Crazy amounts of head - why?

[Crazy Climber]

What causes the following? When pouring a beer into the glass, the head fills the glass like mad -- like 14 oz of foam and 2 oz of beer.

What I'm describing is not a "gusher" - the bottle opens with an appropriate puff, and no foam-over whatsoever. The beer tastes fine - no infection. Once poured and given time to settle, the head is comparable to any typical beer, as far as size and retention are concerned. The carb level is also reasonable. And, it doesn't matter if I pour directly into the bottom of the glass, or tilt and pour down the side; the foam rises up to fill the glass when only a little bit of beer has been poured.

This doesn't happen with all of my homebrews, but enough of them to make me wonder, "wattup wit dat," and is it the result of something I'm doing wrong?

TIA for any and all insights.

[jpsherman]

Overly chilled glasses could do this.

Or a saison...

[DirtRacer]

What kind of bottle was it? This just happened to me the other day. Wasn't a saison and didn't use a chilled glass. But based on the Mr. Beer plastic bottle deformation, I figured it was over-carbonated. Beer tasted and looked fine. Didn't gush or anything when the bottle was opened but, I did notice that even beer in the bottle had a head on it after I poured as much as I could into a glass.

[Rebel_B]

I usually see that in 'English' yeasts... What yeast did you use?

[mashani]

A good bit of wheat malt or crystal malt can do this too. Also if the glass is "dirty" (that doesn't mean visible dirt, just some sort of stuff - even invisible stuff - that the bubbles can cling to). IE if I take a beer glass and just rinse it out with water - no soap - until it looks "clean" - and use it again and do this for many days, it will start to climb higher each day.

[BigPapaG]

All good answers so far...

I would add that temperature and where the bottle is in the carbonation phase can impact this as well...

I just had it happen to me also with a Biere de Garde that had just completed two weeks of carbonation (normal priming levels, the yeast had properly attenuated and seemed 'done' before bottling, proper sanitation was employed etc. So for me so I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary)...

Well, like you said, normal 'phftt' when opening but 80-90% foam in a clean glass freshly rinsed in cold water!

Here's what I think happened... I think since it was so close to the carbonation phase and I opened the bottle after chilling for only 4 hours or so before opening it...

I believe the CO2 was not properly absorbed in solution. CO2 absorbs better into the beer at lower temps... The length of time is also a function, as is pH, alkalinity etc.

Hence, it precipitated as I poured the beer from the bottle to the glass.

Here's a good article on the nature of carbonation, the factors involved and basically the way it works as applied to kegging...

In our case, think of the bottle as a tiny keg with a fixed volume of gas starting at zero and rising during the carbonation phase at room temperature over time, followed by a reduction in temp over time to put it in persective.

This is only one aspect and I think the other answers are very also valid.

http://www.draft-beer-made-easy.com/carbonation.html

[jhough]

Climber, happened on my last Honey Wheat. Only thing I could deduece was an OVERLY chilled mug.
Last glass was not chilled as long and was perfect .

[duff]

I have had one batch do this with every bottle. I have no idea why. It made every pour a pain in the rear. Unfortunately it has turned into such a nice tasting beer so I don't want to dump it.

[Crazy Climber]

As always, I can only say thanks to all for the great insights. The Borg is the place to come for helpful, friendly brewers.

Unfortunately, I can't pinpoint a cause, based on the various theories presented. I've experienced major foaming upon pouring under a variety of seemingly-random conditions. PET and glass, young beers and months-old, chilled glasses and non-chilled (and plastic SOLO cups for that matter), a variety of different yeasts.

I do tend to carb on the high side -- often shooting for around 2.8 volumes, but I think that's lower than the levels that Mr. Beer recommends for their batches (granted, their levels are too high), and I don't think that's the cause of the foam-up.

It's good to know that: (A) I'm not alone in this experience, and (B) it's not likely something that I'm doing wrong on a regular basis.

I guess I need to pay closer attention to the situations where it does and doesn't happen, to try to identify a pattern. Oh well, research is a bitch.....

[Brewbirds]

I'm curious if you went through your brew notes if you will find a commonality. I know that they aren't gushers like The Hat's but he found a commonality (chocolate malt) we he reviewed his brewing notes.

I most often bottle prime, 12 ounce glass, with one mini-sugar cube so I should never over carb a beer and I have had a bottle or two behave the same way in a few batches.

It is random (except it always seems to be BB2's glass ) so I have chalked it up to a bottle that wasn't rinsed well.

I cold crash so I doubt that one bottle might have more yeast than another and if that was the answer I would think it would be more wide spread among all brewers.

Once the head settles we are drinking good beer so it beats opening a flat one.