I bottled the beer 9 days ago. They sat in the dark around 70 degrees F. I went to try one and as soon as I opened it the beer started gushing out. I opened another and the same thing happened. I typically wait 14 days to open and I have never had this happened so I was surprised when it was early and seemed to be over carbonated. any suggestions.
Bottle issues
- Thread starter dmoss0984
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Usually a couple possibilities. Too much priming sugar is the first thing I'd look into. What did you use to prime and how many gallons of beer did you have? The second possibility is an infection, but 9 days seems awfully early for an infection to be the culprit.
My money would be on too much priming sugar.
My money would be on too much priming sugar.
How long did you refrigerate them for? CO2 goes into solution better at colder temperatures, so if it hadn't been refrigerated for very long, most of it hadn't gotten it the beer yet which caused it to go flat so quickly.
Heineken
Well-Known Member
maybe you bottled too soon and it wasn't done fermenting all the way?
Black Island Brewer
An Ode to Beer
It is likely one of these three things. While gushing can happen with warm beer, leaving flat beer behind, the time frame seems too short.
There's your problem you have to refrigerate them
HB_in_Subic
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Let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
That's likely part of it as well, depending on the style there are likely over carbonated, but chilled they still shouldn't gush with that amount the Belgian Dubbel i'm drinking right now was primed with 5.3 oz of table sugar and it doesn't gush
Edit:That is assuming his volumes were right & he actually bottled 5 gallons
OK, 5 gallons (finished beer volume) is normally 52 12 oz bottles so you are a little under that but that alone is not enough.
You also mention you were still getting airlock activity so likely the beer was not 100% finished. Still, unless it was stalled fermentation, that alone is not your problem.
You likely over-primed depending on the style of the beer if you used the supplied kit volume of corn sugar unless you buy from a company that taylors that to the beer style. Still, not enough for gushers.
The beer was young in the bottle and warm. The CO2 is likely not in solution do to both of these things.
If you add all this up, you likely have a number of small things that contributed. Will a beer in the fridge for 24-48 hours, popt the top over the sink. If it lightly foams out the top but does not gusher on you, it may also have the contributing factors of enough adjuncts that promote good head (wheat, carapils, etc) that it appears worse than it is. Immediately pouging slowly and carefully in to a British Pint or similar sized glass may reveal a perfectly good beer under a mountain of rocky head. This happenned to me the first time I added 10% wheat in addition to my normal 5% carapils in an already Munich Malt heavy beer.
You also mention you were still getting airlock activity so likely the beer was not 100% finished. Still, unless it was stalled fermentation, that alone is not your problem.
You likely over-primed depending on the style of the beer if you used the supplied kit volume of corn sugar unless you buy from a company that taylors that to the beer style. Still, not enough for gushers.
The beer was young in the bottle and warm. The CO2 is likely not in solution do to both of these things.
If you add all this up, you likely have a number of small things that contributed. Will a beer in the fridge for 24-48 hours, popt the top over the sink. If it lightly foams out the top but does not gusher on you, it may also have the contributing factors of enough adjuncts that promote good head (wheat, carapils, etc) that it appears worse than it is. Immediately pouging slowly and carefully in to a British Pint or similar sized glass may reveal a perfectly good beer under a mountain of rocky head. This happenned to me the first time I added 10% wheat in addition to my normal 5% carapils in an already Munich Malt heavy beer.
ZebulonBrewer
Well-Known Member
The main reason I get gushers these days is inadequate mixing of the priming sugar into the beer at bottling time. I rack (siphon) onto the priming sugar, and then when it is done I take my sanitized brewing paddle (long plastic spoon) and stir gently. You don't want to stir vigorously because at the moment, oxygen is the enemy. I stir for probably 15 seconds and then get to bottling. After I started doing that my bottles had a much more uniform carbonation level.
Happy Brewing!
ZB
Happy Brewing!
ZB
This is a great sets of explanations and a good recommendation on what to do next.
