Mystery gushers

[grizzly2378]

I've got a Hefeweizen that I brewed on Easter that has gone rogue on me. It's been stored in my basement beer room since I bottled it. Up until a couple weeks ago I had no problems. Started drinking it in June and it had good carbonation, definitely not over carbed (I didn't carb it to style, I generally carb lower, I think 2.4 for this one). Every bottle I had was totally fine carb wise until a couple weeks ago. Then I started finding the remnants of bottle bombs in my beer room. Just one or two at first, but then they started blowing off more frequently. One blew right next to me while I was cleaning up some of the others. No injuries, but I had to change my underwear afterwards. After that, I shoved all of the remaining bottles in the fridge and they've stopped blowing, but now I get a gusher every time I open one and that never happened before. No signs of infection. So, what's up with this? I have several other batches that were carbed to similar levels and are stored in the exact same conditions, but this is the only one I'm having issues with.

 

[Hello]

It is possible fermentation restarted and the time in bottles have caused them to build pressure. I'd be careful of all bottles now, which it looks like you are doing just that.

If you think fermentation was done, over carbonation is my second bet and infection is my last bet.

 

[Mishraile]

It has never caused bottle bombs for me before but one thing I ran into was the following:

I used to not scrub my bottles. I would rinse with hot water after usage then let them dry, figuring that should be good enough. Turns out a film was building up inside the bottles and after a few uses without scrubbing, I would start to get gushers. The beer didn't taste infected just foamed a ton.

After that I started scrubbing every other use and it never happened again. This increased work load then led me to kegging, and I have never looked back!

 

[blizz81]

What was the "final" gravity?


You could open one, fill your hydrometer sample tube (if appropriate), let it sit for a while to get to room temp and to get flat, take a measurement and see if it compares.

 

[grizzly2378]

What was the "final" gravity?


You could open one, fill your hydrometer sample tube (if appropriate), let it sit for a while to get to room temp and to get flat, take a measurement and see if it compares.

1.012 was the last gravity reading I took just before bottling. Now that I look back at my notes, I see that I bottled this batch after just 3 weeks. Not really sure why I did that. I may or may not have had a reason for it back in April, but that reason is lost on me now. Even if i get stable gravity readings, I generally let beer sit in primary for longer than that.

Really, it wasn't a big loss since the beer didn't turn out all that great. Now I have fewer of them I have to convince myself to drink.

 

[m00ps]

sounds like it definitely didnt finish fermentation or possibly you added too much priming sugar.

when calculating the priming sugar, did you account for trub loss? Like if you are at the 5gal level, you probably will only get 4.5gal into the bottling bucket. If you used 5gal to calculate to 2.4vol thentheyd be overcarbed

3 weeks seems long enough for a hefe but you can never be too sure. Your hydrometer has to be the one to decide when its time to bottle. It also helps to warm the yeast up a bit near the end of fermentation to ensure they finish up

 

[grizzly2378]

Don't think too much sugar was the issue. I always account for trub when I calculate priming sugar and, if anything, I shoot for a slight under-carb just to be safe. I had some over-carbing issues with a few batches when I first started brewing, so I'm really careful about it now.

Unfinished fermentation seems most likely. Lesson learned!

On the plus side, I just got a sweet deal on some kegs yesterday, so bottling issues will soon be a thing of the past for me (other than some bigger beers that need extended bottle aging).