Gusher

[Titan]

Not exactly but i have a brew that continues to foam out of bottle even after pouring a scooner. Beer tastes great and i thought maybe not fully attenuated at bottling, however carb level is fine. What can the other reasons for this? Infection perhaps? Bottle had been condition for 2 months but only in fridge for 8 hrs prior to open. 

[The Captain!!]

I’ve had similar to my only infected beer. 

[Lab Cat]

Either it hadn't finished fermenting fully when bottled, and/or conditioned at too high a temp?

[BlackSands]

Contamination seems likely.   Whenever I've had gushers in the past the beer tasted OK(ish), but I could tell it had been altered over the weeks compared to earlier tastings.  It seems the suspected contaminant took several weeks to establish itself.   One thing I did whenever this occurred was to take an SG reading of the beer (after it's been allowed to settled and go flat).  In all cases the SG reading was well below the FG at time of bottling confirming my suspicions that something had further attenuated the beer while in the bottle resulting in gushing. Often when a glass was then subsequently poured the beer appeared only moderately carbonated as it seemed a substantial amount of C0² was released at first opening.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

If its every bottle then it wasnt finished fermenting in the first place.

If its the odd rogue bottle in my experience its one of these

1. Too much priming sugar

2. Bottles not cleaned properly and there is a bottle infection.

3. If you dont bulk prime and its the final bottles filled then extra yeast in the bottle will cause more foaming.

 

[Titan]

Thanks for the chains of thought guys. I bottled 10-750ml of these, every one has same symtom. Honestly the beer is sensational. Was going to enter in a competition but with this foaming i will not. This is one of the smoked baltic porters i did a couple of months back. I rule out bottle infection as this would be the odd bottle here and there. Under attenuation would probably lead to over carbonation but carb levels are good.  Suspect is a mild infection that because of the high abv a fruity malt flavour is undetectable on the palette. Now i need to check my notes and determine where the process went wrong and more importantly what equipment are affected.

[Lab Cat]

One of my brews was a huge gusher. Every bottle had a monster head on it even with a gentle pour. But the best beer I've made so far too...

[Hilltop hops]

Just now, Lab Rat said:

One of my brews was a huge gusher. Every bottle had a monster head on it even with a gentle pour. But the best beer I've made so far too...

Same my wheat beer was fantastic but was also overcarbonated for no apparent reason. Sorry Titan no help but have had same experience. 

[Titan]

Right, as this was brewed with its sister on a double brew day. I know exactly which fermenter this one was in. 25l blue bunnings water container, no airlock just the lid backed off. These are also a little harder to clean than your standard white fv. Crud on the fv is a little harder to spot.

[Titan]

This is the latest and the worst. But only been in fridge for an hour. Seems colder they are the more stable.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Probably just not left in the fridge long enough. I'd be giving them at least 24 hours, preferably 2-3 days.

[GolGolPistola]

My last brew did this exact same thing. One even exploded in the bottle. I had left this in the FV for 3 weeks and FG definitely steady. Beer tasted like shit too. Ended up pouring most of them down the drain .

[ChristinaS1]

I think this might be an example of "hop creep." I just learned about it recently.

A lot of times when people have complained of gushers, it was suggested they had bottled too early, or that they have an infection. Well a study in 2018 suggests a third possibility: dry hopping.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2019/03/31/dry-hop-creep-over-carbonation-and-diacetyl-in-beer/

"Hops actually contain trace amounts of both alpha and beta amylase as well as limit dextrinase enzymes. After dry hopping these enzymes can continue to convert a small amount of starch into sugars even at room temperature. If yeast is still present the sugars will ferment, lowering the final gravity of the beer and also creating carbonation."

Several solutions are suggested in the article, including moving some dry hop additions to the whirlpool. Another thing I think might help is to contain the dry hops in something, remove them when you want, and then wait a few days before starting the cold crash or bottling. 

Cheers,

Christina.

[ChristinaS1]

Here is a presentation about hop creep from Stone & Wood:

http://brewcon.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/180628_1200-Final-BrewCon-Dry-Hop-Creep-21.6.18.pdf

@BlackSands  I am pretty sure that what you used to complain about was hop creep. 

Cheers,

Christina. 

[Hairy]

Very interesting!

[headmaster]

I don't think Titan's beer was dry hopped though? Hop Creep only happens with dry hopping and I have witnessed this myself with a NEIPA I made, I was sure it had finished attenuating and the priming sugar was spot on for a calculated 2.5 vols but was way over that after 6 weeks or so. 

Titan, if it doesn't taste like it's overcarbed and/or doesn't appear to have massive pressure relief when you open the bottle, then it will be something in solution that is acting as nucleation points for the CO2 to come out of solution. As Kelsey mentioned, if you 'cold crash' one in the fridge for a longer period of time, this may settle out these particles that could be causing this problem. They could be yeast cells. or other particulate matter, another thing to make sure of is that you don't upset the sediment on the bottom of the bottle. 

This is much more of a problem for people who don't understand bottle conditioned beer. They tilt and upend the bottles with no regard and store lying down in the fridge, bad idea.. 

