Opinions Needed on an Issue

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

Ok so here is the situation and I am not sure I can pin point what the cause is so I want to ask the Borg for an outside eye of the situation. It seems that two separate batches are yielding bottle gushers only when the beer is not cold. I did three batches in a row on three different days. The first batch yielded gushers, the second batch did not then the third batch also yielded gushers.

None of the batches had gushers when the beer was chilled, only when it was still at room temperature which is around 72(F) degrees. Also, the beer tastes fine with no off smells or flavors that I can detect. Now I have given it some serious thought and come up with a few reasons why this could occur and I am looking for another outside opinion to see which one could be the actual culprit here or, if anyone has another reason this could have occurred I am all ears.

1. Infection at some point in the process be it at bottling (improperly washed and/or sanitized bottles), priming vessel (bacteria in the priming vessel) or fermentation (scratches in the fermenter that are harboring bacteria) though I would tend to think this is not the case as other batches turned out fine with no gushers.

2. Over Carbonation, in that too much priming sugar was used in the priming vessel at bottling for the amount of beer.

3. Fermented too early, though it was in the fermenter for three weeks and I did FG checks 24 hours apart and the readings did not change in that time span.

I am personally leaning towards the bottle infection that perhaps I did not properly/fully clean the bottles and sanitize them well enough (my mistake of course) but as I said, I wanted to get the outside opinion of the Borg in this situation. In early seven years of home brewing this is my first experience of gushers and possible infected beers. If we can pin point I want to make sure this never happens again or at least attempt to prevent it as best I can.

Thanks in advance

[Beer-lord]

I would think an infection is possible as well. You control the priming so I doubt you'd over carb 2 out of 3 batches but it is possible.
If it's an infection, it's one of the hardest to know for sure. Other than ditching some equipment, you can try other equipment if you have extra. A good soaking in PBW then Star San should take care of the bottles.

Good luck!

[John Sand]

I doubt that every bottle of a batch would be infected by bottles. If they were infected at bottling, I'd think bottling gear: wand or spigot.

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

Yeah, my thoughts as well on the infection parts. Thanks for the quick replies guys. I'm thinking since I have no brew days scheduled for another week, I may just take the entire systems apart and soak everything in PBW and run sanitizer through every part of the pilot system, fermenters and priming/bottling vessels. At least then I will know on the next batch what/where the possible infections could be coming from.

Just strange that it happened every other batch is what got my confused on what it could be. I hate having to dump four cases of beer but it had to be done. Hoping that the thorough cleaning. soaking and sanitizer runs will clear anything up as far as hiding bacteria or anything else that could have caused the infections.

[Brewbirds]

I would want to know what was the same and what was different across these three batches first before looking at infection.

Were they all carbed to the same vols, dry hopped commando, etc.

Also when cold did the two batches "slow gush"?

Could there be more nucleation sites on the two gushers?

Did the temps spike on two of the three batches?

There have been so many random gushing incidents posted lately that I wonder if there is a lot of grain on the market that had gotten moldy and it links back to that re: HB3's post earlier.

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

@Brewbirds

Were they all carbed to the same vols, dry hopped commando, etc. -- No dry hopping on any of the batches. Yes, all carbonated using the same amount as the volumes were all equal.

Also when cold did the two batches "slow gush"? -- They gushed after four weeks (plus) after conditioning in bottles for the full four weeks at between 70 & 72(F) degrees

Did the temps spike on two of the three batches? -- No temp spikes. I use a fermentation chamber and the temps stay at a steady temp throughout the process, which is 70 (F) degrees though it does rise (obviously) during the fermentation process. Never going over 73 or 74(F) degrees.

The only thing I can even consider as being different is that perhaps I forgot to wash or thoroughly wash the bottles before sanitizing them and bottling those batches. My process for brewing remains the same with every batch as I do things in the same order from a check list as to not miss a step, sanitize, etc. The only grains that were the same in each of these three batches was the two-row, which was from the same 50 lb. bag though one of the batches was not infected. All batches were brewed in succession in a three day span as well.

Also, they only gush when they are at room temperature (around 72(F) degrees) when they are chilled they do not gush at all.

[pghFred]

While I haven’t had ‘mentos in a diet coke’ gushers, I’ve recently had 2 batches that were overly carbed. One was a Red Ale and the other a Brown. Both were 5 gal Brewers Best kits w/steeping grains and extract. Mine also tasted fine, but my lord the foam. The BB kits come with 5oz of priming sugar for the 5gal batches, but I only use 4oz per batch per my personal preference.


I noticed that the bottles for these had a ‘ring’ on the inside of the neck right on the fill line. I normally rinse 3 times after pouring and I also soaked (in Palmolive Oxy – a newer unscented dishsoap I just started using) for quite a while. But even after this, there was still a ring around the neck. I’m thinking some bug got in there in infected this batch.

I had to start using the bottle brush again to make sure I got all the nasties out of the bottle. I had quit using it for beer bottles a couple years ago since I do rinse well, but now I’m going to use for the next few batches so I get through all the ones that haven’t been brushed in a while.

