Gushing WHILE bottling

[speek]

Hi- I'm a long time forum lurker, first time poster.

I bottled 2 batches today. The second batch I was bottling immediately started to gush when I added sugar (first batch was normal).

Since I brew 1 gallon batches, I usually fill the bottles with my autosiphon from the fermentor, and then go back to add sugar to the individual bottles. I use 1/2 teaspoon per bottle and have never had a problem until now. Usually when I bottle this way I get a foam head that stops once it gets to the rim of the bottle; this time, the beer started gushing on all 9 bottles and stopped to leave about a 2-inch headspace in each bottle. I would love to know if anyone knows why this happened.

The first batch I bottled was completely normal and went smooth. I put my auto-shiphon back into StarSan between batches. I clean my bottles by running them through the dishwasher (without soap) and then rinsing with StarSan. Help please!

 

[DrunkleJon]

Sounds to me like the foamy batch had probably built up a little pressure in the fermenter. When you added the sugar it provided nucleation sites for the bubbles to form.

 

[TheCADJockey]

When I kegged for the first time, I wanted to bottle a 6 pack just to have. It was the first time I had ever primed individual bottles like you say you did. However, mine also did what you previously mentioned where they foamed to the rim of the bottle and stopped. It really worried me but they turned out fine, despite each bottle being slightly different than the next due to very uneven amounts of priming. Anyway, this does not answer your question... just wanted to say, next time I have to individually prime, I am going to find away to dissolve it before distributing it so it is more accurate.

 

[Yooper]

Yep, nucleation points of residual c02 in the beer. I'd suggest bulk priming- that is dissolve the sugar in some boiling water, and then rack the beer into that in a bottling bucket or jug/carboy, and then bottling from there so it is mixed, OR use some 'carb tabs' or other premeasured dose of sugar so it won't foam up.

 

[PapaO]

Either bulk prime or prime the bottles first then fill. Stop filling when foam reaches top of bottle and then move to the next bottle. Keep doing this until you have beer in all the bottles than go back to the first bottle and start topping up. This should help dissolve the sugar.

 

[flars]

A longer time in the primary would allow some of the CO2 to come out of solution before bottling.
Racking to a bottling bucket, with the dissolved priming sugar, will also allow CO2 in solution to come out.

 

[jahdub]

Yep, nucleation points of residual c02 in the beer. I'd suggest bulk priming- that is dissolve the sugar in some boiling water, and then rack the beer into that in a bottling bucket or jug/carboy, and then bottling from there so it is mixed, OR use some 'carb tabs' or other premeasured dose of sugar so it won't foam up.

This.

I'm actually surprised you don't get foam every time.

 

[speek]

Thanks for the help everyone! I'll have to go back to priming the bottle first and then filling like PapaO advised (too lazy to bulk prime for 9 bottles when it's just me drinking them). I used to do it that way, but reversed it thinking I was smart and would save a whole 2 minutes of my time haha.

 

[grrickar]

Bulk priming FTW. Bottling is enough of a hassle without trying to prime each bottle.