bubbling over

Just tried porter three months in the bottle, and one week in fridge and it still foamed out after five seconds of opening. this seems to be my new common problem. The beer itself had carbonation, but it didn't last. Am I looking for more time in bottle or what?

It is happening to an IPA five weeks in bottle, and a coffee stout that is four months in bottle as well (the stout I do not count cause of the residual grounds)

All grain or extract? How do you clean your glasses? Soap residue can kill head retention.

It is all grain. But I am not worried about head retention I worried about beer retention. It doesn't hold the carbonation and the beer bubbles out of the bottles.

So it goes flat in the glass quickly? That is very strange.

It seems to release all the co2 too quickly, however I have an ipa that was doing the same but let it go another week and it is perfect. That is why the porter is so strange. it is not a new beer.

Do you mean that the beer foamed up and then settled to little or no carbonation? I have had a few beers overcarb and I got like 2-3 inches of head and lost some beer because my glass would flow over in the pour, but they still were relatively carbonated.

Relatively is correct. Not properly.

I have good news and bad news and they are both the same. Get a kegerator!

If you leave a bottle untouched in the fridge for two days, then open it gently and it bubbles out of the bottle with the bottle just sitting on the counter, you almost certainly have a sanitation issue in your bottling process. It's very hard to over carbonate to that degree without there being bugs involved.

If you leave a bottle untouched in the fridge for two days, then open it gently and it bubbles out of the bottle with the bottle just sitting on the counter, you almost certainly have a sanitation issue in your bottling process. It's very hard to over carbonate to that degree without there being bugs involved.

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Really? ...cause I have had two batches that did that and neither tasted even slightly off. I just poured them quickly and lost a little as it flowed out of the glass, the head settled and the beer tasted great. I do have one batch that I just cracked open and it causes a fountain and while I can't seem to grab enough of that to drink a glassful (it kicks up all the yeast off the bottom) it does not have any off flavors. I am pretty consistent with sanitation. The only consistent I think with the batches that have done this is that I used cane sugar and may have used too much.

Slipgate said:

I have good news and bad news and they are both the same. Get a kegerator!

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To put his BOTTLED beer in?

AleDave said:

Really? ...cause I have had two batches that did that and neither tasted even slightly off. I just poured them quickly and lost a little as it flowed out of the glass, the head settled and the beer tasted great. I do have one batch that I just cracked open and it causes a fountain and while I can't seem to grab enough of that to drink a glassful (it kicks up all the yeast off the bottom) it does not have any off flavors. I am pretty consistent with sanitation. The only consistent I think with the batches that have done this is that I used cane sugar and may have used too much.

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Always been my experience. Mind you, I'm not saying your beer is bad or anything like that. It's just a very telltale sign that there's something else living in that bottle other than the yeast you wanted.

If you somehow accidentally doubled the sugar addition, or something like that, I can possibly see this happening. But I doubt you would have messed up your measurements that much?

It's much more likely that you just have some low – grade critters. A lot of the bugs that cause over carbonation don't really show themselves as strongly perceptible flaws in the beer until they've been aged for quite a while. Other than the carbonation being way off of course

cscade said:

It's much more likely that you just have some low – grade critters. A lot of the bugs that cause over carbonation don't really show themselves as strongly perceptible flaws in the beer until they've been aged for quite a while. Other than the carbonation being way off of course

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While my sanitizing is consistent I suppose it's always possible that something floated into the bottling bucket that evening. Any suggestions on salvaging the batch?

So coffee stout did the same. This one a blamed on the grounds that are still in suspension. The IPA seems to settled down. So better sanitation it is.....

I hope the batch I just bottled got the right sanitation.

kcross13 said:

So coffee stout did the same. This one a blamed on the grounds that are still in suspension. The IPA seems to settled down. So better sanitation it is.....

I hope the batch I just bottled got the right sanitation.

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If you have coffee grounds in suspension, they will create tons of nucleation sites for the CO2, and that will definitely cause excessive foaming.

Whenever I have had a bottling sanitation issue, it's always been something stupid because I just wasn't paying close enough attention.

Good luck with the next batches!

AleDave said:

While my sanitizing is consistent I suppose it's always possible that something floated into the bottling bucket that evening. Any suggestions on salvaging the batch?

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There's not much you can do to salvage it per se. I would just be very gentle opening the bottles in the sink, and be ready to pour into a glass right away. You might lose half the bottle, but at least you still have some! If you have this happen to a keg beer, you can repeatedly vent the keg over a period of days/weeks, until you stabilize at a lower carbonation.

It's one thing to have a bottle or two have some residual “dirties” in them that cause the beers to become violently over carb’d. But bottle after bottle?

I’d say it’s more to do with the beer your putting in the bottles, than the bottles themselves.

Over carbonated bottles can come from several issues:

• Bottling the beer too soon and putting fermentable sugars under pressure.
• Adding too much priming sugar to the bottling bucket.
• Some sort of wild yeast spore is getting into your beer and causing excessive fermentation.

(Though that last one would probably show itself in significant off flavors.)

Explosively carbonated beers will indeed go flat upon pouring because once the degassing begins, it kind of creates a chain reaction and the beer just ends up “burping” out all meaningful CO2. Under carb’d beers will actually hold carbonation in suspension better upon serving than over carb’d beers…because they are inherently more gentle pours.

So odds are wild yeast, or bad scale? I am sure I measured right and there does not seem to be off flavors. Thanks for the pointer about the sanitation. That makes more sense than having every bottle not cleaned right.

All the beers were a month in the fermentor at least, with stable gravity over five days.