If there is too much CO2 in there, it could well be some enzyme or contamination causing the beer to continue to attenuate, this is much more likely with dark beers and their higher residual sugars, so sanitation/contamination issues will show up more with these.  You can carefully use a blade edge bottle opener to bleed out CO2 without creasing the crown seal (or needing to re-seal) After doing this a few times to each bottle over a few days/weeks  they might be ok but may develop an off flavour if a contamination causing this,

 

[BlackSands]

Have you measured the SG of the bottled beer yet?   I still put my money on contamination and as previously mentioned some contaminants can further attenuate the beer well below FG.  I used to suffer from this issue from time to time in the past. Turned out in my case it was the fermenter/priming bucket taps that were harbouring the bugs!

[Beerlust]

True fountain-like gushers are usually bottle infections where a wild yeast enters the fray & eats through typically unfermentable sugars/starches above the secondary sugars added at bottling time.

Slightly over-carbonating a stable beer gravity with too much secondary sugars usually foams over a little more slowly depending on how much secondary sugars were added above the required rate.

The whole hop creep theory & that hop matter is somehow responsible for further fermentation of sugars I find a little hard to fathom. Could there be lurking wild yeasts in whole hop cones or pellets that cause this phenomenon when dry hopping, yes I could believe that.

I've adjusted my priming level(s) with certain beer types I make over the journey after suffering over-carbonation issues & gushing with aged beer types (in particular). Certain yeast types also seem to be chameleon-like with how far they primary ferment & then suddenly WTF up during secondary fermentation seemingly eating not only the added secondary sugars, but deciding to chew a bit harder on previously stable levels of primary sugars that remained after the initial primary fermentation period.

I've worked in the commercial liquor space for close on the last 20 years & have had odd occasion issues with heavily dry hopped beers that gush or foam over after opening. My view is that a small quantity of wild yeast/bacteria was lurking in the dry hops prior to adding them to the beer. Given some charts I've seen about survival & growth rates of these wild yeasts & bacteria's it seems possible that through this phase of the brewing process they could survive & slowly increase in numbers enough to affect the final attenuation of the beer after some period of ageing.

I've never tested the accepted stable FG prior to bottling vs the FG of a beer that gushed or over foamed some months later after storage under ambient conditions. It would certainly help to answer a few very pertinent questions in this area. At the end of the day I don't have that amount of spare time to test these things as I'm not a lab, I'm just a home brewer.

Just my 2 cents,

Lusty.

[BlackSands]

11 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Here is a presentation about hop creep from Stone & Wood:

http://brewcon.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/180628_1200-Final-BrewCon-Dry-Hop-Creep-21.6.18.pdf

@BlackSands  I am pretty sure that what you used to complain about was hop creep. 

Cheers,

Christina. 

This issue of hop creep relates specifically to dry hopping.  My worst example of this kind of behaviour was with a porter...  no dry hop.  And in fact thinking back I'm pretty sure others weren't dry-hopped either.

3 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Certain yeast types also seem to be chameleon-like with how far they primary ferment & then suddenly WTF up during secondary fermentation seemingly eating not only the added secondary sugars, but deciding to chew a bit harder on previously stable levels of primary sugars that remained after the initial primary fermentation period.

I had similar thoughts. It almost seemed as if the primary sugar not only reawakened the yeast but somehow triggered a more attenuative ferment.  I've not read anything formal to support this idea though.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I had it happen once with a batch of porter, and a couple exploded in the storage cupboard as well. That beer was fermented with S-04 and obviously not dry hopped, and I suspect in that particular case that the yeast went to sleep in the fermenter before the job was done and woke up again in the bottles. There were no off flavours in it that I could detect. 

I did numerous batches of dry hopped ales that were bottled and never once experienced this supposed hop creep. They would foam up a bit if they hadn't been in the fridge long enough, because of temperature and the CO2 hadn't completely reabsorbed into the beer. 

[GolGolPistola]

If it helps mine was dry hopped and it was every single bottle not just a couple here and there.

[Titan]

No dry hops involved here. Leaning to Kelsey and not cold enough. If was bottle infection only a few would have been affected. Anyhow all have been drunk and im still around.

[ChristinaS1]

I am working my way through a batch of APA I bottled on March 6th. I started drinking it when it had been in the bottle for three weeks and have had some daily since then. In the past few days every bottle I open has gushed, a little worse each day. The beer tastes fine though. This was the last batch I dry hopped commando style. Dry hopped on day 10, x 2 days, cold crashed for seven days, then bottled. Bulk primed with 150gm dextrose.  My dry hopping rate was only a modest 1gm/L. I am thinking this is an example of hop creep. 

Cheers,

Christina.

[BlackSands]

5 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

My dry hopping rate was only a modest 1gm/L. I am thinking this is an example of hop creep. 

Hop creep from just a modest 25-ish grams of dry-hops?     

I query this because I've dry-hopped plenty of brews with a lot more hops than that an not experienced gushing.  And of course the are countless commercial examples of heavily hopped beers that don't gush.  Why would one modestly dry-hopped beer gush and others of varying dry-hopped levels not gush?  

[ChristinaS1]

Probably process related: commando, cold crashing with the hops still in the FV, which causes the yeast to go dormant. Sometimes a bit of hop matter gets into my bottles. I don't filter. Also, I drink my beer at room temp; that might make it more noticeable. 

Cheers,

Christina.