Musings on gusher batches

[rickbray66]

There has been a lot of great information in this thread. I thank everyone for their input, as I've gained a lot of knowledge. I'm sorry Dave for your loss,of both beer and an LBK. Even though those things aren't all that expensive, it still sucks to have to retire equipment.


Rick

[FedoraDave]

I'm thinking I'll just dump the current batch, rather than risk waiting all that time just to possibly be disappointed. I'll get rid of the suspect LBK, too, and use the third one I was holding in reserve.

Gotta bite the bullet, sometimes.

[mashani]

I found one step to be too expensive and slow working for my liking. The fact is the one step if not sully dissolved can probable be traced back to causing those scratches in the first place.

I have to use one-step or easy-clean because star-san tears up my skin, even when diluted. I can use idophor, but I find it to be messy.

I buy easy clean in 5# buckets which makes it reasonably priced.

Once dissolved for real it actually has a 30 second contact time, the whole 10 minute thing is just to make sure it's dissolved. Sometimes 10 minutes isn't long enough to dissolve depending on your water. So I just mix it up in a gallon jug a few hours before I want to use it, and by the time I get to it, it's ready to go, so as long as I plan ahead it's really not any more difficult to use then pre-mixed star-san. It takes all of 10 seconds to scoop out a tablespoon of it and toss it in my water jug, and then I just walk away and do something else for a while.

[Brewbirds]

I'm thinking I'll just dump the current batch, rather than risk waiting all that time just to possibly be disappointed. I'll get rid of the suspect LBK, too, and use the third one I was holding in reserve.

Gotta bite the bullet, sometimes.

OMG did I just see that THE HAT is going to dump a batch! I grew up as a newb brewer with you telling us all never to dump a beer.

Didn't you say that they didn't have an off flavor? When I posted about my bottle bombs the survivors didn't have any off flavors... can they not be saved?

[John Sand]

I found one step to be too expensive and slow working for my liking. The fact is the one step if not sully dissolved can probable be traced back to causing those scratches in the first place.

I have to use one-step or easy-clean because star-san tears up my skin, even when diluted. I can use idophor, but I find it to be messy.

I buy easy clean in 5# buckets which makes it reasonably priced.

Once dissolved for real it actually has a 30 second contact time, the whole 10 minute thing is just to make sure it's dissolved. Sometimes 10 minutes isn't long enough to dissolve depending on your water. So I just mix it up in a gallon jug a few hours before I want to use it, and by the time I get to it, it's ready to go, so as long as I plan ahead it's really not any more difficult to use then pre-mixed star-san. It takes all of 10 seconds to scoop out a tablespoon of it and toss it in my water jug, and then I just walk away and do something else for a while.

Thanks for the tip. While I don't have any trouble with Starsan, I have plenty of One-Step around, maybe I'll mix up a jug.

[FedoraDave]

I'm thinking I'll just dump the current batch, rather than risk waiting all that time just to possibly be disappointed. I'll get rid of the suspect LBK, too, and use the third one I was holding in reserve.

Gotta bite the bullet, sometimes.

OMG did I just see that THE HAT is going to dump a batch! I grew up as a newb brewer with you telling us all never to dump a beer.

Didn't you say that they didn't have an off flavor? When I posted about my bottle bombs the survivors didn't have any off flavors... can they not be saved?

My philosophy is actually "never dump a batch unless you're sure it can't be salvaged." My experience tells me this LBK is infected, and will create gusher batches. I'm going to be dumping the two I've already bottled, and I'm not going to bother bottling the current one.

Mostly, my advice was for noobs who post something like, "I fermented at 76 degrees. Is my beer ruined?" or "It tastes cidery after two weeks in the bottle". Developing patience is one thing; ignoring a fairly evident problem is quite another.

[mashani]

Why not simply carb the batch that's in the LBK at 1/2 your normal level. Then if whatever bug is in there ferments out a few more complex sugars, it will potentially end up just carbing it "right". Since it doesn't have off flavors, I think that's what I'd do.

I would not dump my bottles either unless they tasted bad, I'd just put them in the fridge so they don't turn into bombs and open carefully. If overcarbed, just let them sit in the glass for a few hours before drinking. That's your call of course since its your beer, but I would not dump it unless it was turning into vinegar or unless the gusher was so bad that nothing was left to pour in the glass because it was all foam.

[FedoraDave]

The thing is, they're not overcarbed; this happened with a milk stout that I made earlier, which was primed very low, as fits the style. They simply fizz and keep on fizzing once they're opened. I use a huge, 22-oz mug to try to contain it all (although it doesn't), and the ratio of foam to beer is ridiculous, and yet the beer itself is not overcarbed. It's pretty much all foam, so I'm wasting time and beer by trying to save it.

I've only had one bottle bomb; that was the milk stout, and since it was just one bottle, I blame bottle failure for that. No matter how long I keep a bottle in the fridge, they still foam and gush like crazy. I think it's better to just cut my losses, relieve my frustration, and start over with a clean fermenter.

[mashani]

I don't think I grok how they can be foamers without being overcarbed unless you have some (unknown to me) beer munching bug that leaves behind head forming compounds as poop, or unless there are lots of floaties in there acting as nucleation points.

???

Weird.

[Yankeedag]

I've had a few gusher brews. Stouts. Trust me, they were NOT over carbed.

[FedoraDave]

I also use Screwy's priming calculator on all my batches, and it's worked fine for everything. And yet there were still gushers, and I believe I've traced it to that particular LBK. It remains to be seen if I get any more, but time will tell.

[mashani]

I do not mean overcarbed because you put too much sugar in.

Overcarbed because the bugs in there eat more complex malt sugars that the yeast do not over time. In effect fermenting your beer to an even lower FG over time. Same effect as if you bottled your beer some points before it hit FG and then carbed it normally. (yeah I know your FG was where you thought it should be and stable and where you intended when you bottled it. But bugs do not work that way, and unless you were testing 5-10 days apart you might not have seen anything happen).

IE imagine if you fermented a beer with S-04 and then tossed in some Bella Saison at bottling time.

So in effect carbing normally in such a beer ends up overcarbing your beer. Even carbing lightly can. Because although the yeast eats the sugar, the bugs keep eating other stuff that the yeast you used to ferment won't eat.

You can probably test this at this point yourself and see. If you can get enough of the beer out of a bottle to fill your hydrometer tube and let it go flat at room temp and test it. See if your current gravity is lower then the FG.

[FedoraDave]

I see what you're saying Mash. I'm not sure if it's carbonation or another by-product. I do notice more floating material in whatever beer is left after I pour, though. Large chunks of what looks like loose trub. There may be a wild yeast strain in my basement and it got into some microscopic scratches in that LBK.

Brewed a batch in the third LBK yesterday, and we'll just see what happens with it.

[John Sand]

Interestingly, I opened a bottle today from a mediocre batch from the spring. The glass was 3/4 foam, and sour. I never had a problem with this batch then. I don't know if it's only this bottle, but I have had a couple of batches that showed no infection after two weeks, but went downhill after. I believe they were slightly infected at bottling, and took time to go downhill. I've also had batches where most bottles were infected, but not all. It can be puzzling.

[mashani]

Bugs work slow if there isn't a lot left for them to eat. So the later in the process they are introduced the longer it will take for things to go south.

If the whole batch isn't infected then the infection likely happened during the bottling process somehow I think though.