If you still have gushers after spending time in the fridge, you can try "burping" the bottles to bleed off extra CO2. I had this problem with my latest stout since the amount of chocolate powder I used left me with much less beer than expected, and I failed to account for it when calculating the priming sugar. It took about 5 "burpings" to get the level down far enough that I could open them back up, cover them with sanitized aluminum foil to allow all of the remaining CO2 to escape, and then re-prime each bottle with 1/2 tsp. table sugar. I was only able to get a little bit out at a time in the beginning because they would foam up so quickly and there was very little headspace.
You could also run a bit of a test using 5 bottles. Burp 5 and then stick one of them in the fridge for a couple days. If the carbonation is to your liking, burp the remainder once and you should be good. If it is still too high, burp the other 4 and stick one of those in the fridge. Repeat until you get to the carb level you want and burp the remainder of the bottles the number of times it took to get your test bottle to the right level.
BuffaloJohn
Well-Known Member
dmoss, My first suspicion is that fermentation wasn't complete. In fact, I see no one has asked about the temperature you were fermenting at. If it was on the lower side of recommended temperatures for the given yeast, you may have bottled and restarted the normal fermentation in addition to the yeast having the additional bottling sugar to convert.
Are your bottles in a warmer location than the fermenter?
Any taste issues?
Are your bottles in a warmer location than the fermenter?
Any taste issues?
Here is the process I used :
This recipe I found and was not a pre built kit. It is a red ale extract recipe using wyeast 1007. After finish the wort I pitched the yeast and put it in the primary fermenter. I had it at a 70 degrees and it started a very aggressive fermentation, a little started to come out of the air lock. At this point I sanitized tubing and put water with starsan in a bucket and put the tubing from the airlock to the bucket of sanitizer. I lowered the temp to about 64 and let it sit for 6 days in the fermenter with a pretty vigorous bubble. Then I racked and syphoned into my secondary with the same airlock system set up. For the first 5-7 days it was still pretty aggressive then slowed to a stop by day 9. I boiled the priming sugar let it cool put it at the bottom of the bottling bucket and the syphoned on top of it. Bottles have been at the 68-70 degrees for about 9 days.
The taste has been good. I have never made this kind before to compare but no sourness or off tastes. Thanks again for all the feedback, I started brewing about four months ago and have learned a lot from this forum!
This recipe I found and was not a pre built kit. It is a red ale extract recipe using wyeast 1007. After finish the wort I pitched the yeast and put it in the primary fermenter. I had it at a 70 degrees and it started a very aggressive fermentation, a little started to come out of the air lock. At this point I sanitized tubing and put water with starsan in a bucket and put the tubing from the airlock to the bucket of sanitizer. I lowered the temp to about 64 and let it sit for 6 days in the fermenter with a pretty vigorous bubble. Then I racked and syphoned into my secondary with the same airlock system set up. For the first 5-7 days it was still pretty aggressive then slowed to a stop by day 9. I boiled the priming sugar let it cool put it at the bottom of the bottling bucket and the syphoned on top of it. Bottles have been at the 68-70 degrees for about 9 days.
The taste has been good. I have never made this kind before to compare but no sourness or off tastes. Thanks again for all the feedback, I started brewing about four months ago and have learned a lot from this forum!
BuffaloJohn
Well-Known Member
dmoss, I see you lowered fermenter temp to 64. Did you keep that same temp for secondary? As a suggestion, you might want to delay the transfer to secondary (or racking) past the point of aggressive fermentation. Did you also check your gravity? This is something I sometimes neglect. I recently bottled a Pale Ale that I believe wasn't completely fermented (I didn't check gravity until bottling). As a result, I kegged half and will check the bottles for over carbonation and refrigerate immediately if they are correctly carbed. To avoid there maturing in the fridge, I will drink them quickly, not a bad thing!
Awesome! & Now you know next time to watch your bottling volume and not to use all 5 oz of priming sugar in 5 gallons unless you want a highly carbonated beer...
Glad it worked out for you enjoy your batch
Glad it worked out for you enjoy your batch
