Shes's A Gusher

[flattop]

Thank god i bottled in PET.

I recently bottled a Coopers lager pitched with a leftover wheat yeast cake.
This was bottled on the 9th Nov with a standard measure of sugar in the bottle (740ml i think).
SG 1048 FG approx 1016 on the 10th day when it was bottled

It was a hybrid brew
Coopers lager
1.2k dex
200mls LME
125mls Maple Syrup
25gms Hersbrucker dry hopped
200mls yeast cake from an ESB wheat brew.

Anyhow i stuck one in the fridge yesterday to get a guage on taste, cracked it today and it foamed up more than a cheerleader on prom night...
I wore about 300mls and it took about 5 mins for the gas to go down.

I poured the rest and the head was fantastic, flavor citrusy/ wheat, not a bad finish needs to age....
But why did it gas up so much?

 

[peas_and_corn]

Are you sure that the beer had fully fermented out? You need to take SG readings for a few days, and if they are constant over these days then it is fermented out.

 

[flattop]

i'm sure... she was deader than a housebrick....

 

[Fermented]

I'll stick my neck out and guess that it may not have finished fermenting. How long was it on for?

While I'm not sure about the total sugar percentage of maple syrup, I am pretty sure there are some additional micro organisms in there compared to dex, honey, etc. These little fellas may have aided in the result you have.

I'm also guessing that there may have been some residual goodies (indeterminate) in the ESB wheat yeast. Not sure on this point, but it may have helped that extra heady goodness along.

Looking forward to hearing from some experts on this one.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[Back Yard Brewer]

Thank god i bottled in PET.

I recently bottled a Coopers lager pitched with a leftover wheat yeast cake.
This was bottled on the 9th Nov with a standard measure of sugar in the bottle (740ml i think).
SG 1048 FG approx 1016 on the 10th day when it was bottled

It was a hybrid brew
Coopers lager
1.2k dex
200mls LME
125mls Maple Syrup
25gms Hersbrucker dry hopped
200mls yeast cake from an ESB wheat brew.

Anyhow i stuck one in the fridge yesterday to get a guage on taste, cracked it today and it foamed up more than a cheerleader on prom night...
I wore about 300mls and it took about 5 mins for the gas to go down.

I poured the rest and the head was fantastic, flavor citrusy/ wheat, not a bad finish needs to age....
But why did it gas up so much?

On the odd occasion where I have had a gusher it is usually as a result of a speck of crap / shit that has been stuck inside the bottle prior to bottling. In other words the bottle was not cleaned properly. Otherwise like p&c said it may not have finished fermenting. Check out a few more to see if they are gushers.

BYB

 

[wambesi]

Are you sure you primed it correctly?
Bulk priming (if you have a spare fermenter - cheap at bunnings if not) has the benefits of an even carb across the bottles.

Use a good calculator and your laughing, otherwise the normal other reason for a gusher is an infection or as BYB said.
Check a few more, it's such a hassle!

 

[flattop]

No to bulk priming...primed by the scoop measure for each bottle, bottles were clean (new coopers PETs) and i sterilized them b4 using so i think it's unlikely.

Not ready to crack the rest of the brew as this was the only one refrigerated, i was going to let the rest of the brew "carb up", may have to rethink that.
I think i will put another in the fridge and see what happens. I did shake them up a few days back as there is significant sediment (it's a cloudy brew also).

I'm thinking it was the ESB yeast after all it was experimental, there were left over hops in the cake as well.

Anyhow even if it pours like champagne it tastes like beer, a bit citrus but finishes like a wheat beer.

 

[Bribie G]

Chill the remaining bottles as cold as you can get them, this will substantially reduce the gas pressure, then crack them slightly and let them fizz out but twist the cap back on when the foam rises as far as the cap so it doesn't start leaking liquid out of the bottle. You might need to do this a few times.
Happened with me when I bottled my Coopers Stout Toucan N**ga Juice 9%, which should really have had an extra week in the fermenter.

 

[Fermented]

No to bulk priming...primed by the scoop measure for each bottle, bottles were clean (new coopers PETs) and i sterilized them b4 using so i think it's unlikely.

Out of curiosity... what did you prime with? Dex or CSR?

How far did you fill the scoop? First cut-out? Second cut-out? Jammed full?

The only reason I ask is that I found a weight difference between what I had read to be 'right' and what I measured to be right. (First shoulder = ca 4 g; Second shoulder = ca 5g; Stuffed full = 6g; all dex.)

