Has anybody ever experienced this?

I've been brewing for a number of years and this has never happened before.
I brewed a 5 gal batch of extract and divided it equally into 2 Mr.Beer fermenters as I've done many times. After 2 weeks I checked the gravity of one keg and it was ready to bottle so I bottled it and all was as usual. 3 days later I got around to bottling the 2nd keg but, after adding the tsp of sugar, when I filled the bottles a head instantly started to form just like tapping a beer from a tap into a glass. I could only fill a bottle 3/4 full, the rest was head so I continued to fill all the bottles and then went back to the first bottle in which the head had settled and filled it the rest of the way. Today, 3 days into the carbonation period, the pet bottles are hard but the beer is murky. I'm guessing the beer is contaminated but I'd like to know exactly what is going on, not just a guess. It smells good, just like beer should.
Any answer, please?

Can't say definitively, sorry, but I think your guess of an infection is a good one. I suppose another possibility is that the 2nd fermenter had a slower fermentation and wasn't done. If you did a hydrometer reading, you could tell for sure.

I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion of an infection. I've never personally had this happen to me but it may be caused by not filling the bottles from the bottom up. Also, your beer will be murky at 3 days in the bottle. Give it a few weeks and it should settle out just fine.

probably just nucleation points...CO2 was in beer and came out of solution with the sugar.

Let them ride...

Again, this brew is identical to the brew I bottled 3 days prior. The FG of the 1st brew was ideal just what I was aiming for so I didn't bother to take a reading of this 2nd batch. I just opened a bottle of the suds and poured some into my hydrometer and all I get is suds. Look >



When the suds go down I'll get a reading.

its 3 days into carbonation, it will do that!!

Where is that video.....shows exactly this. 3 days fizzy mess. 5 days fizzy mess 7 days less fizzy, 10 days, less fizzy minimal lacing....30 days, nicely carbed

It's less than a day in carbonation. 3 days into carbonation is the first batch I bottled.
FG of this fizzy mess is 1.001 WOW and still cookin'.
But it tastes D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!
I loosened all the caps on all the bottles lest they explode to let some of the gasses escape and tightened them again. They're a cookin'.
My guess is I added too much bar sugar for carbonating.
Here is the recipe >

I don't think people are reading the OP's point - it had excessive CO2 going into the bottles, during bottling. I don't see how that would be related to how long you let it bottle condition.

Again, this brew is identical to the brew I bottled 3 days prior. The FG of the 1st brew was ideal just what I was aiming for so I didn't bother to take a reading of this 2nd batch.

Click to expand...

They should be/could be the same, but yeast are funny that way, as you've found out.

Didn't know the gravity could ever really hit that low. 1.001? That's practically water. I've heard of super low gravity being an indication of infection but who knows. Ha Ha - I'm surprised you could take an accurate reading with all that foam in your sample jar. Sure if the foamy beer tastes good, get it into you. You won't be sorry, at least until the flatulence starts

First can you PLEASE reduce the size of your pic to around 450X500 pixels so we don't have to scroll back and forth to read this? It's kind of hard to read what you're writing (or to post an answer) having to scroll left and right. It's really bad forum etiguette to post large pic which warp the thread. The minute I really I've posted too large a pic I immediately go back and reduce the size.

So trying to read your initial post and your followup you are observing 2 natural phenomena based on your actions with an infection, when in reality you're more thasn likely not infected in the least.

1) When you add a dry ingredient such as sugar to something that has co2 in it, it WILL FIZZ UP. The granuals of sugar act as nucleation sites and help the co2 get released violently. That's not an infection, that's science in action.

It's the same as the diet coke/mentos effect.



Hardly an infection.

2) Pouring ANY beer into a narrow hydrometer tube is also going to cause it to foam up, especially if it is in the early steps of carbonation where the co2 has yet to be absorbed into solution, so it's much more easy to foam up on the pour. That's one of the reasons why we NEVER take a gravity reading of bottled beer, especially by pouring it into the vessel, without degassing it first.

3) As someone else pointed out, here's nothing wrong with your beer, it's not overprimed nor is it infected...the problem is yOU'RE OPENNING THE BEER AFTER BEING IN THE BOTTLE ONLY 3 DAYS!!!!


Watch poindexter's video from my bottling blog.



Like he shows several times, even @ 1 week, all the hissing, all the foaming can and does happen, but until it's dissolved back into the beer, your don't really have carbonation, with tiny bubbles coming out of solution happening actually inside the glass, not JUST what's happening on the surface.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

But until then the beer can even appear to be overcarbed, when really nothing is wrong.

A lot of new brewers who tend to kill their two cases off in a few days, don't experience true carbonation and the pleasures thereof, until they actually get a pipeline going, and have their first 5 or 6 week old full carbed and conditioned wonderfully little puppy! Then the come back with an "aha" moment.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Makes sure the beers are minimum of 3 weeks at 70 degrees before you even think of opening them, then make sure a couple of them are THOROUGHLY chilled for at least 48 hours to draw the co2 into solution. Then more than likely everything will be hunky dory....

Lemme know if this is more pertinant to your situation. We get folks like you on here daily thinking their beer is over carbed when in reality the co2 has not yet balanced out and gone back into solution.

Had you opened them after 3 weeks you never would have noticed anything wrong.....

SO nothing's really wrong. You're over catastrophizing what in reality is a common occurrence, nucleation, something that has been posted about on here quite alot, whenever someone adds dry sugar to their beer, whether it's in the bottle or the carboy.

Here's another version, this is using rock salt and cola, which is closer to what you're seeing since it's more granules.



You can also see an interesting phenomenon when you microwave water in a coffee mug for 30 seconds then dump a teaspoon of sugar into it.

Revvy,
I'm terribly sorry for the oversized pics. I've always before reduced my pic size for attaching to a forum but in my haste to post, I neglected it this time here. Again, sorry.
The problem/issue happened way before I opened a bottle to pour into the hydrometer. This is not the issue. The issue was tapping the keg into bottles to prime. In the years of brewing and bottling and brewing and bottling year round, I never has the experience of any foam/head appearing in the bottles while priming.
Yes, they appear alright right now as they carbonate. I almost dumped the batch down the drain. Thanks for your input. I'm almost sure the excessive 90 degree heat was the culprit.