excessive foaming

[frigatebay]

It seems as though I have a random problem with excessive carbonation leading to tons of foaming and even one bottle exploding on me. I've let the beer sit to allow the foam to subside and the beer doesn't seem to be infected. Any ideas what could be causing the problem?

[RobZamites]

Got a Zahm and Nagel? Natural carbonating, or forced?

[frigatebay]

Natural. Funny thing is some bottles are OK others are bombs from the same case.

[NYSBrewer]

Maybe yeast is being left in the bottle after filtration. But that still doesnt explain why some are gushing and others from the same case or not. Curious.......

[scott isham]

Calcium oxalate precipitation in the bottles? Are there any very small "floaties" in the bottles?

[oppigards]

sounds like infected empty bottles, caps or filling tubes to me. Or problem with foaming before capping. There is a lot of reasons to gushing. Oxidation is one. If the problem is random bottles the problem is after bbt and might be unclean filling tubes on filler, or bottles/caps left open to air since last filling day. Or unclean capper / rinserhead.

[Øl-sheik]

I really don´t think that you have a problem with primary or secondary gushing, sounds much more like in infection with an over fermenter: saccharomyces diastaticus or pasteaurians are likly.

You don´t taste the spoilage, since they ferment oligosacharides to the same products as your culture yeast. Plus any selective properties of the beer is totally unharmfull towards them. If infected by this yeast you should see beige flakes on the bottom and in supsension. And they are able to ferment until extrem high pressure exceeding 5 bar!

send a sample in for analyse, that is a quite simple test. good luck

[frigatebay]

Well I had another bottle explode. Could it be that the warm temps combined with a beer cabonated a little high could result in an exploding bottle? I've warmed a few bottles and found they are highly carbonated. I haven't then tried cooling them to see if the carbonation goes down. Any suggestions

[Øl-sheik]

could you give some infos about the beer?

is it filtered or not and pasteurized, do you check the degree of attenuation, what is the carbonation level when bottled, what bottles you use?

that would help a lot, thanks!

[frigatebay]

Filter, non-pasturized, 12oz long necks, 78% attent.

[Moonlight]

How long between filling and exploding? I'm curious if anything even has a chance to grow.

[frigatebay]

1 month since bottling

[Moonlight]

Assuming it is also not a problem the day after bottling, something is growing. Besides dealing with the obvious contamination source, try to get your attenuation further, by longer or warmer fermentation, cooler mash temp, and/or healthier yeast. If there's less crumbs for the gleaners, there will be less growth.

[frigatebay]

How do I prove its infected? Beer stored constantly cold since bottling is fine.

[lhall]

Send samples to a lab to get analyzed. But it sounds like an infection. What type of filler are you using?

[jarviw]

How do I prove its infected? Beer stored constantly cold since bottling is fine.
If it's an super-attenuator, all you need to do is measure the gravity of your infected beer and compare to the normal final gravity.

[Moonlight]

How to prove infection? I would say process of elimination. If I understand it is only some bottles, then it is most likely infection at the filler or rinser if the bottles are sterilized. If there is not too much carbonation the day after filling, I am curious if anyone else could conceive of how CO2 would over-charge otherwise (unless bottle-conditioned). There's a lot I don't know, but I just have never heard of such a situation. Co2 isn't very creative on its own.

[frigatebay]

Moonlight check our PM.

Thanks

[Enkidu]

I am only chiming in as reading this is like nails on the chalkboard. An infection is a condition that occurs to living organisms. Hopefully, your beer is not living therefore it is not infected. It is contaminated. You mention that your beer is filtered, but to what level. If you are only D.E .filtering with Hyflo then quite possibly it is your own house yeast. I realize that this is an argument for another day, but I am one who believes that if you are packaging your beer then you MUST either sterile filter or pasteurize. All right, bring on the hate mail.

[frigatebay]

funny you mention that. I let one of the foaming bottles settle over night and today I notice a thin white film on the bottom of the glass. my first impression was yeast.

[oppigards]

DE filtration with only using hyflo, yes I also think that you will get a lot of yeast through. I thought that Hyflo was mostly used as a pre cake before dosing in body feed, for example Standard superzel. In this way you get rid of the yeast, maybe also some wild yeast if present. but steril filtration or flash past. will not solve your problem in the filler. Still as I can read this thread there is only problem in random bottles.

[frigatebay]

slowly becoming all bottles keep at room temp. Stuff in cooler is OK, not perfect but drinkable