Exploding Beer

[lway4life]

Twice, from two different batches, my beer has exploded upon opening. Once the seal is broken the head rushes out of the bottle and goes everywhere. Neither of the was shaken up, nor were they at different elevations. The other ~48 bottles were carbed just fine and the pour was nice with a good amount of head.

I have brew 30 gallons so far and the process has been similar. Bottle conditioning with priming sugar mixing prior to bottling. I have shot for and have achieved around 2.5-3 volumes of CO2 for all of these two bottles. I don't know what happened to those two.

Anyone else experience this or have any solutions? Any help would be great.

 

[Fritobandito]

How long were they in the bottle before you opened them?

 

[tdogg]

how are you mixing in the priming sugar? i dissolve it in hot water, add it to the bottling bucket, and rack the beer onto it. mixes evenly enough.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Not sure what your sanitizer is, but it sounds like it could be infection. I had that problem before I knew to make starsan with distilled water, not my hard tap. No problems since.

 

[El_Exorcisto]

Been here before... Sanitize better and the problem goes away.

 

[samtb]

I've had this problem with the last couple of bottles of a batch. That is to say: the last two bottles I pulled and capped. I attribute it to priming sugar solution not mixing well enough into the beer and falling to the bottom of the bucket.

I've since made an effort to gently swirl the beer just before bottling. Sacrificing some clarity for better carbonation, I guess. Seems to have worked for me as I don't get variations in carbonation throughout the batch now.

 

[lway4life]

Ok, I boil the priming sugar in water and cool it and add to the bottling bucket then rack on top. I think that it is mixing equally but who knows. I do use san-star but have always mixed with tap water. Not too hard, but I do not pretreat or use distilled.

For using San-star, should I be using distilled or treated water?

 

[El_Exorcisto]

I dont use distilled and my water is fairly hard. I do usually mix it a bit stronger than directed though. Are you sanitizing everything? Siphoning gear, bottles, bottling bucket... everything?

 

[samtb]

lway4life, I boil the sugar in water, cool it and add it to the bottling bucket and rack on top too - but now I mix it for 30-seconds to a minute after racking too - Perhaps it's just confirmation bias, but it's really the only thing about bottling that I think I've changed since I've noticed fewer super-carbonated bottles.

 

[WhamBreak]

A gusher usually means infection. I've had a couple and was grateful that i was next to a sink when i open both of them.

 

[beaksnbeer]

Keg and the problem goes away :cross:

 

[samtb]

I'm curious why so many here are suggesting sanitization as the most likely cause of the problem. It seems to me, an unsanitary bottle is just as likely to turn out flat as it is to 'gush' (if the bacteria killed the yeast) - Also, I think it would be fairly obvious from the smell/taste if it was an infection issue. Do folks have stories/text I could read to get some more info on this?

 

[lway4life]

Infection / sanitation was my first thought. I tasted some of the remaining beer that I was able to capture from one of the gushers and right away I could tell something was off. I thought that maybe because of all of the activity the yeast did not settle into the bottom of the bottle, but now think that the taste was due to the infection. The taste was a yeasty flavor that was not present in the healthy beers. It was an IPA and was very clean and dry, other than being hoppy of course.

 

[joety]

Sounds like a wild gusher yeast to me. I had one spoil a whole batch once, took it down to 1.000.

 

[El_Exorcisto]

The bacteria doesn't kill your yeast, but it does chew through sugars that yeast cannot and ends up overcarbonating your beer. They also might have a weird geometry making for pretty explosive nucleation (think mentos and coke on Mythbusters).

 

[badhabit]

My vote is for a wild yeast....need better sanitation.