What is going on in these bottles? (major floaties in pumpkin ale)

[Bradmont]

I bottled my pumpkin spice ale Saturday, and looked at them today to find this:

It looks kinda gross, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. Is it pumpkin pulp, krausen, or some sort of infection?

I opened one up to try and figure it out, and it overflowed with carbonation, which was really surprising since they've only been in the bottle about a day and a half. Primed with brown sugar, if that makes any difference.

Opening the bottle:

This is the stuff from the top (gotta admit, it looks like pumpkin):

So should I just relax and wait it out? Will this settle?

Thanks!

 

[arch1tect]

Did you use a secondary?

 

[truckndad]

If it seemed over carbed after only a day and a half, you might want to put those things in a garbage bag and put them in the bathtub or somethings. If you got bottle bombs, at least you'll contain the damage.

 

[mewithstewpid]

if you used canned pumpkin and put it in the primary, id guess thats what it is. Mine looks like that too, at least the ones where i siphoned some of the pumpkin trub.

 

[bmick]

Well there are 2 possibilities, one is that this beer wasn't nearly done fermenting. Did you take gravity readings before bottling? How long was the primary? Secondary?

The second is a gusher infection. That gunk at the top is a frequent sign of gusher infections. If that's the case, there's nothing you can do, just be more vigilant with your sanitation next time you bottle, it happens.

 

[mrk305]

Have you ever looked at your primary after two days? When you add the bottling sugar it starts to ferment again. That is krausen. Try one again in a few weeks.

 

[Bradmont]

To answer questions, I did not secondary. It was in primary for 5 weeks. FG was 1.009 after 2.5 weeks (OG was 1.053), I didn't measure at bottling time but I doubt it went any lower.

I think it's carbing so fast since I left them all on my kitchen counter with the intention of making labels, but they're directly over the dishwasher which may have heated them up. Either way, my kitchen is warmer than where I usually condition bottles.

if you used canned pumpkin and put it in the primary, id guess thats what it is. Mine looks like that too, at least the ones where i siphoned some of the pumpkin trub.

Thank you, this is helpful. I did get a bit of trub from primary into my bottling carboy.

 

[krenshaw]

from the picture it just looked like some, not all of the bottles.. what was the percentage that had the stuff on top?

 

[jfr1111]

What temperature did you mash at and what yeast did you use ? How did the beer taste ? It can be an infection, but maybe the floaties are creating nucleation sites that cause the gushing.

Not 2 days in the bottle and such overcarbonation does point toward to infection though, especially since you had a sub 1.010 FG with and OG above 1.050.

 

[Bradmont]

Krenshaw, I'd say it was about 1/3 of the bottles.

jfr, I can't give you an exact mash temperature, my thermometer got rather miscalibrated in the process; I estimate it was in the 145-150 range. The beer tastes fine; a little bitter, but that's more the style than anything else.