Krausen in Bottles - Newbie Mistaken

[MayBrew]

Hello Everyone,

I am newbie all the way from South Africa, and as it stands they has been a liquor ban for the past 1-4 months. I have always for the past 1-5 years always thought about brewing my own beer and wines but never really had the stamina and energy to do so until now. Besides been a novice brewer I like to think that im a bit knowledgable when it comes to beer and brewing, well at least the basis. I am looking to brew on a permenant basis from here onwards and to learn a lot from this forum which I have been following for a month now, most of what I know is through this forum. Thanks for all the grand-master users for the effort and know-how for others, you just dont know how helpful the info here is hopefully one day I can really join the group.

Now, two weeks ago I started out with a lager extract in a 22litre vessel with a grommet and started 1st stage fermentation for 9 days at aver.17 d. Celsius. I patiently waited for the brew to ferment without opening it until the point where I had to add my finings and had a hydrometer reading of 1006 which I learn't is good for a lager, had a little taste from the test tube (as recommended my some here) and it tasted alright, with a "green", aftertaste, it wasnt difficult to tell why its called green beer. Anyway, two days later I started to bottle my brew and capped them (after some trial and error) and ofcourse followed the correct hygiene standards (and then some) and stored them again at an average of 17d. Celsius and a day later I went to go and check on my treasure and they was some krausen in the bottles less than 1cm per bottle.

Now common sense and some reading told me that this is good news and bad news, in that the yeast is still active eating up the priming sugars, but then, its bad because of the CO2 build-up in the bottles which might explode. It became clear to me that the I need to take some action to save the batch and my face in the furture. I decided to slightly pry off the caps (just slightly) to let off some steam, with the first bottle I open it fully to gauge on whats going on, and 1/3 of the contents flowed out as foam, it was like New Years eve. I am planning to do this for a day or two ( release the gas ofcourse), please tell me:

1. Am I doing the right thing by releasing some of the gases?
2. If so how long in days should I continue. Im planning to sanitise new caps and re-cap by Sunday/Saturday
3. What do you gentlemen think will be the end result. Im hoping that I will would have reached a good balance

- The test taste is that of a slightly sweet beer (priming sugar)
- Highly carbonated
- High ABV haha
- Pretty good flavour, I can see it improving greatly
- Has a "cidery" look and feel
- Pretty hazy but has improved from when I bottled it

Thanks for your time and look forward one day soon to brewing a Belgium ....

 

[IslandLizard]

An FG of 1.006 sounds fair for bottling. But you probably didn't use a Lager yeast as you were fermenting at 17C. That's within typical Ale yeasts' temp. range.

How much priming sugar did you use?

 

[MayBrew]

I used the recommended about of 1ml per 150. I did use granulated sugar, to be honest I am not sure if it was a Lager yeast as it was a kit, proberbly just regular brewers yeast. The krausen is really quiet thick in consistency in some bottles

Hope I didnt use to much sugar...

 

[Jayjay1976]

TL;DR

Using a bottle opener and extreme care, lift each bottle cap just a tiiiiny bit to "burp" off some of the excess pressure. Do this to each bottle once per day, and when you notice less pressure is building up than before, you know fermentation is tapering off. Refrigerate them and enjoy. RDWHAHB.

 

[NTBeer]

Getting them cold first before "burping" the bottles will reduce your losses to foaming. CO2 is more soluble in cold beer than in warm. Keep them as still as you can while uncapping.

 

[MayBrew]

TL;DR

Using a bottle opener and extreme care, lift each bottle cap just a tiiiiny bit to "burp" off some of the excess pressure. Do this to each bottle once per day, and when you notice less pressure is building up than before, you know fermentation is tapering off. Refrigerate them and enjoy. RDWHAHB.

What a a relieve, that is exactly what Im doing, Im following that logic. Im planning to remove the cap and re-cap once I notice the fermentation easing off, or should I just leave the caps on, Im afraid of an infection or something else? At this point the yeast is happily doing its thing that I have to do this 2-3 times a day, its a bit excessive. Thanks,

Getting them cold first before "burping" the bottles will reduce your losses to foaming. CO2 is more soluble in cold beer than in warm. Keep them as still as you can while uncapping.

Believe me Im carrying and moving them as if im carrying an atomic bomb, doing this in cooler temperatures. From here on out ill actually won't be moving them at all and will burp them in-situ. By the way what type of losses are we talking about here due to burping the bottles?....

 

[Jayjay1976]

By the way what type of losses are we talking about here due to burping the bottles?....

So long as you're just lifting enough to bleed off the pressure, you won't lose any beer at all.

 

[MayBrew]

Okay, I though loss of quality....