I brewed a peach saison w/ brett and am force carbonating in the bottle. They were in the bottle for a week so I decided to pop one open just to see how things were coming along. I popped the capped and the beer began bubbling from the bottom and almost gushing out the top. I quickly took my beers and put them in the fridge to help slow/stop them from carbonating further. After 5 hours in the fridge, I cracked another open and it was nearly flat. Does anyone know why the temperature removes the progress of carbonation in the early stages? Thx
'Force carbonating' traditionally refers to dissolving CO2 into the beer under pressure from a CO2 tank. What you're describing is generally referred to as 'bottle conditioning' in which live yeast converts the remaining fermentable sugars to alcohol and CO2. This is typically, though not always, done by adding a precise amount of fermentable sugar to the beer before capping. The level of carbonation can be controlled with a fair degree of accuracy this way. Chilling the beer slows the progress because the yeast works slower in a colder environment. It will continue to work, just more slowly. The beer can also hold more CO2 at a lower temperature, meaning that, while the carbonation level doesn't change, the beer is less fizzy - the CO2 is not as anxious to come out of solution - so it can appear to be less carbonated.
Your problem may not lay solely in the temp of your bottles. Did you stir your priming sugars into the beer before bottling? I've never seen popping bottles into the fridge take gushers and make them flat.
Everything Mike Haritgan said is true. But... if you went from gusher to flat between the two samples, those two bottles were either carbonating at a different rate all along (maybe due to ambient temp differences), or (much more likely) one had more priming sugar than the other. There's no way a gusher becomes 'flat' (after carbonating to gusher level) just by reducing the temp. IOW, if you had opened bottle number two instead of putting it in the fridge, it still would not have been a gusher.
Gotcha. Not 100% on my brewing terms but I appreciate the feedback. Glad I got a "scientific" answer because this was really starting to bother me (since it was not the 1st time this happened to me). I bottled all my saisons with table sugar and each bottle got the exact same amount so this seems to make the most sense. I know one week typically isn't sufficient for carbing but just wanted to gauge the levels and opening a beer was the only way to do so. I'll give it more time at room temperature and see how things are in a couple of weeks, chill one over night and then try again. I'm not super with the math behind priming sugars and adding fermentable sugars to carb so for me it's almost a guessing game based on OG and FG/TG as well as elapsed time spent fermenting. Thanks again!
Did it the primitive way of 1/4 tsp of table sugar to bottle, then capping. Shook a little each day for the first few days...
I will just repeat that Mike explained why carbonation happens more slowly at lower temperatures. Low temps do not reverse carbonation. They will lower the pressure somewhat, but they won't turn a gusher into a flat beer.
