Question For All You Yeasites

[IainMcLean]

I opened a bottle of one of my brews last night and the thing reacted with the atmosphere in a dramatic manner. It didn't fizz / spray all over like champagne can when agitated, instead the beer gently fizzed with about half a glass of foam being produced over a couple of minutes.

It appeared to be reacting down in the base of the bottle from what I could see, just above the yeast sediment. The beer, a strong beer, tasted fine.

I was wondering what might cause this and how to prevent it from happening again. This is the first time in a lot of bottles it has happened.

 

[hughyg]

Sounds overcarbonated.

 

[floppinab]

Yep, purely and simply sounds overcarbonated Iain. Most overcarbed beers will react this way. The majority of beer bottles will explode prior to developing carbonation levels similar to Champers thus precluding the sort of champagned spurt your suggesting you might have seen from an overcarbed beer.

Need to check a couple of things.
Check your priming procedures, too much sugar in the bottles, too much sugar/poor mixing if bulk priming.
What was the gravity prior to bottling?? If a little high you have amount of residual sugar in the original wort plus your bottling sugar will lead to overcarbing.
Lastly was your beer infected in any way?? Some infections will ferment sugars in your beer that would normally not be fermented thus also leading to overcarbing in the bottle.

The majority of beer bottles will explode prior to developing carbonation levels similar to Champers

Edit: Just rethought that, it may not necessarily be the case, depends a lot on the build of your bottles, wall thickness, etc. but I would suggest a typical mega brewery longneck (Coopers excluded) probably wouldn't handle it.

 

[EK]

This sounds exactly like my experiences with over-carbonated brews.

It's not exactly "reacting" it is CO2 releasing from the beer and releasing fast.

floppinab raises some good questions (Final Gravity and infections) and you should check you priming, but can you tell me how did you prime, what you primed with and how much priming sugar was used?

:icon_cheers:
EK

 

[HoppingMad]

Hot weather can also affect the fizz. I have a Hefeweizen beer that was properly primed and had perfect carbonation for 2 months, but has turned into a gusher thanks to this hot weather Melb has. One of the beers in this batch turned into a bottle bomb too.

Some folks here report that they only get bottle bombs during hot weather. I am looking at re-insulating my beer storage due to having this issue. Obviously I have primed in the higher scale and I am also at fault here, but reckon the heat plays a part in the gush sometimes.

Hopper.

 

[IainMcLean]

Hot weather can also affect the fizz. I have a Hefeweizen beer that was properly primed and had perfect carbonation for 2 months, but has turned into a gusher thanks to this hot weather Melb has. One of the beers in this batch turned into a bottle bomb too.

That might be a possibility because the other bottles from the batch were all primed the same and had no issues until I opened that one last night....

 

[Synthetase]

If the bottle was chilled then I fail to see how the hot weather could have caused it.

 

[chris.taylor.98]

There is such a thing as a gusher infection, which could be the cause of the problems.

It basically a wild yeast that keeps eating away at the unfermented sugars and ends up over carbonating the beer.

It used to drive me nuts before I started sterilizing bottles using ThristyBoys bottle baking method. I would get every 5th or 6th bottle as a gusher, even after they had been cooled in the fridge.

Tell tale sign was all the yeast coming up off the bottom then followed by the inevitable fountain of beer that seem to last until at least 1/2 the bottle had managed to disgorge itself.


Bottle sterilization method involved capping all bottles with a small piece of aluminium foil.

Place all bottles in a cold oven.

Heat to about 150C

Hold for 20 mins or so.

Then turn of and allow to cool.

Inside of bottles will stay sterile while aluminum foil cap stays on them (ie they can be left for a long time sterile before using them).

 

[mxd]

I think I have the "gusher infection" problem, I have/had 40 Grolsch bottles with celtic red in them, and have had a few (6) gushers, but the strange thing is it the gushers we all from the one esky (we were away and had beer in 2 spots). So I thought it was all that may have been shaken or cooled and heated.

I can generally tell which ones are going to be the gushers by looking at the yeast. I also can "stop" the gushing by releasing the pressure slowly (grolsh swing tops) but the beer still tastes ok.

 

[kfahy]

I generally don't bottle carb my Russian Imperials. I know they will be in the bottle for quite a while before i drink them so i bottle without adding any sugar to the bottle. They come out nicely carbonated after a few months. When i have bottle carbed them i have had the same problem with gushing.