Stopping more head

[tahlorn]

Got enough head on my beer. Don't want it to become all foam, but still want it to keep aging. How do I do this? I heard I stick it in the fridge for a bit, then can pull it back out and it will age but not keep going headier.

 

[bigben]

Got enough head on my beer. Don't want it to become all foam, but still want it to keep aging. How do I do this? I heard I stick it in the fridge for a bit, then can pull it back out and it will age but not keep going headier.

huh?......

 

[cweston]

It will stop carbonating when the yeasts have consumed all of the available fermentable sugar which you added at bottling time. The only means you really have to control this is how much priming sugar you add. Chilling will mostly suspend the yeast activity, if there still is any, but if you take them out of the fridge, the yeast activity will resume (if there is any sugar left for them to eat).

What and how much priming sugar did you use at bottling?

 

[tahlorn]

What and how much priming sugar did you use at bottling?

3/4 cup corn sugar. Onyl thing is that some msut was left in the secondary after racking to the primary for bottling and then added sugar, so din't compensate for the loss. Wasn't too much, but is a place I am thinknig might have issues. Only reason I am bringing this up is because my first two batches are very heady, mainly because I put more sugar in there than the 3/4 cup, as given poor instructions from the brew shop.

 

[cweston]

3/4 cup is a good healthy amount of corn sugar, but it's not going to turn your bottles into all foam or anything. Remember that at some point the carbonating is going to stop because there will be no sugar left to feed the yeasties.

There's a good carbonation calculator at the beer recipator page (too lazy to look up th URL: google beer recipator), which tells you what the range of carbonation for your style is, then calculates how much priming sugar based on the amount of beer, what the priming sugar is, and what level of carbonation you're going for.

 

[Markusface]

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

Thread is two months old... but hey just in case anyone else was looking for it

 

[chillHayze]

Thanks for the link!
Could you hold the bottles at freezing for an hour or so, or heat the bottles in a hot bath like 100 degrees? Assuming the bottles don't break or explode... I have *accidently* freezed some of my bottles trying to fast chill them and forgot they were in the freezer. Do you think the natural carbonation stopped in those?

Experiment time!!!

 

[sonvolt]

From my experience, some beers do get headier and headier with age regardless of how much priming sugar was used . . . . . .it is called an infection and the bottles that do it are known as gushers. If your beer is foaming more and more, you may have an infection.

Now . . . here is how I know this.

When I was about 15 years old, I smuggled a 12 pack of my dad's homebrews out of the basement. He hadn't touched them in about a year, so I was sure he had forgotten about them. I carry them in a backpack and my buddy picks me up. We get them on ice.

Then, after a sufficient amount of time (2 or 3 hours), we open them up with a few other guys while cruising around town. I then understood why my old man had not touched them. These beers would not stop gushing foam all over the car. We couldn't just toss em out because we were in town . . . and they tasted horrible. Ahhh that is a great homebrew memory. I told my dad this story about a year ago . . . he laughed his a$$ off.

 

[chask31]

How are you pouring the beer? Not to talk down, and I am sure I am wrong, but the amount of head can also come from a bad pour.... If your making your own beer, I am sure you are at the point that you know how to pour so dont take offense....was just throwing it in as a possibility