Keg eruption!

[jzamora3]

Woah not sure what just happened. Had my arrogant bastard clone in the keg and had been dry hopped with 2oz of Chinook. I had very little headspace in the keg and there was some minor foaming when I put the hops in. Anyway, I had gone to remove the hops today. Relaeaes the pressure in the keg and removed lid. Almost instantly the keg started foaming, erupting from the keg. I tried to place the lid back on but the o ring fell off and beer litteraly shot ALL OVER my kitchen. Any idea what happened here? This will be the last time I try and dry hop in a keg. Beer was finished fementing at 1.012 and was at room temperature when this happens.


FML

 

[jzamora3]

There was some co2 in the keg as I had purged the O2 from the keg. But not much.

 

[jzamora3]

Is there a chance there may have been more co2 than I thought in the keg? And it had already been carbed? I only used 10 psi for maybe a few minutes and burped it multiple times.

Also, the reason I had pulled the hops out is because I used a bag to drop them in and was going to pull them out tonight.

 

[andrewmaixner]

was at room temperature when this happened.

There's the issue.
but even at keggerator temperature, be careful when adding hops to carbonated beer. taking them back out at 35F is less of a worry. but I've learned like you did.
put the keg in a bucket first, have an extra lid on hand, and only mess with carbed beer when it's cold.

Yuu have experienced what mead makers call a MEA: mead explosion accident, cause by adding small particles (in their case, powered nutrients) to a liquid which has a lot of dissolved gas in it.
Here's the science behind it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucle..._nucleation_of_fluids_.28gases_and_liquids.29

 

[jzamora3]

There's the issue.
but even at keggerator temperature, be careful when adding hops to carbonated beer. taking them back out at 35F is less of a worry. but I've learned like you did.
put the keg in a bucket first, have an extra lid on hand, and only mess with carbed beer when it's cold.

Yuu have experienced what mead makers call a MEA: mead explosion accident, cause by adding small particles (in their case, powered nutrients) to a liquid which has a lot of dissolved gas in it.
Here's the science behind it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucle..._nucleation_of_fluids_.28gases_and_liquids.29

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

So even tho the keg had only been on gas for a few mins and it was burped, that's still enough to carb the beer? I had always thought carbonation required time, temp and psi. Everything I had done was to minimize the amount of dissolved co2.

 

[andrewmaixner]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

So even tho the keg had only been on gas for a few mins and it was burped, that's still enough to carb the beer? I had always thought carbonation required time, temp and psi. Everything I had done was to minimize the amount of dissolved co2.

beer in the fermentor could have anywhere from 0.5 to 1.0 volumes of CO2 already, depending on the current temperature of the liquid. Dropping stuff into it (addition of nucleation sites) caused much of it to bubble up at once.


I'm guessing you meant that you minimized O2 dissolution, not CO2?
Because that would only make sense in a still wine/mead, not a normal beer.

 

[jzamora3]

Oh okay, and yes and no to your question. I was avoiding o2 to limit oxidation but also didn't want any co2 in the beer as I wasn't quite ready to carb it. I had put it in the keg as a "secondary fermentation" so I had planned on letting sit for a week or two before I started carbing.

Oh well. Lesson learned. Only lost about 1.5 gallons and my fiance wasn't too too upset me with me haha

 

[helibrewer]

I have dry-hopped into a keg many times and have never had this happen. Are you sure fermentation was complete? Nucleation is certainly possible but I think there are other factors that were at work here since this was not carbonated beer...it was green beer at less than 1 volume of CO2.

If you had to vent that keg, I suspect it was carbonated much more than you suspect.

 

[jzamora3]

It was at 1.012 for 3 days. I used wlp 007 and it had sat in primary for just about a month.

I transferred before adding dry hops. Like I said, I had only put it on gas for a min or two and purged as much out as I could. When I pulled the prv before removing the hops, a small hiss was all i heard. Maybe a second or two.

Still not sure what happened, as I have dry hopped in kegs before and never had anything like that ever happened.

No more dry hopping in kegs for me. I'll still to my method of dry hop in primary, crash, add gelatin and keg when going for my super hoppy ales.

 

[andrewmaixner]

It was at 1.012 for 3 days. I used wlp 007 and it had sat in primary for just about a month.

I transferred before adding dry hops. Like I said, I had only put it on gas for a min or two and purged as much out as I could. When I pulled the prv before removing the hops, a small hiss was all i heard. Maybe a second or two.

Still not sure what happened, as I have dry hopped in kegs before and never had anything like that ever happened.

No more dry hopping in kegs for me. I'll still to my method of dry hop in primary, crash, add gelatin and keg when going for my super hoppy ales.

I leave an ounce or two of modern aromatic hops (amarillo, simcoe, mosaic, etc) in my kegs for IPAs.
I add dry hops near the end of primary fermentation, cold crash a week later, rack to keg with sugar and more hops in a fine mesh bag, and put on tap a 7-10 days later. As far as I can tell, that is the best method for the most hop character and the least oxygen exposure.