Air Leak When Siphoning -> Gushers??

I have been having a problem (since resolved) with my siphons leaking when transferring to bottling bucket / bottles. I added a hose clamp that you screw tight to take care of that issue.

My question is will this air leak cause the yeast to be more active in the bottle and over carbonate / cause gushers?

My bottles are stored in the basement at about 60/62f this time of year. After a few weeks, my latest batch seemed to be doing fine. But, it's been about 5-6 weeks now, and last night when I opened a couple, both started foaming out of the bottle. They don't have a really off twang like infections sometimes do, but, I'm sure they aren't competition quality either. Anyway, I was wondering if the aeration could be the cause or I need to look elsewhere for my problem.

 

I haven't personally had the air leak problem you describe, but I've read many articles about over-carbonation and never read anything about aeration causing gushers. I often get lots of gurgling when getting the last bottle out of the bottling bucket, which I'm sure aerates it plenty, and never get gushers this way. But you might get the oxidized cardboard taste in your beer. This takes some time to get bad, so drink them quickly.

 

Aerration will not cause gushers. It may cause a slight off flavor in time. depending jow much O2 got in. The taste will start to taste like wet cardboard.

60-62 is a little too cool to bottle condition.

I have a question for you. How long were the bottles that gushed in the fridge for? Brews have to be refridgerated for at least 24 hours for the carbonation to be absorbed into the beer. A bottle that has not been in the fridge will almost always gush.

 

They were in the fridge for 8-12 hours before opening. I know most people recommend 24-48 hours, but, I can't say that I've noticed a huge difference. Not to the point of gushers vs non-gushers, anyway.

Since they weren't that way 2-3 weeks ago, I wondered if it would continually get worse and what caused it so I can fix the issue in the future. Out of 4-5 batches, I've only had it happen with one other (my first) where I way over did the priming sugar (figured that out well after the fact).

 

If your basement is that cold, is that where your primary fermentation happened? I've had fermentations in the low 60s that looked complete until I increased the temperature to let them "clean up," when they suddenly started bubbling again. Any chance the fermentation SEEMED complete, but was just really slowed due to the cooler temp?

 

Check out this BYO article: http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/08/27/5-home-brewing-tips-to-avoid-the-dreaded-bottle-bomb/

 

Yes, fermentation was in the same basement. I gave it a week in primary and 3 weeks secondary. OG 1.056, FG 1.014 (but I think my hydrometer reads +.003). It was an extract kit and used danstar notttingham dry yeast, not that I think any of that really matters, but, who knows.

I was just thinking that adding sugar and oxygen like we do for primary fermentation, the yeast may go into a reproductive cycle and maybe ferment out some left over malt based sugars as well as the priming sugar. I have no idea if this is a valid theory, so that's why I thought I'd tap the community here.

I thought about taking a gravity reading from a bottle, but, by adding the priming sugar at bottling time, I'm not sure how valid a reading at this point would be.

 

I've never done it, but you should be able to check SG from the bottle. The priming sugar should be completely fermented out. The conversion to alcohol affects gravity, but very little with just priming sugar. If the bottle conditioning went as planned and only the priming sugar fermented, you should get the same gravity as the FG before priming and bottling. Be sure to correct for temperature. An drive off the carbonation - this can be done by pouring back and forth between two glasses. (You would probably need very large glasses for carbonated beer.)

 

I have found that in the case of "fermentation starting again" it's really just CO2 coming out of suspension due to the warm up. Unless you took gravity readings before and after then there's nothing to really say that fermentation started again.

The low 60s is the perfect temperature for many yeasts. I've fermented US-05 in the upper 50s and it finished out fine.