Wicked Foamy Beer

[FensterBos]

One minute I feel like I've got this home brewing thing down and the next moment something goes boom.
I tried a bottle of my holiday ale a little early last week just to ensure it was moving in the right directly. I popped it open and poured half a glass for myself and half a glass for my buddy. The pours gave a foamy head, but it wasn't anything I was worried about. I popped open another one last night and the photo pretty much shows you what happened.
So, what causes this sort of thing? I mainly bottle in 22 oz., but I was a little low on supplies so I used some 12 oz. bottles I saved from 6-packs. I bottled the 12 oz. toward the end of the batch so could there have been more bottling sugar toward the bottom, thus resulting in an overly carbonated beer? By the way, I've definitely learned my lesson and will be boiling the priming sugar to dissolve it prior to adding to the bottling bucket.

 

[FensterBos]

 

[Revvy]

How long did you chill it before opening it?
How long has it been in the bottles?

 

[FensterBos]

I rushed the chilling; maybe 20 minutes in the freezer and 20 in the fridge.
It has been bottle conditioning for three weeks now.

 

[Christafer11]

Last year I had a similar problem I bottled a whole batch using 3 different size bottles 12oz and 220z I had just purchased, I also used 16oz grolsh that I had been using. The 16oz and 12oz bottles were just fine but the 22oz did this same foam over flow and If I could pour into a glass would be about 80% head. So I knew it was not a beer problem but a bottle problem with the 22ozers. I went back to the lhb I purchased the bottles from and asked his input at the end of all the talk we came up with some wild yeast/bacteria in the 22oz bottles. Since all 3 had gone through the same cleaning process that was the only logical answer( I was still not sold on this answer but nothing else made sense even though I cleaned them the same as the others). He also mentioned DO NOT was the bottles in the dish washer or with soap as it will leave a residue inside that can cause this problem, only wash with warm water or starsan/iodine or what ever you use to sanitize with and a brush. After the bottles got emptied I cleaned them and used them again no problems so at the end it must have been some sort of infection. (note there was NO off flavor tasted the same as the others)

 

[boostsr20]

If you just dumped the raw sugar into the wort then it didn't mix correctly. You HAVE to liquefy it to get it to blend evenly.

 

[Rowdy]

i had a batch of stout in bombers that did that, let em sit a couple months and wrote em off, opend a few recently and they are perfect.. however did have one erupt on me i dont think i had that one in the fridge as long as i had the others

 

[nallanrex]

I've heard that what can happen sometimes is the co2 produced didnt have enough time to dissolve into the beer. So when you open one you get a beer fountain. Maybe try leaving in the fridge longer?


-Nick

 

[FensterBos]

My bottle priming method was learned through my buddy's method of just dumping in the priming sugar without liquefying it. I just assumed that the sugar was fine enough to distribute easily, but I noticed that there was some sugar at the bottle of the pail after bottling. From here on out I will be boiling the sugar and liquefying it for even distribution.
I am going to try one of my other beers that I bottled at the beginning of the bottling process to see if I am getting the same results.

 

[malkore]

also 20 mins in the freezer and 20 in the fridge doesn't even begin to chill the beer or allow the CO2 in headspace to go into solution.

rule of thumb is at LEAST 24 hours at serving temperature, ideally 48 hours, to really get an accurate representation of carb levels, etc.