Why do my aged beers gush when opened?

[Happydad1689]

I have stored 2 different beers for several months in an attempt to see how they age. In both cases the ones that I store in the fridge for the months gush when opened. Why is this?

I'm not sure if it matters to say they were laying down in the fridge......

 

[FrozenOcean]

Could be an infection. Sometimes when beer has a "mild" infection, it's not immediately apparent. If you drink all the beer fast, you might never notice. But give it time, and the infecting bacteria will go to work on the residual sugars and overcarbonate the beer.

Happened to me once. Beer also started to taste bad.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Instead of finding the answer to your question, you might need to drink the beer faster!

It could be that there is some residual sugar when you bottle if the yeast have gone to sleep in the fermenter or could be a mild infection. Assuming you aren't shaking them when you stand them up, I can't think of what else it could be.

I've had the same thing with a batch of IIPA that I think was the yeast still slowly consuming some of the sugar after bottling (as well as the sugar added at bottling). It was a 9% beer so my theory is that the yeast were sluggish at bottling time but still had a little bit to do. I only left the beer in fermenter for two weeks. I now leave them a minimum of three before bottling.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, lacking a gusher infection, the beer might not have been done fermenting. But I've also had some beers that were a bit higher Vco2 that would gush till they had 5-7 days fridge time.

 

[RM-MN]

I have stored 2 different beers for several months in an attempt to see how they age. In both cases the ones that I store in the fridge for the months gush when opened. Why is this?

I'm not sure if it matters to say they were laying down in the fridge......

This could be the cause. When you stand the bottles up to open them you disturb the yeast and it gets mixed into the beer. This makes a bunch of nucleation points for the CO2 to start coming out of solution which will cause gushers. I've seen gushers form from a spiced beer that I didn't leave long enough for all the spices to settle. Once settled, no more gushers.

It should be easy to find out if I've made the right diagnosis, just try a few more with them standing in the refrigerator. If they still gush, I'm wrong.:rockin:

 

[Happydad1689]

This could be the cause. When you stand the bottles up to open them you disturb the yeast and it gets mixed into the beer. This makes a bunch of nucleation points for the CO2 to start coming out of solution which will cause gushers. I've seen gushers form from a spiced beer that I didn't leave long enough for all the spices to settle. Once settled, no more gushers.



It should be easy to find out if I've made the right diagnosis, just try a few more with them standing in the refrigerator. If they still gush, I'm wrong.:rockin:

This seems more likely than active fermentation still going on. It was in primary for a month and secondary for 3 weeks before I could bottle it. This was just before Christmas.

I'll stand a couple up and see, thx

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

You don't mention the flavor of the gushers. If they have started to taste vinegary, you have an acetobacter infection. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. This type of infection can take a while to develop but will eventually turn your beer to super well carbonated vinegar. If the beer still tastes OK, it was most likely not fully fermented when it was bottled. Once it turns to gushers, there isn't much you can do but set it in the sink to gush and then drink the remainder (as long as it still tastes OK). RM-MN also has a good point about laying the bottles down.

 

[Happydad1689]

You don't mention the flavor of the gushers. If they have started to taste vinegary, you have an acetobacter infection. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. This type of infection can take a while to develop but will eventually turn your beer to super well carbonated vinegar. If the beer still tastes OK, it was most likely not fully fermented when it was bottled. Once it turns to gushers, there isn't much you can do but set it in the sink to gush and then drink the remainder (as long as it still tastes OK). RM-MN also has a good point about laying the bottles down.

They taste better than they did.... It's a Christmas ale kit.

 

[Daveyg]

So I have a similar situation, I brewed a one gallon batch (Everyday IPA) from the Brooklyn brew shop, fermented for 3 weeks, conditioned in the bottle for 3 weeks, open the first and the carbonation seemed perfect although the head seemed small, about a week later I opened another and the head was much better, I opened another one yesterday and I could hear the "hiss" was much louder and the head was much bigger too big and did not taste as good. Now I also brewed a Brooklyn summer clone kit, fermented for 3 weeks and conditioned in the bottle for 2 weeks which was yesterday and opened one for comparison the carbonation seemed perfect but her is the thing they look identical and both have that vinegar like taste. What causes this infection mentioned in this thread?

 

[Daveyg]

In this pic the upper left was the 1st one opened after 3 weeks in the bottle, lower left is a week or two later you can see the head is bigger and on the right is yesterday, any comments?

 

[Kharnynb]

stand em upright in the fridge for a day or 2, see if they still do that.