My 1st infection...hoo-rah. :(

[gwapogorilla]

It's official...my 1st infection....it's a "gusher".
I noticed it this morning going to move my carboy in place so I could bottle tonight. It looks like the beer in the carboy is already carbonated in the carboy... small air bubbles making their way to the service.

It's been in there for 4 weeks...gravity is at 1.010. CRAP!!! It's a Belgian Dubbel...so you know it wasn't cheap to brew. Really bummed out.

 

[poptarts]

Is this a joke? residual co2 is real and exists in every beer you make... that's why you have to put a max reached temperature in on priming calculators.

 

[gwapogorilla]

No joke. Still fermenting away...even after 4 weeks. Bubbles in the air-loc AND in the carboy. Kinda looks like soda in a way.
While I have had a few air bubbles in my carboy in the past....nothing like this. It is "active".

Everything I have read points to "gusher" infection.

 

[VT-NAV]

Is this a joke? residual co2 is real and exists in every beer you make... that's why you have to put a max reached temperature in on priming calculators.

Spoken a little harshly, but Poptarts is right. It is very likely this is just residual CO2 off-gassing from the beer. Has the fermenter warmed up a little recently? As Poptarts alluded to, less CO2 will remain dissolved in warmer beer - so those bubbles could very well just be CO2 slowly coming out of solution.

Your priming sugar addition is partially based on how warm the beer got prior to bottling - warmer beer will require more priming sugar to achieve the desired level of carbonation than would a beer that stayed cooler.

If I was very concerned about a possible gusher bug, I would let it ride in secondary for a couple weeks longer to confirm an infection before I bottled (and risked bottle bombs) or dumped it (and risked throwing away perfectly good beer).

 

[gwapogorilla]

well, to be honest...the ambient temp has raised a little in the last few days. The carboy temp was 67* the other day, while it is at 71* now.

Okay...I haven't dumped it yet. I'll give it another week to see what happens. Nothing ventured...nothing gained.:rockin:

 

[jalmeida]

Taste your beer!!! Really. Making any judgement based on anything else is a waste of time and stress.

I have read a ton of nervous posts about infected beer that have not yet been tasted.


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[poptarts]

Sorry if I came across as harsh. If there is nothing funky growing on top im sure its just off gas. take a gravity reading and if it hasnt changed you are good to go. those Belgians get really low FG I had a saison finish at 002 once defiantly not infected im sure yours isnt either.

 

[gwapogorilla]

Sorry if I came across as harsh. If there is nothing funky growing on top im sure its just off gas. take a gravity reading and if it hasnt changed you are good to go. those Belgians get really low FG I had a saison finish at 002 once defiantly not infected im sure yours isnt either.

Apology accepted:rockin: i try to have a little more understanding here than on other forums. Since it's a beer/wine forum, somebody is gonna show up intoxicated every now and then...I have!

Nothing on top of beer, it's a nice looking beer with the exception of the bubbles. I am usually a nazi when it comes to sanitizing, but I make mistakes too...so I dunno. We did just go through a warm up...ambient temps went from 67* to 80*...so the other posts may be correct...caused by the sudden temp swing.

I'm just gonna wait another week and test again....a little extra aging isn't going to hurt anything.

Thanks guys. Been doing this a year now and I learn something new all of the time.

 

[Darwin18]

Pick up a wine thief and taste the beer. Does it taste infected? If not, let it be. It would be terrible to dump a batch that was perfectly fine.