Gusher infection? Or something else?

[ssorck]

So I was down in the basement and I don't know why bit I decided to take a look at a bottle of my Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Stout. Was bottled 3 weeks ago. I let her sit in the LBK for 3 weeks. 2 weeks in I added cherry juice concentrate.

So I looked in the bottle and saw this...

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So I thought 'that don't look good.' I brought a bottle upstairs and popped it open and this happened:

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Again, not good. The first bottle I did was a 16 oz. Weihenstephaner bottle. So I thought we'll if I'm gonna have problems it'll be from a 12 oz. bottle, let me try one of those. I made sure I grabbed one that had nothing floating, a clear top. Same thing, gusher.

Now incidentally the beer tastes good (too me, lol). Maybe a tad sour but I think that is really the cherry I'm tasting. (Update - my wife now thinks its sour - at first she didn't). I know I didn't overprime the batch, actually used the ol' sugar cube method on these bottles which I've done in the past no problems with the exact amounts I used.

Here is a pic of the beer after calming down and poured...

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So, thoughts? Infected or not? I did use steeped oats, maybe picked it up there? Another thought that occurred to me is perhaps the cherry concentrate was not fully fermented out before I bottled so its continuing to go, in conjunction with the priming sugar?

And next question is I assume I should be thinking about bottle bombs regardless. If I throw them in the fridge now will it calm things down or am I rolling the dice on a bomb going off in the fridge? I'd hate to dump 'me and am willing to sacrifice and drink 'me up...

And...Interestingly enough the 5 gallon batch I bottled after is fine...

[mashani]

Assuming there are bugs... Fridge should stop the bugs or at least slow them down enough to be able to drink it before it goes BOOM if it has not already.

Steeped oats will leave behind some starches, the only way they turn to sugar is if you mash them. Beer yeast don't like starches, but some other bugs do. So it is possible there is food for some bug in there yes that is slowly consuming those starches.

But it could simply be that it wasn't done fermenting either due to the addition and/or because the yeast had flocculated before they were done and were acting lazy and the bottling sugar woke them up. (more likely with certain English strains, I don't know what you used).

The cherry juice concentrate likely did add some tartness/sourness. Like any other pure sugar type of thing, all the sweetness gets fermented out, so your left with the "other stuff". It's up to your beer to balance out the "other stuff".

[FedoraDave]

I seem to remember Gymrat posting a link in the MB forum about gushers being caused by using grains that were harvested when wet.

Maybe he'll see this thread and either provide the link again, or tell me I'm a doddering old fool who makes things up and can't tell reality from his own fevered imagination.

Frankly, I think it's a toss-up.

[Beerlabelman]

When you added the Cherry Juice concentrate, was it boiled first? If not, you probably infected the brew at this point. Keep it cool & you might have a nice sour on your hands. Label it as a sour & you might have a winner here. As for bottle bombs, put the bottles in a cooler & outside in the cold if you can. Do not dump it. That's crazy.

[Gymrat]

I did post that link but I don't have it anymore.

[mashani]

When you added the Cherry Juice concentrate, was it boiled first? If not, you probably infected the brew at this point. Keep it cool & you might have a nice sour on your hands. Label it as a sour & you might have a winner here. As for bottle bombs, put the bottles in a cooler & outside in the cold if you can. Do not dump it. That's crazy.

If it was from an unopened container and the container was pasteurized, it's generally safe to add something like this. So any shelf stable bottle of juice or canned fruit is ok right out of the container as long as you just opened it and sanitized your utensils.

Now if it's been previously opened and re-sealed, all bets are off.

But yeah dumping it is crazy

[Foothiller]

For some types of sourness, you can decide it was supposed to be a Belgian

[dbrowning]

Chocolate malt ....
Every beer I have added chocolate malt to has foamed up pretty big.
Nothing else has.
Had 1 bomber(22 oz bottle) that that was a little less than half full when it stopped foaming and settled down
All you can do is get an over sized glass.
Poor immediately and as gently as possible.
Let it settle and enjoy

It's the chocolate malt ... 1/4 # in a 3 gallon batch will do it

[ssorck]

Thanks for the replies all!

