What's happening here? Adding oak cubes to secondary with a reaction

My ris 1.098 og sat in primary for one month double checked fg once at 3 weeks then again at 4 weeks and it was stable, transferred to secondary for one month while oak cubes soaked in bourbon, added cubes straight to secondary since my hop sack wouldn't fit and as soon as the cubes hit it started foaming like shaking a pop bottle? Seems like an awful lot of co2 in suspension and I've had the airlock on it while it sat with no bubbling at all. Why the violent reaction and is this going to hurt the beer while it ages for my 4-6 months on the cubes. I also had to cut off half the bag of cubes that I got through the opening and let that drop in as I couldn't extract it through the opening when I realized the whole bag wasn't going to fit. The bag was boiled then soaked in Star San prior to having the cubes added to it. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1446743506.599321.jpg

 

Just CO2 coming out of solution since you loaded it with media with a lot of surface area. Shouldn't be a problem aside from the mess. The threat of contamination from the bourbon soaked oak is virtually nonexistent.

 

I just put a piece of sanitized foil over the opening and plan on leaving it there until the fizzing dies down, figure there's no O2 getting in there since the carboy is just pushing out CO2. Ok I guess I'll just wait for the fizzing to die down at this point.

 

don't know for sure, but i'd guess nucleation is the culprit. Similar to Mentos and Diet Coke.

 

Looks yummy!

 

Bumped any other thoughts. Prob stop worrying right?

 

Theres still co2 bubbles rising up but not as bad, looks like a carbonated beverage, can't be though right? Will it ever stop?

 

Curious here , how much oak is in there?

 

Beer is actually carbonated to about 1 volume (or a little more depending on temperature) when it's in the fermenter. This is why bottle carbonation calculators ask for the maximum temperature during fermentation. You'll be ok and it should stop eventually. You're at least pushing oxygen out of the headspace.

 

It IS carbonated. Beer will still have a lot of CO2 dissolved in it prior to carbonation, even well after fermentation stops. Sure, it won't taste that fizzy, but there is plenty of gas in there to keep bubbling away if you do something to knock the gas out of solution.

 

2oz of cubes in just over 5gal

 

So when I dropped the cubes in it knocked around the co2 causing it to rise? Ok that doesn't sound so bad and it pushing all the oxygen out of the carboy anyway.

 

Yeah, essentially. The oak provides nucleation points, essentially something that the co2 gas can "stick to" to come out of solution and form bubbles. No issues for your beer quality, and as you mention, it is displacing any oxygen in there, so it is a good thing.