I recently went through a case of old (1-2 years) homebrews to see how they had been holding up to age. Almost every single beer was too foamy when poured, some were clearly over carbed, but others appeared fine until they were poured into a glass at which point they became mostly head. I have noticed this is even happening with some beers that are 6 months old. I am using an online carbonation calculator and typically shoot for 2.4 vols worth of CO2 for my priming sugar, but my beers always seem to be too bubbly. Also none of the beers taste or smell infected. Any help or advice would be appreciated as I have a batch of Yooper's Oatmeal Stout fermenting currently.
Overly Foamy Beers
- Thread starter kirblator
- Start date
-
- Tags
- carbonation foam head
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
JONNYROTTEN
Well-Known Member
The number one comment your going to get is your lines are to short
Whats your setup?
Not going to get much help without your full setup info
Whats your setup?
Not going to get much help without your full setup info
Lines? The OP is using bottles...
JONNYROTTEN
Well-Known Member
Ah Ha...I missed the first sentence...nevermind
1. Are you sure you are at FG when you bottle. If the fermentation isn't quite complete the bottles will be overcarbonated. This can take some time to show up.
2. Did you weigh the sugar you used for carbonation or just a measuring cup? Sugar can vary in density and a measure may have more sugar than expected.
3. Are you sure of the volume of beer that you bottled? If you use the calculator and tell it you have 5.5 gallons when you really only have 4.8, every bottle will be overcarbonated.
4. When you add the priming sugar to the bottling bucket do you just allow the swirling of the beer to do the mixing? I've found that I need to stir just a little to get better mixing of the sugars or I sometimes get uneven carbonation.
5. If your beer is perfectly carbonated at a month but becomes more highly carbonated with time to the point that every bottle foams when opened or even gets to be bottle bombs you have a wild yeast infection. Remove the spigot from the bottling bucket (if it has one) and clean it thoroughly, then clean the bucket thoroughly too. If it persists you have the wild yeast in your air inside your house and will need to use an air filter with a UV-C light to kill it off. This would be quite rare but possible.
You should go to the yeast mfg web site and see if any you use have the STA-1 gene (Diastaticus). If you get a small cross contamination with this it will cause more fermentation ,it's just very slow. You could degas a hydro sample and check the FG against your notes. This yeast is capable of 90% ADF
