Overcarbonation

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quickerNu

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Never had this problem before! On my last 2 beers, I pour pure foam from the bottle. Normal pop when I remove the cap, no foam-over, but as soon as I pour it in the glass, it all turns to foam.

I opened a 4 month old bottle (been bottled for 4) of my imperial amber, and it did the same thing. I never had any problems before from this same batch.

The first 2 batches were all-grain with safeale 04, the imperial amber was liquid yeast. All were carbonated in the same manner.

The only difference I can come up with is all of these batches were crash cooled and MAY have been bottled cold. But the IA was fine from the bottle for months. I am perplexed :drunk:
 
I've had the same problem a couple of times without cold crashing. I don't think it's a long-term bottle infection. Most of them happen after 3-4 weeks in the bottle.

I'm interested in theories, also.
 
They aren't actual gushers, though. The top pops off normally, nothing comes out, all in liquid form. Doesn't seem over-pressurized. As soon as the beers hits the pint glass- boom- instant foam. Foam is so thick it can suspend a toothpick- standing up, with maybe 1/2" stuck into the foam.
 
I experienced similar too. My thoughts were that the beer was not quite done fermenting when bottled leaving extra sugar that was later fermented in the bottle.
 
Uncap and recap them. That often fixes bottle overcarbonation, or you can just deal with that batch. It sounds like you got a bit more fermentation in the bottle than you had hoped, for whatever reason.


TL
 
I have some beers that do this exact same thing! I never could figure out what was going on.
 
Yep. all of this is happening to my batches that were crash cooled, bottled 20 minutes or so after I took the secondary out of the chest freezer, then conditioned at room temp. I guess I should stop bottling them cold. Does anyone else who crash cools let the beer warm back up before bottling?
 
Yep. all of this is happening to my batches that were crash cooled, bottled 20 minutes or so after I took the secondary out of the chest freezer, then conditioned at room temp. I guess I should stop bottling them cold. Does anyone else who crash cools let the beer warm back up before bottling?

I don't get the correlation. Why would crash cooling cause overcarbing? Unless you crash cooled too soon and when warmed back up the yeast continued to ferment what they didn't before being forced to drop out. Maybe it's just coincidence.

I would just try using less primer. I use a little less than what's prescribed, 1 cup dme instead of 1.25. Be weary though if you send a beer to a comp they'll say it's flat even though it's just carbed to my liking. Seems Judges like super fizzy beer.
 
Uncap and recap them. That often fixes bottle overcarbonation, or you can just deal with that batch. It sounds like you got a bit more fermentation in the bottle than you had hoped, for whatever reason.


TL

Will recapping a way overcarbonated batch still give you a nicely carbonated beer in the end? I have this problem with a batch right now and would like to do something to save it.
 
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