Coopers beer bottling - very gassy

[The forager]

Am bottling a Coopers kit. Took the gravity reading over two days at 1.020.

It’s very gassy/ foamy. Need to keep stopping to top up the bottles as so much foam.

Any ideas? Used 1 tsp sugar to carbonate each 750ml bottle.

 

[lumpher]

How long did you let it ferment? 1.020 is pretty high still. Which kit was it? Unless it was a Barleywine or huge IPA, it's probably stuck, not finished.

 

[The forager]

Oh I see.

Only 6 days. It’s supposed to be ready in 7. It’s a lager.

The ones I have bottled, can I just leave the swing top lid slightly open to allow it ferment out and then backsweeten again?

 

[Jayjay1976]

Oh I see.

Only 6 days. It’s supposed to be ready in 7. It’s a lager.

The ones I have bottled, can I just leave the swing top lid slightly open to allow it ferment out and then backsweeten again?

Give it at least two weeks before you even consider bottling. Lager strains ferment at lower temps and can take longer than that. Then you need to let it "lager" a few weeks to condition before bottling. I'd wonder how tasty any beer can be in 7 days. Yeasty mess is what I ended up with when I was an impatient beginner. Time is your friend. Time is also my friend. Time is a lot of fun at parties and always brings the best beer. Time isn't great at darts tho and always runs out before the party is over, but YMMV.

 

[The forager]

Give it at least two weeks before you even consider bottling. Lager strains ferment at lower temps and can take longer than that. Then you need to let it "lager" a few weeks to condition before bottling. I'd wonder how tasty any beer can be in 7 days. Yeasty mess is what I ended up with when I was an impatient beginner. Time is your friend. Time is also my friend. Time is a lot of fun at parties and always brings the best beer. Time isn't great at darts tho and always runs out before the party is over, but YMMV.

Right... I leave all my wines a very to fully ferment out. I thought beers were different and that they’d be more bitter if I left them in the fermenter. I always leave them to condition for a few weeks.

What about the bottles I’ve already bottled?

 

[3 Dawg Night]

I'd open those bottles and either pour them out or back into the fermenter. If you bottled before fermentation was finished, you could get bottle bombs, which are dangerous.

 

[The forager]

I'd open those bottles and either pour them out or back into the fermenter. If you bottled before fermentation was finished, you could get bottle bombs, which are dangerous.

Ok thanks!

 

[ncbrewer]

I agree with the comments above, but this is a different issue. If you sanitized the bottles with Star San, the foam is apt to be from the Star San. Once you have beer that is fully fermented out and you're bottling it, the Star San foam isn't really a problem. You just fill the liquid to the normal level and let the foam spill out the top.

 

[hotbeer]

I've been a little puzzled about the "gassey" description too which the OP is experiencing when filling the bottles to cap as I understand.

The only thing I've come up with is either some contaminations from something that produces a lot of foam and/or they cold crashed the beer and then let it come up to room temp to bottle and there is a lot of dissolved CO2 coming out of solution from the temp change and physical agitation of the beer while filling the bottles.

Perhaps if this is a wheat beer or something that also tends to have a great head, then maybe that is a contribution.

 

[pvtpublic]

How are you filling the bottles? Is your ferment still bubbling?

 

[bracconiere]

1.020? is that a refrac or hydro reading?

 

[The forager]

I left it another two days. Reading down to 1.000 so I bottled the remaining ones. No foam.

It was hydrometer reading.

Filled with bottling stick.

 

[hotbeer]

If it went down to 1.000 then is it infected and tasting a little sour?

Certain types of infection will make beer foam more. But I've only experienced that when opening them 3 or so weeks after bottling and they are seething volcanoes that slowly spew out almost all the contents except for a gulp or two.

Does your beer recipe say what your expected FG should have been?

 

[ncbrewer]

So down to 1.020 in 5 days, steady for 2 days, then down to 1.000 in 2 more days. That seems strange. Are you confident in your hydrometer readings? Same hydrometer each time? Were the hydrometer readings degassed? Normally degassing makes just a small difference for me, but with this being gassy it might make a bigger difference.