Wyeast 1968 Overcarb

[blizz81]

Just seeing if anyone else has ever noticed anything odd like this...

Brewed an ESB (8# MO, 2# wheat, 1# brown malt, 1# C40) on 12/31 with a ~2L starter made from a pretty fresh smack pack of 1968 London ESB. 1.064 OG. Didn't want to disturb the lagering going on in my ferm chamber and the thermostat goes from 62-68 this time of the year, started in basement. Pretty good krausen, slight bit coming out blow-off tube, but not crazy. Quick hitter, seemed to finish and clear up pretty quick (1968 known for its floc).

Waited a while yet b/c we were going to pitch a bwine on top of the yeast cake. Xfer to secondary 1/23. Let it sit a bit longer, bottled on 2/5 after verifying a stable FG of 1.014 (about 79% attenuation, good for this yeast it seems). Very clear on these steps. Carbed to ~2.1 vols, 3.5oz corn sugar @ 5 gal.

A lot of beers I'll wait, but a simple 6.7%-ish beer that I had a relative lot of (12oz bottles this time, and it was my beer out of brewing partners, so 2/3 of the yield), I decided to open one after about 8 days. Pretty darn carbed already. Also very murky with noticeable sediment hanging in suspension not moving anywhere (a lot by the 'rims' of bottles at the top before the necks).

This Monday I noticed the caps were domed on all but 4 of the bottles. Put them in the fridge. By today, 3 of the remaining 4 had domed (put those 4 in the fridge as well). Tasted one tonight, overcarbed, but once it had settled down some carb-wise, it tasted fine. Never noticed any signs of infection along the way, never had a noticeable infection in 7 years of brewing.

Weigh the sugar on a scale. Scale seems alright calibration-wise, and the container we use is the same every time, has cups markings on it, and visually from what I can remember wasn't any different than a "normal" amount of sugar for bottling. Also re: clarity, we use a RIMS and have an old burner from the 80s that has a very high output - suffice it to say we have aggressive hot break. (Cooling via I/C in an ice bath recirculating, generally very effective re: cold break). Have had clear beers generally since switching to RIMS, though this was the first time I'd used a BIAB bag + RIMS.


Two things I can think of:

1) We do leave our bottling 'bucket' (an old 8gal SS kettle) open to the world when bottling, but have always done this. Potential for infection, though usually we brew pretty strong beers ABV-wise, and like I said, nothing I can tell as of yet in the taste

2) Perhaps the simple corn sugar kicked the yeast into munching even further? Seems weird. 3.5oz of sugar isn't much either. If anything I was expecting this to undercarb due to the time it had sat and that yeast's ability to floc.

 

[blizz81]

Or perhaps #3, a wild yeast took control and with not much sugar left (1.014), there isn't a discernible taste difference?

 

[BigFloyd]

I'd be tempted to take a few bottles out of the fridge, put them in something adequate to contain a bottle bomb and let sit at 70-75*F a couple more weeks.

Often beer that's not really finished carbing will gush when opened. There's a YouTube video out there which illustrates this.

I don't believe that the open bucket at bottling time is the source of your problem unless you didn't sanitize it properly.

 

[blizz81]

One thing I'd like to do after the catharsis of posting all that detail is to take a gravity reading after I pour one and let it warm up some.

 

[flars]

It is possible fermentation had not been complete, even though SG was stable in the secondary, before you bottled. Racking to the secondary and fluctuating temperatures, may have stalled the fermentation.
I would recommend not transferring to a second vessel until you are sure FG has been reached in the primary.

 

[blizz81]

It is possible fermentation had not been complete, even though SG was stable in the secondary, before you bottled. Racking to the secondary and fluctuating temperatures, may have stalled the fermentation.
I would recommend not transferring to a second vessel until you are sure FG has been reached in the primary.

I suppose it's possible. I don't rack more often than not anymore, but this case called for it as I wanted the yeast cake and didn't want to bottle immediately. From what I know about 1968, it's pretty unlikely that it wasn't finished after 3 weeks in primary, and a move from the basement to upstairs is a move to warmer temps (which I had done after peak ferm). But I didn't start taking readings until about a week before bottling.

 

[mrdauber64]

I've had this same problem with 1968. With proper temp control this yeast will drop out From what I've heard you need to move this to a warmer location and rouse them after a couple days of fermentation to let the yeast finish up. I've been nervous to try this yeast again after a couple of my beers that used it became overcarbed in the bottle.

 

[blizz81]

I've had this same problem with 1968. With proper temp control this yeast will drop out From what I've heard you need to move this to a warmer location and rouse them after a couple days of fermentation to let the yeast finish up. I've been nervous to try this yeast again after a couple of my beers that used it became overcarbed in the bottle.

Good to know. This is the second time I've brewed this recipe...first time may have been in warmer ambient conditions. In the kitchen where it spent most of its time sitting, it was measured 66*F inside the carboy.


I definitely roused the yeast (a number of times) and made my best attempts to get it warmer in the barleywine that came after it on the same yeast cake. I had a space heater dedicated to the thing a few times...ha, not the most efficient method but it did sustain the beer temp at 70*F for a while. Made another 3-step starter and pitched again. These things carried that from 1.060 to 1.035 where it sat for two weeks without a budge (from 1.107). Between a 3-hour healthy boil, and only having a paint stirrer + drill for aeration, I guess that might be about right. Just bottled that Saturday, we'll see.

