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BlackSands

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This was a VERY careful pour! 6.6g/litre is within the range of carbonation levels suggested for a saison... surprised

 

And I regularly hear of folks carbonating at levels much higher than this! E.g. 2 carb drops = 7.8g/litre

 

unsure

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Are you sure it was at FG BlackSands? I've run close to 9g/l before and not had head quantity like that' date=' except for wheatbeers[/quote']

 

FG=1.006 - so yeah, pretty sure it was at FG, it sat there for a week before it was bottled.

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BlackSands,

 

I would degas a sample and measure the FG again.

 

You might find it's even lower than 1006. If it's 4 down at 1002 it would be like doubling that priming sugar you have used. Saison is a farmhouse or wild ale, which can by definition finih quite dry? Just a thought anyway. If bottled in glass it would be important to check.

 

You know you can let pressure go from crown seals without removing them, you just need a crown seal opener that gently lifts the seal at several or a shared ledge (not one point) and you can gently lift it, if there is a lot of pressure, it will release. I've done this to degas overcarbed batches, you need to perform this operation more than once, three or four times more likely.

 

This is why I always bottle a PET for each batch so I can do a squeeze test for each batch. I then drink the PET last. Even thought of attaching a pressure meter to a PET cap :-)

 

Also, did you use any wheat in that batch?

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Other brews, with lower priming levels have also ended up producing excess foam recently - it's only happened over these warmer months. I didn't have this issue in the Winter.

 

I bottle exclusively in PETs, and yeah... these ones obviously feel quite firm to the squeeze but no more so than a much younger 3-week APA which was primed at 6g/litre. But obviously when the bottles get to a certain hardness its really hard to determine if there's any difference.

 

No wheat was used, I've been avoiding it in my recipes because of issues I've been having with phenolic off-tastes. Anyway, I'll pour one tonight and re-test the SG. While it sat at what appeared to be FG for a week I guess once primed and bottled the secondary fermentation may have caused it to attenuate further. unsure

 

 

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No wheat was used' date=' I've been avoiding it in my recipes because of issues I've been having with phenolic off-tastes. [img']unsure[/img]

 

 

Reason I ask is when I have made belgian witbiers with about 50% wheat, the head retention is bloody amazing.. With normal to higher carb levels, it can take me 5 to 10 minutes to actually pour a beer into a glass.

 

This is the case over there in the proper wheat and witbier pubs in europe, where I hear for a proper draught wheatbeer may take the bartender some 12 minutes to actually pour one glass, and you have to patiently wait for the process to occur.

 

But you end up with the textbook fluffy, almost chewable wheatbeer head.

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I would degas a sample and measure the FG again.

You might find it's even lower than 1006. If it's 4 down at 1002 it would be like doubling that priming sugar you have used.

Well' date=' it looks like that's exactly what's happened!

 

Priming seems to have triggered off a secondary ferment in bottle that has not only dealt to the priming sugar but then continued on and taken it even further resulting in SG = 1.000 [img']surprised[/img]

 

Estimated FG for this brew using M29 Saison yeast was 1.005. As mentioned it got down to 1.006 where it sat for a week. So, what (tf) happened?? unsure

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I've had had this issue before with one of the coopers craft recpies it was a brown ale using Nottingham. I would literally open a stubby and the head would come up over the top on it's own. It would take a good 15 minutes or so to pour a glass, it was ridiculous.

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Maybe it stalled at 1.006 rather than finished. Those saison yeasts apparently benefit from being allowed to rise quite high towards the end of the ferment' date=' up to the high 20s/low 30s. [/quote']

 

Possibly, though 1.006 was pretty darn close to the est FG and being a saison it was fermented warm of course, 26 - 28ºC. To drop another six points in bottle, well below the est FG, is a little surprising. pouty

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Yeah it is odd I must say. Does it taste fine?
Yeah... I've been drinking it... and yeah' date=' tastes fine in that unique way that a saison tastes 'fine' [img']biggrin[/img]

 

It's been 6 - 7 weeks in bottle so nicely matured. Saisons of course are usually quite fizzy... just not THIS fizzy! w00t

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The only idea I can offer is what I have experienced sometimes, whereby the brew has appeared to finish, but still had a sizable and stubborn krausen up top.

 

What had happened in these cases, was most of the available yeasties, had parked themselves in this krausen. Not much trub or yeast evident on the bottom, and the beer starting to clear.

 

In the past I've decided to cold crash then to take the krausen down using the CC, after it gave the appearance of having hit FG and become stable for several days.

