Over carbonation: beer vs champagne

[luis.salas]

Dumb question:

Why opening an over carbed beer is such a pain when you have champagne, with twice CO2 level, that is easier?

Thanks!

PD: I have had problems with my wits that were supossed to be bottle conditioned to 3.5 CO2 levels. Maybe I miss it a little, but soooo much to always have gushes, I don’t think so. It's quite annoying.

 

[NTexBrewer]

My guess is the extra proteins and other “solids” in beer create more nucleation sites that cause the gushing compared to Champagne which is just grape must.

Witbiers have lots of wheat protein.

If this is happening often it could be something else like an infection or dirty bottles.

 

[Vale71]

1 - no proteins in wine as opposed to beer. This means that wine will require higher carbonation to foam but the foam will be very short lived.
2 - in general wine has higher ABV than beer. Ethanol is another factor that works against foam persistence as can be seen in high ABV beers having short-lived foam.

3.5 vols is quite high for beer. If in addition you're bottle conditioning and bottling a bit too soon you might actually end up with carbonation as high as 4.0 vols and that will make for a very difficult pour. I'd recommend shooting for 3.0 vols and see if it improves things.

 

[luis.salas]

Thanks, guys. All that you have said makes sense. I had that problem with my wits and with one or two of my young beers (an Amarillo Pale Ale and an Oatmeal Pale Ale). They were all bottled pretty early, so there's the possibility of a misreading in the refractometer. I'll be a little more pattient the next time. Cheers.