Bubbles from the Bottom: A Single Bottle Anomaly

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NobleNewt

Noble Newt
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
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Hey Y'all.. Bottled my kind-of-kolsch last Monday. Reached FG of 1.011 with Omega Voss Kveik. Cold in the house, so I put one case on top of a heating pad to increase the temp and hopefully hasten the conditioning process.

This morning, pulled out my trusty canary-in-the-coal-mine Topo Chico plastic bottle to see how it was doing.. Nice and plump and clearing nicely.. Pulled out my next bottle to realize that it appeared to be re-fermenting. Literal bubbles flowing from the bottom or the bottle to the top. In a bit of a panic, I threw it in the fridge scared it may have a bug or gotten an extra slug of priming sugar.

Did a little reading and realized that the top may not have seated/sealed correctly and CO2 may have been coming out of solution. Pulled it out of the fridge a couple hours later (under the above assumption), popped the top careful not to release all pressure inside, attempted to quickly re-seat the top, and left it out at ambient temp the rest of the day. Came home, checked the bottle.. Bubbling away again..

Out of curiosity, I grabbed my micro bubbles used to detect HVAC refrigerant leaks and gave the gasket a good squirt.. Nothing. No signs at all of micro foam or micro leaks. For reference, I'm using 16 oz. flip top bottles, and this is only about their 4th or 5th brew. Never abused them nor the gaskets, and this is the only bottle showing these symptoms.. Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts.

In all the years I've bottled beer, I've never actually witnessed bubbles coming out of solution. I know it happens (gradually and slowly over time), but something you never actually see. I'll stop.
 
Nucleation site in that particular bottle?

Thought of that. I had a saison I did last year that had gushers because a lot of trub got into the bottles. Not the case this time, but it could have been the first or last bottle and gotten more than the others?
 
The bottle not sealing is the only explanation.
Reseating it must have fixed the leak, or at least equalized the pressure so you wouldn't be able to see it leaking.
 
The bottle not sealing is the only explanation.
Reseating it must have fixed the leak, or at least equalized the pressure so you wouldn't be able to see it leaking.

Makes sense to me.. I guess if it leaks, it leaks. I've actually got it upside down in the box right now to see if anything leaks out overnight. If not, I guess it's seated and good to go albeit with a few volumes missing.
 
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