You could always stash a few for some troublesome guests... let them enjoy the champagne fun.

And remember the joy of the scientific method. Try a couple more random bottles from the batch in case it may have been a one-off event.

Lotsa luck.

Cheers - Fermented.

 

[flattop]

When i re read my recipie it is heavy in sugars and it was slow to ferment but i am fairly confident it fermented out it, 10 days in the fermenter and a stable FG, i am struggling to remember if i charged the bottle with coopers candy, dex or cane sugar but i only use the double ended scoop for sugar measure so the 740mls bottle had either 2 candy drops or a single large sugar scoop, to the first shoulder (for large bottles) .
May save them for NYE

 

[buttersd70]

This was bottled on the 9th Nov with a standard measure of sugar in the bottle (740ml i think).

So I'll stick my kneck out......what the hell is a standard measure? is there such a thing? what weighs more, a tonne of bricks or a tonne of feathers?

scoops are fine and well, but they measure on volume not weight. How much fermentable sugar is in 1 scoop of dex, compared to 1 scoop of castor sugar, compared to 1 scoop of white sugar, compared to 1 scoop of raw sugar, compared to 1 scoop of sugar cubes......
hopefully you get my drift. The coarsness of the adjunct dictates the quantity available within an arbitary dry measure.

 

[flattop]

Yup agree completely butters, i can see that a scoop of dex would be higher in content due to the fineness of the grain.
Although i don't disagree, i wonder if that is enough to force such a large difference in carbonation.

 

[buttersd70]

Yup agree completely butters, i can see that a scoop of dex would be higher in content due to the fineness of the grain.
Although i don't disagree, i wonder if that is enough to force such a large difference in carbonation.

You betcha it is. Go to any american brewing forum, where priming by volume instead of by weight is common practice...read the threads on inconsistant carbonation levels. for example, at 22C, 5.01g/740mL will give 2.5 vol C02.....5.91g will give 2.8vol. 0.9g doesn't sound like much....and its not. 0.3Vol CO2 doesn't sound like much....but it is. Theres a big difference between 2.5 and 2.8 vol.

 

[Adamt]

You had a large proportion of highly fermentable sugars; I highly doubt the ferment was properly finished at 1.016. I'd probably expect it to get a lot lower, maybe 1.008.

I'm guessing it could've benefited from either a racking for a few days, or just some rousing.

I'm really not sure why you're all questioning the priming procedure..... :unsure:

 

[Cube]

I have been through a process of how many cups in .5 kg of dex or malt right down to tea spoon carbonating.

To my suprise, 3 cups dex = .5kg
4 cups malt = .5 kg

Rough I know, but adds perspective to this volume/weight issue.

Also I have a million tea spoons in my draw, and none are the same. They hold from 2 to 6 grams of sugar.

 

[buttersd70]

I'm really not sure why you're all questioning the priming procedure..... :unsure:

Cos I missed the bit about the FG, due to blurry vision? That and an assertion in another thread recently that scoops are better than bulk priming........ h34r:

 

[himzol]

You had a large proportion of highly fermentable sugars; I highly doubt the ferment was properly finished at 1.016. I'd probably expect it to get a lot lower, maybe 1.008.

I'm guessing it could've benefited from either a racking for a few days, or just some rousing.

I'm really not sure why you're all questioning the priming procedure..... :unsure:

I think the above answers it,

As for carbonation you also have to take into account the temperature of the beer when carbonating, unless you have your beer at say 15C everytime you carbonate, then there is no such thing as a standard measure.

 

[flattop]

That particular brew was a slow starter, i roused it several times by shaking the fermenter, it is possible that it didn't ferment out, but not through lack of trying.
Interestingly enough, i pitched another container of the same yeast starter in another brew yesterday and it is going quite well this morning.
I also wanted it to drop lower in FG it just didn't for a few days and being 10 days in i assumed it had finished, all the signs were there, the head was finished, no sweet taste, steady FG. Perhaps the yeast was dormant as the overnight lows in Melbourne are reasonably different from the daytime highs and perhaps the cooler weather slowed the yeast down. It has been quite hot here in the last 4 days and i even had a tin of tomato's spray all over me 2 days ago. Perhaps the yeast kicked back in when the bottles were conditioning and a day in the fridge was not enough to slow it down.

Re the scoop thing, i bought the scoop from the LHBS, the instructions are quite clear, big scoop big bottle, little scoop little bottle.
I had not even considered the size, weight and texture of the grains i was putting in, no disclaimer on the scoop saying beware of grain size.