Where is the CO2 coming from?!?!?!!?

[worlddivides]

Short story:
Making my version of a kriek (pretty much the same as a normal kriek except with White Labs' "Abbey Ale" yeast instead of wild yeast and ZERO bacteria)
Spent 8 days in primary
Currently 14 days in secondary
Non-stop carbonation the whole time with zero gravity change.

Long story:
Before adding the cherries, the gravity was 1.010. I added the cherries to secondary and the entire time in secondary carbonation bubbles have been going up the side of the carboy. I checked the gravity 1 week into secondary and it was 1.010. I checked the gravity again 3 days later and it was 1.010. I checked the gravity 3-4 days later and it was 1.010.

But there are still carbonation bubbles running up the side of the carboy. There are still bubbles in the airlock every 15-17 seconds (even after 2 weeks in secondary). I shook up the carboy earlier and it changed to bubbles in the airlock every 7-9 seconds (meaning the CO2 is not coming out of solution?).

Judging from the gravity, the beer has been ready to be bottled for over a week, but the carbonation bubbles do not stop. Where are they coming from? With the gravity staying steady for 7 days, I can't imagine what the yeast could be eating.

P.S. I've tasted all three gravity samples and while color-wise, they are all a very beautiful reddish-golden color, the cherry flavor is extremely subdued. I used 7 pounds of cherries in a 5 gallon batch, which is a lot more than any place I looked said I should use, but there is far less cherry flavor than any commercial kriek I have ever tasted before. I didn't expect the beer to be sweet, as I knew all the sugar would be converted to alcohol and CO2, but I did expect a much more pronounced cherry flavor. Does anyone have any information on this? Would adding lactose with the priming sugar at bottling help or is there some other way? Or do you really need to add some psychotic level of cherries (like 30 pounds of cherries per 5 gallons) to actually get a pronounced cherry flavor?

I'm confused at both A: when to bottle and B: what I can do to intensify the cherry flavor (7 pounds of cherries in 5 gallons should be more than enough. It's CERTAINLY enough to change the color from a very light yellowish-gold to a very dark reddish-gold).

 

[ubnserved]

You are not measuring the sugar content of the cherries or the cherries at all. Don't they float also? The alcohol content or other liquid being combined with your liquid is the only thing that your hydrometer is going to measure. The cherries are displacing liquid not combining with it.

 

[ubnserved]

Oops I forgot. ... the co2 is coming from the yeast breaking down the sugar in the cherries. I don't know anything about adding fruit to beers just not my thing and so I haven't read up on it yet.. good luck with it though.

By the way, if you didn't crush the cherries it will take longer for the yeast to get to all the sugars. (I don't know if you are suppose to crush them or not for what you are looking to accomplish.)

 

[RM-MN]

While your beer is fermenting it gives off a lot of CO2, most of which escapes out the airlock but some of it dissolves into the beer. It can come back out of solution and make your airlock bubble for quite a while.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Cherries have a pronounced flavor, but you may need to use a simple syrup made by slowly cooking cherries in a pot with water and letting the water evaporate to give you the cherry concentrate. I've only done one non-sour fruit beer and I added 10 pounds of tangerines to a 5 gallon batch. It was very obvious that was a little too much, but I got a better idea for the next time.

Most secondary airlock activity is off gassing, not fermentation. Since you added sugar (the cherries) fermentation will restart but it will be very slow to get going. When you rack your beer off the yeast cake, there is very little in suspension and, depending on your original gravity, that remaining yeast may be stressed.

 

[worlddivides]

You are not measuring the sugar content of the cherries or the cherries at all. Don't they float also? The alcohol content or other liquid being combined with your liquid is the only thing that your hydrometer is going to measure. The cherries are displacing liquid not combining with it.

They don't float because they were pureed into a liquid (a very very thick liquid, though) that combined with the beer. I'll grant that the puree is not 100% combined with the beer, but a good portion of it is.

Cherries have a pronounced flavor, but you may need to use a simple syrup made by slowly cooking cherries in a pot with water and letting the water evaporate to give you the cherry concentrate. I've only done one non-sour fruit beer and I added 10 pounds of tangerines to a 5 gallon batch. It was very obvious that was a little too much, but I got a better idea for the next time.

The 7 pounds I mentioned is the weight of the puree. Perhaps not as effective as a simple syrup, but it should be much more effective than just racking onto crushed cherries.

Most secondary airlock activity is off gassing, not fermentation. Since you added sugar (the cherries) fermentation will restart but it will be very slow to get going. When you rack your beer off the yeast cake, there is very little in suspension and, depending on your original gravity, that remaining yeast may be stressed.

Secondary has been going for 14 days, but the yeast has been going crazy the entire time. The airlock has gotten plugged with yeast 5 times already in secondary alone. I used a blowoff tube in the primary, but didn't want to use one in the secondary for risk of oxidation.

When I took the last hydrometer sample yesterday after 14 days in secondary, when I removed the airlock, the yeasty foam was all the way to the very top of the carboy (touching the airlock).

I think I'm going to bottle the beer once the airlock activity gets to 1 bubble per minute, even if there are still tons of carbonation bubbles in the carboy, considering the gravity has been strictly consistent.

 

[helibrewer]

If the cherry flavor is not intense enough for you, try adding some Tart Cherry Juice, unpasteurized. I've used this in ciders and it works very well. I would bench trial it to see how much you would want to add. For cider, I use 1qt per 5 gallons.

