excess CO2 in beer

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Layla

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At the end of January I made a fruit ale, putting some fruit into what I would call the primary (step after fermentation). I let it sit on the fruit for a week and racked it off. Now its the begining of March and there is still CO2 pushing out the airlock. What am I to do now?

OG 1.054

before adding fruit

FG 1.012
 
Don't worry about it.

CO2 bubbling out of the airlock just means that you have a good seal, nothing else.

With temperature changes and everything (up to and including a mouse sneezing in the next room) that can disturb the CO2 in suspension enough to make it off gas, it will continue to bubble slowly out of the airlock for a really long time.

If you're worried about whether you're finished fermenting, check your gravity over a few days to make sure it's not shifting.
 
well what I'm concerned about is getting it ready to bottle. I made 3 1 gallon batches when I did this. the plain ale has no CO2 coming off it. but the raspberry and blueberry ones still have a bit of force behind their airlocks.
 
Fructose can take a while to ferment out, especially if you're starting with some already stressed yeast due to the alcohol already in solution. At one month in secondary with fruit, I'd still expect the yeast to be done with what they're gonna do though.

If you're worried about it, the only way to be sure you're done with fermentation is to check your hydrometer readings for a few days.
 
yeah I'm sure fermentation is done, but if I add some corn sugar and bottle, I won't have exploding bottles?
 
If you look at the charts that are used for force carbing, they will show you how much CO2 you can have dissolved for a given pressure and temperature.

If you're fermenting at 60* with no head pressure, at most you will have 1 volume of CO2 dissolved.

I think that beer bottles will safely hold up to about 4 volumes, so unless you're planning to make them super fizzy you should be safe.
 
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