Gushing stopped when refrigerated...why??

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ara35

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So I brewed some irish red. when i had it at room temp and then put it in the fridge for 10 mins or so, it would gush like crazy. so i was told to put them in the fridge, leave them for a couple days and then check on them. after a couple days in the fridge, they no longer overflowed like crazy. definately not infected.. great beer! doesnt smell or having any off flavors. but why would the fridge stop it from gushing, but still leave a perfect amount of carbonation??
 
CO2 doesn't come out of solution nearly as quickly at lower temperatures. It probably hadn't cooled down in the first ten minutes, but was nice and cold after a few days.
 
The liquid can hold more CO2 in solution when it's colder. So it stays in the beer instead of gushing out when the pressure changes when you pop the cap off.
 
Two things could be at work here, or a combination of them

1) Yeast may have still been active and creating more fermentation of sugars. Most yeast pretty much go dormant at refrigeration temperatures.

2) CO2 will not readily stay disolved in a liquid at room temperature. The colder a liquid is, the more CO2 will remain disolved in the solution. So CO2 would tend to bubble out of solution at room temperature, but is much more prone to remain in the liquid at refrigeration temps. This is why when you pour a warm soda into a glass you get so much foam, but the soda tastes flat. It is because most of the CO2 came out of the room temperature soda which is what caused all the foam.
 
The liquid can hold more CO2 in solution when it's colder. So it stays in the beer instead of gushing out when the pressure changes when you pop the cap off.
Pretty sure it's the opposite, ie it comes out of the beer before you open the bottle.
When you pop the cap off of a bottle, you drop the pressure instantaneously. This reduces solubility of the gas, allowing it to come out of solution violently. This is similar to how a diver gets the bends if he returns to the surface too quickly.
Cooling a bottle down reduces the pressure inside it, reducing solubility of the gas and allowing some of it to escape into the head space. When the bottle is opened, this portion escapes uneventfully into the surrounding air. Obviously, some additional gas does come out of solution, but since the vapor pressure has been reduced prior to the opening event, the pressure differential is much smaller and therefore the process is much less violent.

Qualifier: I'm a mechanical engineer, not a chemist, and I've only taken three courses in thermo (the most recent of which was 3 years ago).
 
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