that the one that has been kept cold still has all that gas dissolved in it? Should I bring it up to room temp before bottling? Should I give it less priming?

3. Can anyone recommend a commercial beer to compare my bock with?

I would appreciate your views.

 

[greg]

This is just a thought and I would be interested to now whether I am correct in thinking this, but the beer in the fridge is down to 2 deg C which would stop the yeast from doing it's stuff! however the beer in the fridge is at 12 deg C and may still be fermenting.

As I said just a thought

 

[deebee]

I don't think it can be still fermenting, given that i got consistent SG readings and then gave it a diacetyl rest.

If it is still fermenting, it has been at it for over a month.

 

[kook]

Not too sure about this, but my guess is that both beers still have residual CO2 absorbed in them. The one in the fridge will be cold enough so that it will stay dissolved in the beer. The CO2 will be escaping from the warmer one. Beer absorbs CO2 *much* better at low temps.

As for a comparison bock, the only one I've seen in WA would be "Bullant Bock" from inchant brewery. I havent seen many bocks available in WA.