 

[ubnserved]

Like I said I haven't done anything with fruit. That being said it sounds like your yeast is doing its job. How long did your recipe call for you to leave it before bottling? And with a puree won't that beer be really thick/chunky? Are you going to be filtering it somehow?. I would also be cautious about bottling it before the bubbles have stopped, don't want to have bottle bombs especially if you are unable to figure out how much sugar is still in the cherries.

I have only ever tried 2 fruit beers and didn't find them appealing so this has just made me not want to mess with them even more. Seems like more hassle than fun and that's why I brew. That and I get good beer at the end.

 

[worlddivides]

Like I said I haven't done anything with fruit. That being said it sounds like your yeast is doing its job. How long did your recipe call for you to leave it before bottling? And with a puree won't that beer be really thick/chunky? Are you going to be filtering it somehow?. I would also be cautious about bottling it before the bubbles have stopped, don't want to have bottle bombs especially if you are unable to figure out how much sugar is still in the cherries.

The solid parts of the puree have settled on the bottom of the carboy and have changed from their original dark red color to a more whitish color (I imagine there's quite a bit of yeast mixed in there too). So there's no need to do any filtering. Also, the siphon that I use to get the beer from the carboy to the bottling bucket has a plastic end that prevents anything "thick" or "chunky" from entering the siphon (the purpose being to prevent any of the yeast on the bottom of the carboy from getting into the bottling bucket, but it should also have the same effect of keeping any chunks of cherry puree out of the bottling bucket as well).

I have only ever tried 2 fruit beers and didn't find them appealing so this has just made me not want to mess with them even more. Seems like more hassle than fun and that's why I brew. That and I get good beer at the end.

To each his own. For over 10 years now, Belgian lambic fruit beers have been among my all-time favorite drinks. In particular, I love krieks (sour cherry lambic ales) and framboise (raspberry lambic ales). But the problem is that I've never been able to drink them very frequently because they tend to be pretty expensive. A single large bottle can be around $10.

So I thought that it would be a lot cheaper to make my own and then I'd have a lot of one of my favorite kinds of beers.

 

[worlddivides]

If the cherry flavor is not intense enough for you, try adding some Tart Cherry Juice, unpasteurized. I've used this in ciders and it works very well. I would bench trial it to see how much you would want to add. For cider, I use 1qt per 5 gallons.

Thanks. I'll definitely keep that in mind for the next time. I remember reading a couple months ago that there are a lot of the modern Belgian lambic brewers that now use cherry juice instead of the actual sour cherries.

 

[ubnserved]

The solid parts of the puree have settled on the bottom of the carboy and have changed from their original dark red color to a more whitish color (I imagine there's quite a bit of yeast mixed in there too). So there's no need to do any filtering. Also, the siphon that I use to get the beer from the carboy to the bottling bucket has a plastic end that prevents anything "thick" or "chunky" from entering the siphon (the purpose being to prevent any of the yeast on the bottom of the carboy from getting into the bottling bucket, but it should also have the same effect of keeping any chunks of cherry puree out of the bottling bucket as well).



To each his own. For over 10 years now, Belgian lambic fruit beers have been among my all-time favorite drinks. In particular, I love krieks (sour cherry lambic ales) and framboise (raspberry lambic ales). But the problem is that I've never been able to drink them very frequently because they tend to be pretty expensive. A single large bottle can be around $10.

So I thought that it would be a lot cheaper to make my own and then I'd have a lot of one of my favorite kinds of beers.

I would love to expand my horizons and try something along this line. (Suggestions )
It has been around 20 years since I have tried anything fruity and that was linenkugels (sp) something or other, don't remember the style or fruit. How does liney's compare and what would be a better choice. Belgians have been what I have brewed most and I love them coincidentally.

Variety is the spice of the beer holders life!

 

[worlddivides]

Update on the beer:

I finished work early and went to see a movie. When I came home, I checked the beer and for the first time since entering secondary, there are ZERO carbonation bubbles and the time between bubbles in the airlock has significantly increased (27 seconds between bubbles when I just checked it)

So it looks like after just over 2 weeks of secondary fermentation, it's finally ready to be bottled.

I would love to expand my horizons and try something along this line. (Suggestions )
It has been around 20 years since I have tried anything fruity and that was linenkugels (sp) something or other, don't remember the style or fruit. How does liney's compare and what would be a better choice. Belgians have been what I have brewed most and I love them coincidentally.

Variety is the spice of the beer holders life!

Yeah, Leinenkugels would not be a good introduction to fruit beers. Just like Natty Lite is not a good introduction to lagers.

Fruit ales have existed in some form or another for several thousand years. Belgian fruit ales tend to be the most traditional still sold.

There is very little chance you will be able to find any Belgian fruit ales at a supermarket (even if it's a HUGE supermarket) or at a corner liquor store. I would recommend going to a large specialty liquor store (or a beer specialty store) like BevMo or something similar.

I would recommend starting with the kriek, which is a Belgian ale base with a secondary fermentation involving sour Morello cherries. As krieks are lambics, they also involve lactobacillus bacteria and sometimes Brett (and usually wild yeasts as the main fermenting agent). That's why the beer I'm making is not a kriek nor a lambic, although it follows it in spirit. Other popular flavors you could try would be framboise (French for "raspberry") or peach. Kriek and framboise are the two classics. Cassis (French for blackcurrants) is also a pretty good flavor. Most of the flavors like apple and peach are just so-so in my opinion.

I don't know what brands you can find, but Lindemans and Belle-Vue are two that are reasonably priced that should be pretty easy to find. Theirs are mainly sweetened and not dry like the traditional style, but I think it's a great place to start.

If you don't like them, you don't like them, but like you said, I think it's very important to always expand your horizons and try new things out.