Bottles over carbonated by opening too early?

[JonC555]

So I've probably made 5 or 6 batches of beer in the past month. I made a traditional ale (on the last few bottles now) and noticed the first few I opened had an explosion of fizz come out when the cap came off. I did this about a week after bottling because I'm impatient, wanted to sample one faster than they were ready.
Anyway, another week later I opened up the next few, then the one after that and so on over the course of the next week and they were all fantastic. I just chalked it up to me accidentally adding too much sugar to that one bottle.
Well I bottled a stout last week and tried one today and sure enough same thing happened. It got me thinking.
Do beers do this when they aren't ready? I always thought under carbonation was the problem when opening bottles too early. Or is it just an extreme coincidence that the few opened early were like that?

 

[deadwolfbones]

If you don't chill them cold enough/long enough before opening, they can gush more. Cold forces CO2 into suspension.

 

[LittleRiver]

With some time in the bottle, you'll notice that the carbonation is "better". Smaller bubbles, nicer head, etc. It takes about a month for carbonation to get optimal. Certainly they will be drinkable, and good, before that. But if you want optimal give them about a month -- drink them along the way and notice how the carbonation changes.

Check out this video.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Check out this video.

I got a kegging system about 20 years ago, and I don't recall bottling conditioning a beer since...until recently I started bottle conditioning some 1 to 2.5 gal batches. I had completely forgotten everything I had known about the process! I saw the same as the video (and the OP) where an early beer would foam out of the bottle, and then when poured the head would disappear in seconds. I have been moving my bottled beers to a warm bathroom for 2 to 3 weeks and getting good results.

 

[RM-MN]

I made a traditional ale (on the last few bottles now) and noticed the first few I opened had an explosion of fizz come out when the cap came off. I did this about a week after bottling because I'm impatient, wanted to sample one faster than they were ready.

Do beers do this when they aren't ready?

Yes they can. The reason is that the fermentation that occurs in the bottles to provide you with carbonation stirs up any trub that got into the bottle. This trub includes the yeast that is still in suspension. This trub then provides nucleation points for the CO2 to come out of solution and that causes the explosion. If you want to see how this works, pour a glass of your beer, suck the heading off with the first few sips, then sprinkle a little sugar into the beer. That should fizz up from the CO2.

 

[balrog]

^+This. Then time/gravity/temp will settle it out, removing lots of nucleation points.

 

[Soulshine2]

So I've probably made 5 or 6 batches of beer in the past month. I made a traditional ale (on the last few bottles now) and noticed the first few I opened had an explosion of fizz come out when the cap came off. I did this about a week after bottling because I'm impatient, wanted to sample one faster than they were ready.
Anyway, another week later I opened up the next few, then the one after that and so on over the course of the next week and they were all fantastic. I just chalked it up to me accidentally adding too much sugar to that one bottle.
Well I bottled a stout last week and tried one today and sure enough same thing happened. It got me thinking.
Do beers do this when they aren't ready? I always thought under carbonation was the problem when opening bottles too early. Or is it just an extreme coincidence that the few opened early were like that?

how are you adding too much sugar to any single bottle?
If you prime , you should be using a bottling bucket so the batch is primed consistently .
I usually have the opposite happen. I bottle and used to try one about day 7 and get a half flat ...I just wait until day 10 and have a good "pfzzt" upon opening .14 days is even better. After that , its all good.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Calcium oxalate crystals can provide the requisite nucleation sites needed to initiate gushers. If you don't precipitate out calcium oxalate by adding sufficient calcium up front to the mash and sparge water, it can appear later and burn you with bottle gushers. This is one of the reasons why at least 50 ppm calcium is recommended in brewing water.

 

[Parrothead1]

Some bottles having more carbonation can happen if you don’t mix the sugar in the bottling bucket. You need to stir it SLOWLY so you dont add oxygen.

 

[balrog]

CO2 is created by yeast
Depending on the headspace pressure and temperature, some will dissolve, some will just go up into the headspace.
As more is created, presuming cap holds pressure, headspace pressure increases, causing change in what will dissolve into the beer (pressure up, more dissolves; temp down, more dissolves -- but don't take temp down until yeast has chewed thru all priming sugar or it stops)

Anyway, it's a wonderful little time/temp/pressure/dissolution dance.

So if you open early, some is created, some is dissolved, lots in the headspace. You may wait a week and have great headspace pressure but it takes a few days to dissolve into the beer, then you chill for a little time and the temp goes down and more wants to dissolve into the beer but it does not happen immediately. Drop a spoonfull of sugar into a glass of water. It will dissolve eventually, but not immediately. That kind of thing.

So that's why the rule of thumb is to let the yeast chew on the priming sugar for a couple weeks then let the headspace pressure force dissolving CO2 into the beer and especially if you chill give it a few days. With kegging, you can force CO2 into the beer quickly but it's "rough" and as you let it sit a week or two, it become "finer" carbonation, smoother smaller bubbles (yep, round spheres vs round spheres with rough edges).

 

[Zuljin]

I've been trying a more fine crush and different fermenter lately. This has resulted in more sediment making it to the bottles. That has resulted in overcarbed beers. Not every one, but a quarter to half. So yeah. I'm attributing my overcarb issue to too much trub. That's food and yeast doing what it do it a closed bottle.

And I second mixing the priming sugar into the bottling bucket.

 

[mcleanmj]

I am bumping an old thread, but I think another aspect to this is the CO2 pressure (density) in the headspace vs. inside of the beer. Early on in bottle conditioning, the initial CO2 created is leaving the beer and filling up the headspace. Pressure begins to build up in the headspace. Once enough CO2 has been created and pressure has built sufficiently in the headspace, CO2 will dissolve into the beer, and the pressure difference between the headspace and the beer itself will become more equal. If you open a bottle at the start of this process, the pressure in the headspace will be very high, whereas the pressure in the beer will be low. As the pressure in the headspace rapidly escapes, a strong gradient is imposed on the beer, and any CO2 in the beer will be rapidly drawn toward the headspace.

This extends to the age old debate on whether large headspace or small headspace leads to higher carbonation. In my experience, it is clear that large headspaces lead to higher carbonation. For instance, a 1/2 filled bottle will be dangerously pressurized and the beer almost all foam. This is because gas holds a higher density of CO2 than liquid (the headspace is almost 100% CO2). The CO2 pressure in the headspace will always be higher than that of the beer, and consequently the headspace will exert pressure on the beer. Very large headspaces will impose huge pressure onto the beer, forcing as much CO2 into solution as possible trying to equalize the pressure gradient between them. At least this is what my research into the topic and personal experience strongly indicate.

 

[ncbrewer]

This extends to the age old debate on whether large headspace or small headspace leads to higher carbonation. In my experience, it is clear that large headspaces lead to higher carbonation. For instance, a 1/2 filled bottle will be dangerously pressurized and the beer almost all foam.

I'm not an expert on this, but in Papazian's book he says in his experience a half filled bottle may become overcarbonated and dangerous. Same as what you have seen.