Pressure Fermentation has created too carbonated beer

[fursey]

I recently indulged on purchased myself a temperature controlled stainless steel conical fermenter. Having read about pressurised fermentation I thought I would give this baby it first reial and ferment under pressure.

However now I'm nearing the end of the fermentation period, it appears that my beer is over carbonated and is filling the measuring flask with foam as can be seen below..

I've obviously issued a step or done something incorrectly during the process.

I brewed as I normally do, the wort was transferred into fermentor, the yeast pitched at pitching temperature, the fermentor was sealed and kept this way until Sunday when I decided to take the first SG reading.

I was hoping those that are far more experienced and knowledgeable than myself could assist and provide some guidance to
1) Reduce the foam prior to kegging, and,
2) Avoid this happening in the future.

Many thanks.

 

[Robert65]

1) can't
2) don't ferment under pressure

The point of fermentation under pressure is to carbonate the beer (with a few possible, minor, ancillary benefits.) You have succeded.

If you want to transfer this beer to a keg you will need to do so under counterpressure.

 

[bobeer]

Not much you can do to reduce the carbonation besides letting it degas in a secondary with an airlock on it.

Next time I'd release some of the c02 during fermentation so it doesn't get as carbonated. Or use an airlock for the first day or so of fermentation then seal it up. Maybe look up someone else's process and follow it until you get a process that works for you.

 

[Sean Provencher]

You can build a Spunding Valve with parts on Amazon for $20-30 to regulate the amount of pressure. This is what I did and it was easy/works great. See youtube for howto videos

 

[Vale71]

If your manometer reads in Megapascal (I'm not sure as I can't read Chinese, sorry) then your beer is at around 0.8 bar at a temperature of 26.4°C. If that is correct then your beer is actually quite undercarbed as those parameters correspond to about 1.3 vols of CO2.
If you're taking your samples through a simple sampling valve then it's perfectly normal to get lots of foam. As a matter of fact if the beer were properly carbed then it would be impossible to get anything but foam out of a sampling valve withhout an attachment like the one from the following link.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...0.0&pvid=6c63b331-c8a9-450b-884b-a43f910bcd80

 

[Rob2010SS]

As others have said, the point of fermenting under pressure is to carbonate the beer naturally. However, you can't just seal up the fermenter at the start of fermentation. I've never done it but from what I've read, you have to know what you're FG is going to be. Once you know what your FG is supposed to be, you can figure out when to seal up the fermenter. In this article on Brulosophy, his FG was going to be 1.015 so he sealed up the fermenter at 1.019.

 

[Robert65]

As others have said, the point of fermenting under pressure is to carbonate the beer naturally. However, you can't just seal up the fermenter at the start of fermentation. I've never done it but from what I've read, you have to know what you're FG is going to be. Once you know what your FG is supposed to be, you can figure out when to seal up the fermenter. In this article on Brulosophy, his FG was going to be 1.015 so he sealed up the fermenter at 1.019.

You can ferment under pressure the whole way, but you likely don't want full pressure the whole way. Commercially in Germany and elsewhere lagers may be fermented at ale temperatures with around 1 bar head pressure during the bulk of fermentation to suppress ester formation, but pressure will only be allow to rise sufficiently to fully carbonate with around 1% or so fermentable extract remaining, as in any spunding process. It looks like the OP has implemented Part One if this scenario. (I have done this many times and concluded there is no good reason to do so. Fermentation at normal atmospheric pressure and normal fermentation temperature followed by spunding at the end to carbonate is surely preferable.)

 

[Rob2010SS]

You can ferment under pressure the whole way, but you likely don't want full pressure the whole way. Commercially in Germany and elsewhere lagers may be fermented at ale temperatures with around 1 bar head pressure during the bulk of fermentation to suppress ester formation, but pressure will only be allow to rise sufficiently to fully carbonate with around 1% or so fermentable extract remaining, as in any spunding process. It looks like the OP has implemented Part One if this scenario. (I have done this many times and concluded there is no good reason to do so. Fermentation at normal atmospheric pressure and normal fermentation temperature followed by spunding at the end to carbonate is surely preferable.)

Learn something new every day! Thanks for that info.