No bottle explosions yet but huge gushers...Empty them all? :(

[pmaster]

Hey guys,

I brewed a batch of raspberry beer, my second try at it, and I have huge gushers when I open the bottles after they've been 3 weeks in the bottle. I primed them to about 3.0 carb, and the final gravity was at about 1.02 (high I know...).

I had left it in the primary for about 3-4 weeks before moving to the secondary for another 2 weeks with raspberries.

I had moved maybe 10-12 bottles to the refrigirator, one I opened was very flat (a grolsh-type bottle which I suspect had leaked). I then opened another swingtop cap and it sprayed EVERYWHERE. I opened another 2 bottles outside, pretty much the same scenario. Since it seems an infection is in there and the final gravity was only 1.02 I am very much scared they`ll turn into bottle bombs. I guess I should just empty them one by one? I tried opening a swing cap to release some pressure and re-seal it but it foamed like crazy and I'm afraid there's even more pressure build up now (is that possible??).

Any advice? The beer is very good...and its a 5 gal batch!

 

[itsme6582]

I think you're fine and you just need to wait a bit longer. How long have they been in the fridge?

I'd put em in my basement by a drain and leave em alone for a couple of weeks. A garage this time of year would be good too. Just somewhere cool that will be easy to clean up if they do blow.

 

[stella_tigre]

Put them in a plastic storage container, and make sure they stay as cold as you can keep them. I have some cyser which is overcarbed, and even chilled I have to open one very slowly by cracking the lid, waiting, cracking the lid a bit more, etc, but not opening it right away.

I handle them very carefully when warm....

 

[bucketnative]

I had a batch of gushers, but they were in capped bottles. I released some pressure on the cap (put a nickel on top of the cap and use an opener to crack them), and then resealed. It worked. You could try something similar with the Grolsch-style tops. Mine was due to a miscalc in priming sugar, not an infection. At 1.02, I'd think you might have to release pressure a few times.

However, the beer was still over-carbed, just not gushing.

In order to deal with the over-carbonation, I poured the foamy beer into a large glass vase and let it off gas for a bit, then poured it out into a glass. That handled the over-carb'ed beer nicely.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

You say the beer is good. Does that mean you tasted one of the gushers? If it tastes infected, dump them all. Otherwise, you could try the suggestions above.

 

[Aristotelian]

You can try to bleed the pressure by prying gently on the cap. You will here a hiss and it will start to gush up. As soon as it starts to gush, let go and the cap will reseal itself. Keep repeating until it no longer gushes up.

 

[TAK]

What was your OG?
Was 1.020 the SG before adding fruit, or after fermenting the fruit addition?
Was there an additional sugar addition before bottling, and if so, how much? [edit: I see you say you primed to 3.0]
What yeast did you use?

1.020 could be very high, depending on circumstance.

 

[pmaster]

I think you're fine and you just need to wait a bit longer. How long have they been in the fridge?

I'd put em in my basement by a drain and leave em alone for a couple of weeks. A garage this time of year would be good too. Just somewhere cool that will be easy to clean up if they do blow.

They were in the fridge for about 48h.

 

[pmaster]

You say the beer is good. Does that mean you tasted one of the gushers? If it tastes infected, dump them all. Otherwise, you could try the suggestions above.

Yeah they actually tasted very good, but I'm guessing if I let them sit any longer at room temp they'll start to turn.

 

[pmaster]

What was your OG?
Was 1.020 the SG before adding fruit, or after fermenting the fruit addition?
Was there an additional sugar addition before bottling, and if so, how much? [edit: I see you say you primed to 3.0]
What yeast did you use?

1.020 could be very high, depending on circumstance.

OG was around 1.69. The FG of 1.020 was just before bottling (after it had spent 2 weeks on fruits), and with the sugar addition for carbing.
Yeast: wlp530

 

[pmaster]

You can try to bleed the pressure by prying gently on the cap. You will here a hiss and it will start to gush up. As soon as it starts to gush, let go and the cap will reseal itself. Keep repeating until it no longer gushes up.

I guess I can try this, especially with the swing tops, but it seems like once I released the pressure on one of them, it built backup even worst?
I slightly opened the swing top and reclosed it and saw the huge pressure building with the foam building inside....I guess given time, the carb will be reabsorbed in the beer?

 

[pmaster]

I had a lot of friends over last night, so in the end I opened up about 10-12 bottles, and all of them were huge gushers (I got maybe 1/3 of a bottle from them to pour in a glass).

However, I had some ice, and I put a few of them in there and tried them at the end of the evening, and I was able to pour all of them without any mess. It seems that getting them close to freezing really helped...

So right now I was able to put all the remaining bottles in my refrigerator. I guess I'll make sure they're ultra-cold before trying to open them, and hope they don't blow up in the fridge...

 

[secondbase]

OG was around 1.69. The FG of 1.020 was just before bottling (after it had spent 2 weeks on fruits), and with the sugar addition for carbing.
Yeast: wlp530

my experience with wlp530 is that it is a slow attenuator. 1.020 is high and depending on the recipe, I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped another 5-10 points. At that point I would be afraid that bottles are going to start exploding. Degassing is a great recommendation. I would keep them cold, handle VERY carefully and as long as they're tasting good, drink them as fast as possible.

 

[Aristotelian]

I guess I can try this, especially with the swing tops, but it seems like once I released the pressure on one of them, it built backup even worst?
I slightly opened the swing top and reclosed it and saw the huge pressure building with the foam building inside....I guess given time, the carb will be reabsorbed in the beer?

Exactly. Never tried it with swing tops but this works with traditional crown caps. Just lift gently and release, wait til it is reabsorbed and then try again. Once it stops gushing immediately you have a good amount of pressure.

The way I figure, even bleeding a little helps because if it didn't explode before it shouldn't explode with less pressure, right?

 

[theheroguy]

Did you use priming calculator to hit 3.0 volumes? Those things are notorious for leading to overcarbed beer. What temperature setting did you use in your calculations? I use the northern brewer one but I always set it at 40F so it return a lower measurement of sugar.

 

[pmaster]

my experience with wlp530 is that it is a slow attenuator. 1.020 is high and depending on the recipe, I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped another 5-10 points. At that point I would be afraid that bottles are going to start exploding. Degassing is a great recommendation. I would keep them cold, handle VERY carefully and as long as they're tasting good, drink them as fast as possible.

Yeah 1.020 seemed high to me, but after about 3-4 weeks of fermentation, no more airlock activity and stable readings I figured it was done. Plus given another 2 weeks with fruits I assumed it would be done.

I guess I will try degassing the ones I can then. At least they all fit in the refrigerator so things should be more stable.

 

[pmaster]

Exactly. Never tried it with swing tops but this works with traditional crown caps. Just lift gently and release, wait til it is reabsorbed and then try again. Once it stops gushing immediately you have a good amount of pressure.

The way I figure, even bleeding a little helps because if it didn't explode before it shouldn't explode with less pressure, right?

Sounds like a plan, I'll give it a go. Thanks!

 

[pmaster]

Did you use priming calculator to hit 3.0 volumes? Those things are notorious for leading to overcarbed beer. What temperature setting did you use in your calculations? I use the northern brewer one but I always set it at 40F so it return a lower measurement of sugar.

Yeah I used the same calculator I always use and usually don't have gushers like this. It happened to me once before, exactly for the same rapberry beer. Last time I figured I had an infection or wild yeast, so to be sure this time I dropped a campden tablet in with the fruits for 24h (mashed with a little water) before racking on top. However given I got the same problem as last time I don't think I'll be doing a fruit beer anytime soon again...:/