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beer frothing up when bottling

Posted: Saturday Jun 02, 2007 8:02 pm
by Stekings
I am not sure if this ever happened when we bottled a while ago, but we bottled our first brew after a long time and after priming the bottles (used up all the three fermenters so didn't have an extra one for bulk priming) with dextrose and filled it up for capping, there was so much froth in the beer . Is that normal? any assistance will be greatly appreciated

Posted: Sunday Jun 03, 2007 7:12 pm
by Trizza
If they're a lot of froth when you're filling the bottles, it might be a sign that the fermentation has yet to finish. At this time of year, fermentation is going to take much longer with the lower temperatures.

This happened to me in one of my brews, and it turned out over carbonated, though it wasn't the end of the world because I use plastic.

If you used glass, then that might be a problem later.

Trizza.

Posted: Sunday Jun 03, 2007 7:50 pm
by gibbocore
Give them a test in a couple of weeks, uncap one, if it's too fizzy, un cap them all and re cap.

Posted: Monday Jun 04, 2007 11:20 am
by rwh
So you're saying that adding dried dex to the beer caused it to froth up? This is fairly normal and is caused by the dextrose crystals providing hundreds of nucleation sites for gas bubbles to form on. Only happens in beers that have a lot of CO2 dissolved in them, if you racked it for a week it probably wouldn't happen.

There are a few things you can do to avoid this effect. You can boil up your dex with water to make a syrup and then put that in the bottles. Or you could use sucrose crystals which will produce less of an effect because the crystals are larger and thus provide less nucleation points. Don't worry, this doesn't introduce enough sucrose to produce cidery tastes in your beer.

Posted: Monday Jun 04, 2007 7:47 pm
by Stekings
yeah.. it didn't froth up when i tried it in a bottle wihtout any dextrose.. but onces i primed it froth up at the very end.. fermentation has definitely finished cause it has been in the fermenter for around 2 weeks and 3 days...

might try racking next time

Posted: Monday Jun 04, 2007 8:36 pm
by lethaldog
If the dex is added dry to prime with it will froth up every time, you have to make a boiled solution and bulk prime with it or add it equally to each bottle :wink:

Posted: Wednesday Jun 06, 2007 3:09 pm
by TommyH
You could also turn your tap off a bit to reduce the flow.
Just a thought.