Gushers?!?

mjsinnott · Mar 12, 2015

I brewed my first batch a few months back, a Pale Ale. I thought it came out pretty good for my first time. Out of the 48 beers I bottled 3 were gushers. Not sure what happened but as soon as I opened the bottle they overflowed the bottle, badly. The first homebrew I gave to my father-in-law did it and I was pissed. The beer still tasted good, but not sure why 3 were acting so crazy when they were opened and the others have been perfect with carbonation and head. Any ideas why this happens?

erick0619 · Mar 12, 2015

They could have picked up an infection only reason i can really think of.

andy6026 · Mar 12, 2015

It sounds like the most likely culprit is that those ones got infected, either introduced to the bottles on bottling day or they weren't cleaned well enough.

RM-MN · Mar 12, 2015

You also may not have gotten a good mixing of the priming sugar or the yeast hadn't settled well enough or had gotten stirred up. If there is yeast stirred up in the bottle it might be enough to form nucleation sites for the CO2 to form bubbles on. That can cause gushers. You can also get that if you got some hop debris into the bottle.

mrgrimm101 · Mar 12, 2015

RM-MN said:
You also may not have gotten a good mixing of the priming sugar or the yeast hadn't settled well enough or had gotten stirred up. If there is yeast stirred up in the bottle it might be enough to form nucleation sites for the CO2 to form bubbles on. That can cause gushers. You can also get that if you got some hop debris into the bottle.

This has happened to me. I got a little bit of hop debris in some of the bottles, and it all settled out with the yeast, but as soon as I opened the bottles, all of the settled debris kicked up into suspension and it gushed like crazy. I'm pretty sure that I oxygenated some of them really bad due to improper bottling techniques at the time.. No fun.

Hello · Mar 12, 2015

If the beer tasted as you expected then an infection may not be the culprit. I am with @RM-MN on the mixing of the sugar. That'll get you every time unfortunately.

mrgrimm101 · Mar 12, 2015

Yea for my first couple batches I didn't put the hose in the bucket to create the swirl as I transferred, so I got some bottles that were way overcarbed and others that ended up ok with enough time. This improper racking technique, plus filling straight from the spigot without a bottling wand (my mistake..I was new!) led to some gushers and pretty terrible off flavors.