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

No rings on any of the bottles at the fill line. Though I am leaning more and more towards the bottles being the issues here. It's the only thing I can recall that could be different from batch to batch. I usually keg those these brews were for different events/scenarios that needed to be in bottles. I may have just committed a sin in brewing and not properly/thoroughly cleaned the bottles enough before sanitizing and filling.

When bottling in the future, I believe I will do a PBW soak overnight, hand wash with a bottle brush and Oxyclean then sanitize just to make certain the bottles could/would not be an issue in the future with gushers. And yeah, most of these were 'mentos in diet coke' gushers as well. Just weird as I have never encountered these before. Has me stumped on what or where I went wrong on these two.

[John Sand]

A little drift, but:
Fred, I sometimes get those rings. A two day soak in PBW takes care of them.
Eddie, I find Oxyclean hard to rinse, so I only use it on the outside of bottles. It takes me three hot rinses before the bottles stop feeling slick. I've also read that it leaves residue (soda ash?) which could cause gushing.

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

A little drift, but:
Fred, I sometimes get those rings. A two day soak in PBW takes care of them.
Eddie, I find Oxyclean hard to rinse, so I only use it on the outside of bottles. It takes me three hot rinses before the bottles stop feeling slick. I've also read that it leaves residue (soda ash?) which could cause gushing.

Point taken, John, thanks.

I may just stick to using PBW exclusively for all cleaning of anything brewing related in the future. Then Star San for sanitizing all equipment, bottles, etc. etc. I hated to have to dump both these batches, but it had to be done. Even more care and attention to detail will be paid moving forward that's for sure. I really thought my process was solid, flaws are inevitable and now I can correct them moving forward. Or at least be as preventative as possible.

[haerbob3]

Isn't PBW basically oxi with an alkaloid cleaner too? I switched to PBW, for me it cleans & rinses better than oxiclean

@ BB If it was that protein from the grain mold it should be present in ever bottle I would think

[Brewbirds]

Isn't PBW basically oxi with an alkaloid cleaner too? I switched to PBW, for me it cleans & rinses better than oxiclean

@ BB If it was that protein from the grain mold it should be present in ever bottle I would think

Hey HB3 ...

... I thought he said every bottle in the two that gushed and none in the one that didn't.

Also looks like the 2 row is cleared since it was in all three batches but was an ingredient (grain or other) common in the other two?

You say you are going off a procedure list Funky but want to blame bottle sanitation so does that mean that bottle sanitation did not go the same on those two days but was correct on the middle batch? ( As in "Okay I confess I drank a few to many home brews on those days and just pulled them out of the basement and bottled" )

I'm not sure that sanitation would equate to the problem if you're not getting any slow gushing when the bottles are cold. Right guys??? If it is infection the baddies got in there and started eating which leads to bottle bombs, warm gushers, cold gushers and slow gushers.

This particular mystery is that they are fine once chilled if I understand it correctly. That is why I wonder about the characteristics of HB3's mold protein discussion.

We need to recruit a barley crop agricultural expert to the .

[Funky Skunk Brewing]

No other ingredients were common to the recipes other than the 2-row.

And yes, they are fine when they are chilled but are gushers when at room temperature. Would/could the chill effect the infection as well much like it can yeast? Meaning it would put the infection in a stalled state not causing gushers when it's chilled? Have never really dove into bacteria or infections as I have never encountered them until this point ... Well, I think at this point.

Also, yes. That is what I am saying on those days in reference to bottle sanitation as well. I do not believe I followed the same protocol on those days. I may have not washed those bottles as I normally do, just sanitized them. I assume just sanitizing will not kill off gunk/bad things in the bottle as washing would. That is the reason I am pointing fingers at bottle cleanliness as the culprit right now.

[mashani]

It may also just be a case of Charles' law (gas law - temp vs pressure) coming into play with a legitimate overcarbed beer, being that either it had too much priming or actually was a point or two away from really truly being done fermenting when bottled.

Simply put the amount of CO2 that can dissolve, how fast it can do so, and also how fast it can come out of solution is effected by temperature. So if your beer is a bit overcarbed, at a cold temperature it may not come out of solution enough to gusher, but at a warm temperature it's released from solution at a faster rate when the pressure levels above the solution change - as in when you uncap the beer.

EDIT: Charles' law is also why bottling temperature affects priming due to volumes of dissolved CO2 - and that formula is actually different at different elevations due to pressure differences - in Denver and in NYC the same beer at the same temp in the fermenter at the same point in time would have a slightly different volume of dissolved CO2.

EDIT EDIT: It's also why when you keg and force carb temp matters if you want to get as much CO2 into the beer as fast as possible.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Infection or no, this is why the temp matters.

[FedoraDave]

In the gushers I've experienced, I noticed unusually large clumps in the beer that I was able to get into the glass. Like trub clumps floating around. I'm pretty sure I traced it to a single LBK which must have become scratched and then infected, causing fermentation to continue even after bottling. It's the only thing I can think of, for my case.

Have you noticed anything like this in your gusher batches?