hopdropper

Recipes 

So I recently brewed a Scottish Wee Heavy...OG 1.086, FG 1.018. The brew sat in the primary for three weeks on a massive yeast cake (pitched the wort onto an existing Wyeast 1728 cake from previous batch). Was in the secondary four about a month. Bottler 'er up, and let sit for three more weeks. Know I know this beer is supposed to age for a bit, and most of it will be cellared for six months, but I had to try one (or two) just to see how it turned out. Well both bottles foamed up REAL heavily when I popped the cap. And when poured, it's mostly foam (like 90% of the pint glass). If you let the beer sit four about 10 minutes in the bottle, it calms down just fine and is totally pourable. Flavor tastes like it should....no off flavors like it's spoiled or contaminated. It's just DAMN bubbly. Any ideas? Might that mellow with age? Maybe a product of too much residual yeast suspended in the beer? Or do I have a contamination issue that isn't producing off flavors (yet)?
Thanks for the input!

Agtronic

Recipes 

This might be worth the read. Not much good info, but might give you some ideas.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/stalled-batch-must-have-restarted-after-bottling-what-do-303763/

Two recipes in a row have done this with me. I'm really thinking it has to do with the sugar solution not mixing in properly. Next time I may just mix the whole batch with a large mixing spoon just before bottling.

__________________
Markku

Latest discoveries : Corne du diable from Dieu du Ciel. Oh lord yes.
Cascade IPA from the Brasseurs Illimités 'Simple malt' line.

Fermenting:
- Nothing (taking a little break)

Bottled: (and savoring)
- Bonaventure IPA
- St. Henri Pale Ale
- Markku's Oatmeal Stout

malkore

Recipes 

How long did you chill them? Bottles really need to chill 48 hours to absorb all the trapped CO2 into solution and then stabilize.

__________________
Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

hopdropper

Recipes 

malkore, good question...i'm trying to remember, it may have been WAY shorter than that. i don't have room to store much of the homebrew in the fridge. so sometimes when i get home, i'll pull a bottle out of the garage (where it's maybe between 50 and 55, depending on the day) and stick it in the freezer for an hour to cool it down.
that said, i really think my last bottle that fizzed had been in the fridge a couple days. worth an experiment though...

forstmeister

Recipes 

How much priming sugar did you use for the batch?

__________________
I drink (homebrew), therefore I am (gassy)

hopdropper

Recipes 

the standard 5 oz package...mixed thoroughly.

forstmeister

Recipes 

Maybe you should have left it in secondary a little longer? How did you transfer from secondary to bottling bucket? If you didn't siphon carefully you may have transferred more yeast than you should have? I don't know honestly...

__________________
I drink (homebrew), therefore I am (gassy)

hopdropper

Recipes 

heck, i figured a month in the primary was more than enough...but maybe with that big of a beer it needed longer.

hopdropper

Recipes 

guess it needed longer. bottle-bombs. that's right...just went to garage and 4 of my 22 oz bottles blew up. what a freeking mess. cracked the tops on all the other bottles to release pressure, then re-capped. we'll see how that goes.

TastySalmon

Recipes 

Did you get a gravity reading after secondary?