 

What I have since learnt to do, is to shake or rock that yeast back into the drink, and it starts up again, better still, like I am doing right now this week with a pils, rocking it every day to get those yeasties back down off their microscopic asses and keep working..

 

You could also open up and gently stir those lazy bum yeasties with a sanitised whisk or spoon to do the same job.

 

Do you remember if you still had a stubborn krausen up top on this saison before bottling or before cold crashing, if you did CC it?

 

Anyway, I would simply release the pressure in the PET's each day for several days (maybe 4 to 5 times over a week) to take out that excess pressure. An extra 006 is enough to weaken/damage or blow your PET's. Lucky it's not glass.

 

Also, it still could be a 'wild' yeast contamination here, some of these taste just like a farmhouse style yeast, but may be able to metabolise sugars that your saison yeast can't. This would be likely if the FG specs of your yeast go no-where near 1.000.

 

Also in that case, it may not be finished as due to alcohol, the FG can go sub1.000, it may end up very dry at 0.996 for eg and with a theoretical 120 psi or more than 5 Vols of CO2. The PETS may explode at around 100 psi I guess but I don't really know.

 

 

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Do you remember if you still had a stubborn krausen up top on this saison before bottling or before cold crashing' date=' if you did CC it? [/quote']I don't recall to be honest, but yeah, a pressure release would certainly be wise!

 

I lose PET bottles regularly though, but not necessarily from being over-pressurized. The latest to develop the typical micro-leak on the bottom was in a batch that had only been in the bottle 3 days!

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How old are your PETs?

 

I slowly replace mine by discarding the worst three (I judge this by the tell-tale white "ring" on the bottom) each time I bottle. Seems to work pretty well, and most of them are newish again now so sometimes I only discard one or two.

 

Having said that, I've also recently thrown out and replaced four whole boxes of bottles from the two batches that were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the heat struck and the whole lot became waaaaaaaaay too untrustworthy.

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I figured that Kelsey, one benefit of kegging, although unlikely to start again if kept cold. I also figure there might be a keg pressure relief valve if you kegged something and stored it warm somewhere?

 

Anyway yeah KR, I have a spare pressure meter that goes to 100psi that I could bolt into a PET cap, but would need to have very very good silicone seals in order to prevent gas loss through the hole I would have to drill through a cap.

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Yeah I don't keep my kegs cold once filled at the moment as I only have the brew fridge and the keg fridge, with the latter normally tied up with 3 kegs for most of the time taken filling the next three. Even if it did have a few points left to go at kegging time it's not gonna build up anywhere near enough pressure in the keg to cause the relief valve to open. They're rated to 100PSI and I carbonate them at about 45PSI for ~24 hours when they go into the keg fridge.

 

When that keg goes on tap I might actually take a sample from it and measure its SG when it de-gasses sufficiently. It would be interesting to see if there was more fermentation occurring in the keg compared to when the FG was taken.

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... I have a spare pressure meter that goes to 100psi that I could bolt into a PET cap' date=' but would need to have very very good silicone seals in order to prevent gas loss through the hole I would have to drill through a cap. [/quote']

 

Would something like this or something like this do the job?

 

I guess the main risk with such a cheap doo-dad would be that the gauge itself might leak.

 

I might turn this into a new thread actually.

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Yes it would, and i bought one just like it to measure my water pressure, and it was something ridiculous like $3.76 delivered from China. Took a while to get here but got here eventually.

 

Keep in mind, you would need to find a nut to match the mounting thread. Also that 1 BAR or 1 atmosphere is 1 volume of CO2 which is 14.5 psi, so three volumes should be the max you are looking for, so three vols is 43.5 psi, ideally you would choose a 60psi meter.

 

Possibly the closest may be 100 psi, with next lowest 30psi from memory.

 

Normal beer pressure (at room temp that is) would be around 30 to 35 psi.

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Yeah I was wondering about PSI. I found that the cheap ones jumped from 30 to 180 from my quick click-around.

 

I might start making "safety bottles" (or maybe "danger bottles", because that sounds WAY cooler cool) with stick on thermometers and pressure gauges. Looks like you can get 10 stick-on thermometers for $15 from eBay.

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Aha! I've found some 0-60 ones smile

 

So the choice now comes down to thread, and there's 1/4 and 1/8" options. The 1/4" one mounts with the face of the dial vertical, which looks way cooler. The 1/8" thread may be easier to deal with though, but the face of the dial would be horizontal so that you'd have to look down on it to read the pressure. Booooooo

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