Yeah the cherry juice concentrate was sealed. And I dropped the bottles in my starsan bucket for a few minutes before I opened it and poured it in.

No chocolate malt in it - this was made from a Mr. Beer Irish Stout refill.

I threw a few bottles in the fridge last night and cracked another one late - almost didn't gush at all once cool (just foamed a tad over the opening, but the foam rose slowly).

As of right now I transferred all of my 12 oz. bottles into the fridge, this weekends mission will be to make them disappear (only 10 or so). I bottled 3 in 22 oz. bottles as well. I store a bunch of my 22's in a spare Coleman cooler. Figure if they blow it'll be contained. Maybe I'll hold onto them a bit and see what happens...

[FedoraDave]

I also had problems with gushers in those recipes where I used chocolate malt. It was the only commonality in all these beers, so I figured that had to be it.

But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Plenty of people use chocolate malt with no adverse affect, and the malt I was using was from the same package for all of these beers. I only used a little for color and flavor, vacuum-sealed the remaining grain, and used it when I needed it. If, then, that particular package of chocolate malt was harvested when wet, it would stand to reason that it would affect all three of my beers in which I used it.

It also may be a more widespread problem with that particular maltster's chocolate malt, since it would also stand to reason that much of their grain would be harvested at the same time (i.e. wet), and kilned to create chocolate malt. We get this stuff a pound at a time, but they kiln massive square footage of it.

[teutonic terror]

I noticed the same thing with my Milk Stout.
If it's a little warm, it wants to foam, if it's cold out of the fridge it's fine.
I think I read something on here about the temperature affecting the ability of the beer to hold CO2.
Also, did you have any small particles in the bottles?
This will also cause it to foam!
My 2 cents!

Just Don't Dump It!

[ScrewyBrewer]

Since I started scrubbing the insides of my glass bottles with a bottle brush and starsan I've completely regained my confidence when opening beers. The most embarrassing thing is to offer bottled beer to friends only to have one or more bottles gush foam and make a mess. It takes a bit more time to do this extra step, I use 22 ounce bombers exclusively now, but its worth it just knowing they won't foam up when opened.

I do rinse my bottles soon after they're emptied and had been using a bottle washer connected to my sink to blast them with hot water, but every once in a while a foamer would crop up. Now using the bottle brush with starsan to give the insides a quick clean, then blast them with hot water before giving them a few pumps of starsan using a vinator. The results are awesome, no more fear of foaming bottles at parties or while enjoying a beer anywhere.

[FedoraDave]

While bottle cleaning and sanitation is paramount, I tend to think my gusher problems were not related to that.

My problem was throughout these batches, not just with a few bottles in the batches. I refuse to entertain the notion that every bottle I used was somehow tainted, and that those tainted bottles were only used for those batches.

The common thread in the batches that had gushers was the chocolate malt, from the same bag, used over all these batches. Again, I don't blame the fact that it was chocolate malt, but rather that it was that particular run of that particular malt.

[swenocha]

\
Steeped oats will leave behind some starches, the only way they turn to sugar is if you mash them. Beer yeast don't like starches, but some other bugs do. So it is possible there is food for some bug in there yes that is slowly consuming those starches.

Early in my brewing career I steeped oats, corn, and the like maybe four times. Got two unintentional sours out of the four...

[ssorck]

\
Steeped oats will leave behind some starches, the only way they turn to sugar is if you mash them. Beer yeast don't like starches, but some other bugs do. So it is possible there is food for some bug in there yes that is slowly consuming those starches.

Early in my brewing career I steeped oats, corn, and the like maybe four times. Got two unintentional sours out of the four...

I feel like its the oats. I am also pretty anal about sanitation. While I don't scrub each bottle with a bottle brush I DO triple rinse each bottle after drinking them. I soak labels off in PBR for a few days. And when bottling I triple rinse again and then soak the bottles in a starsan bucket for about 5-10 minutes while I'm doing other things. Same with the caps. And my hands:).