 

[Allergic2hops]

It is possible fermentation had not been complete, even though SG was stable in the secondary, before you bottled. Racking to the secondary and fluctuating temperatures, may have stalled the fermentation.
I would recommend not transferring to a second vessel until you are sure FG has been reached in the primary.

I just had this happen to a smash I was brewing and I have bottle bombs. Using 1187 and it appears the yeast stalled. I think your explanation is exactly what happened to me.

 

[blizz81]

I just had this happen to a smash I was brewing and I have bottle bombs. Using 1187 and it appears the yeast stalled. I think your explanation is exactly what happened to me.

Was your attenuation / FG in line with what you were expecting before you bottled? In my case, they advertise 1968 as 67-71%. I was near 79%, though from what I've seen on the 'nets, it's not uncommon to get up to 80% with 1968.


With my grain bill and a mash held at 151*F through the whole deal (the RIMS has been very good at holding temp), I'd be surprised if I could get much lower than 1.014 anyways on anything that wasn't super-aggressive.

 

[beergolf]

I'd be tempted to take a few bottles out of the fridge, put them in something adequate to contain a bottle bomb and let sit at 70-75*F a couple more weeks.

Often beer that's not really finished carbing will gush when opened. There's a YouTube video out there which illustrates this.

I don't believe that the open bucket at bottling time is the source of your problem unless you didn't sanitize it properly.

I'm with BigFloyd on this one. I have seen that happen before. Recently my friends all but wiped out my IPA supply. I had one that had been in bottles a little over a week. I threw a couple in the fridge overnight and the first one gushed like crazy. I thought. Oh crap I got an infection. I opened another one the next day, same thing. I let the rest sit for another couple of weeks and guess what? They are perfect.

 

[rmyurick]

Yeah, I had something similar happen with a 1.054 ESB last year. But it was White Labs 002, I think. Don't remember the brew date, but it was in the fall. Bottles carbed up fine, were fine for 2-3 months or so, then I started to notice some gushers. Overcarbed, overly dry & bitter, kind of clove-y--figured it must be wild yeast even though I've never had an infection in many years of brewing. It was kind of a wretched brew day, so anything's possible.

 

[blizz81]

I'm with BigFloyd on this one. I have seen that happen before. Recently my friends all but wiped out my IPA supply. I had one that had been in bottles a little over a week. I threw a couple in the fridge overnight and the first one gushed like crazy. I thought. Oh crap I got an infection. I opened another one the next day, same thing. I let the rest sit for another couple of weeks and guess what? They are perfect.

I can let a bottle sit out in it's own tupperware to see. Though they've all been in the fridge some now. I guess to me it doesn't explain why all of the bottles have domed caps - I've had a small number of bottles overcarb and dome like this before (1 in a stout where I suspect that specific bottle may have had its own private infection party, otherwise only ever seen in batches where I carbed aggressively to style and a couple domed and were more carbed than others, possibly due to not-perfectly-even priming sugar distribution...and those were all aged at room temp for at least a month if not months) but never anything like ALL bottles. I say "domed" as my capper puts a dimple in, domed meaning the dimple is obviously pushed out.

 

[blizz81]

Poured a bottle and let it sit and warm up for a while. Read it at room temp and it read 1.012. Seems something ate it down a couple points. I'm not sure what the threshold would be here for going from 2.1 vols to where I'm at (which in my very scientific estimation is "pretty dang carbed"), and we'll see what happens with the one I yank from the fridge over time.

 

[gbx]

1968 is delicious but can be weird with bottle conditioning (ie. restarting, chewing up all the delicious malt and overcarbing). I haven't found a perfect british yeast. I really like 1318 because it works really well, very little diacetyl and doesn't change at all when repitching but its a little clean and not as amazingly yummy as the big malty yeasts like 1968 or 1469 (both change a little too much during repitching for me to really love them)

pages and pages of discussion here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/b...on-temps-profiles-cybi-other-thoughts-221817/

 

[blizz81]

1968 is delicious but can be weird with bottle conditioning (ie. restarting, chewing up all the delicious malt and overcarbing). I haven't found a perfect british yeast. I really like 1318 because it works really well, very little diacetyl and doesn't change at all when repitching but its a little clean and not as amazingly yummy as the big malty yeasts like 1968 or 1469 (both change a little too much during repitching for me to really love them)

pages and pages of discussion here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/b...on-temps-profiles-cybi-other-thoughts-221817/

Always like a good read. I'm sure I did more reading years back when I first brewed this ESB - more or less just "trusted" the recipe this time and also saw that it seemed common to use 1968 for barleywines despite the advertised alcohol tolerance and attenuation. I generally err on the side of predictability if I have a clear choice when it comes to yeast...I'll have to do more studying on the English side.

 

[rmyurick]

I remembered that mine was indeed 1968 & not WLP002. Took an SG on an overcarbed sample & it was 1.006. When I bottled, it was about 1.012, which I thought was already pretty good attenuation for that yeast. My basement's been pretty cool this winter, def. below 60F.