Leaky bottles

[Shawn Hargreaves]

I'm hoping someone can explain what happened to my last-but-one brew.

This was an extract old English ale, bottled nearly a month ago. I recently discovered that my girlfriend had tidied the closet and stored some of the bottles on their side, as a result of which a couple of them had leaked and were now only half full.

Note to self: bottles should be stored vertically in future

Never a one to waste beer, I immediately opened and drank the half-full bottles. To my surprise they actually tasted pretty good, but entirely different to the rest of my brew. They were very highly carbonated, with a lot of pressure so the caps literally flew off, and also intensely sweet (the rest of this brew is mild and quite dry).

So, which is cause and effect? Did the leakage somehow cause the increased carbonation and sweetness, or could this be the other way around? Is it possible I didn't mix the priming sugar thoroughly enough (I racked onto it and stirred a couple of times, though, so I don't understand how it could have ended up uneven), or that some of the bottles weren't clean enough, in which case an excessive amount of sugar could have led to both the high carbonation, sweetness, and leakage due to pressure?

On the plus side, the beer was good. But I don't like it when things happen that I can't properly explain

 

[homebrewer_99]

You already know the effect, I would say the cause was your caps weren't tight enough...

 

[Shawn Hargreaves]

How could a leaky cap make the beer end up so much sweeter, though?

 

[homebrewer_99]

Aha!! If it's sweet then either you underhopped or as I presume...bottled too soon.

What were your OG and FG?

 

[Shawn Hargreaves]

It's only sweet in the two bottles that leaked. The others are nice and dry and tasty.

So I'm wondering, did the sweetness cause them to leak (because some bottles somehow ended up with more sugar than others) or is it possible the other way around, that leaking could have caused the increased sweetness?

 

[Couevas]

This may be a long shot.....but perhaps the small leak allowed for only the release of evaporation.
If this is the case, then only water escaped and not beer. This would in effect concentrate the flavor of the beer and allow for enough headspace to build more gas pressure than a bottle with less space, thus blowing the cap off as you opened it.

 

[homebrewer_99]

This may be a long shot.....but perhaps the small leak allowed for only the release of evaporation.
If this is the case, then only water escaped and not beer. This would in effect concentrate the flavor of the beer and allow for enough headspace to build more gas pressure than a bottle with less space, thus blowing the cap off as you opened it.

That's pushing it, but I can see where you're coming from...

 

[blacklab]

Smells like poor mixing of the carbing sugars? The bottles that leaked had way too much priming sugar and you're lucky they didn't explode rather than just leaking.

Although since you say you mixed thoroughly...I dunno. At least you like the brew.

 

[illin8]

I'm going to say that the carbonation hadn't progressed enough when they were put on their side and still had some priming sugar in solution, then the leakage occurred creating more headspace in the bottle which lead to the overcarbination. I don't have any idea why the rest of the yeast didn't consume the leftover sugar though, something make them stop their activity? Someone call NBC and get CSI SVU on board...I'm out of guesses.

 

[springer]

maybe they were all overcarbed. I would think that either on their side or standing upright the caps should be able to hold anything from coming out of the bottle. The ones that were on their side purged beer while all the others purged CO2. Too much pressure in the bottle in this case the ones laying down(because beer would leak out slower than the C02) caused the yeast to maybe stop or die so they never finished off the priming sugar?Thus causing them to be sweeter.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

maybe they were all overcarbed. I would think that either on their side or standing upright the caps should be able to hold anything from coming out of the bottle. The ones that were on their side purged beer while all the others purged CO2. Too much pressure in the bottle in this case the ones laying down(because beer would leak out slower than the C02) caused the yeast to maybe stop or die so they never finished off the priming sugar?Thus causing them to be sweeter.

this theory gets my vote

 

[Couevas]

That's pushing it, but I can see where you're coming from...

I know.....I just wanted to throw something out from left field and see what people thought. It is possible, just very very unlikely.

 

[fratermus]

Note to self: bottles should be stored vertically in future

I have carbed horizontally with no ill effects. If the caps were leaking then I would say there was another, exacerbating problem.