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.
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.