Carbonation/secondary fermentation

Hi @rakijaipivo, it’s an interesting question which I don’t know the answer to, but I think the Homebrewing forum might be the place you’ll get more help with this topic.

 

The only thing that comes to mind is warming, i.e. when your beer is warming up toward ambient temperature, perhaps it's off gassing CO2 at a faster rate than it did when it as colder.

Do you mean no bubbles on the sides of the glass (below the surface of the beer)? If so, that's normal for a clean glass.

 

Are you saying that you don't get a nice head of foam? If so, I would eliminate any soap you use in cleaning and only use a detergent. That's my only real guess as to what might be going on.

 

There are two topics which are somewhat related but can be addressed separately:

· Carbonation (i.e.,how much CO2 is in solution)

· Foam/Head

It is possible for a beer to be properly carbonated (e.g., 2.5 volumes CO2) but exhibit poor foam/head qualities. One example of beer having a poor head would be serving the beer in a glass that has residual soap as @MrOH discusses above. There are also some brewing practice reasons why a beer may have poor foam/head qualities.

@rakijaipivo can you please provide some more details here? Is the issue you are experiencing a carbonation problem (e.g., insufficient volumes of CO2)? Is it an issue of lack of foam/head? Maybe both?

Cheers!

 

Or cleaning brewing vessels, fermenters, etc. with soap as well.

 

What styles are you brewing currently? Do you see bubbles rising more intensely? I think I’m reading correctly that you aren’t experiencing any visual changes?

To me It sounds like you’re describing something more along an astringent flavor that is intensifying as the beer warms in the glass. Or some other similar effect. You’re on the upper end of serving temperatures for some styles, so could it be something along these lines? You could try to chill one down to 5-8 Celsius for a day or two to see if it’s temperature related.

 

Is this carbonation strong enough that it is biting to your tongue and comes across as a strong tartness? I'm wondering if you may have an infected beer and it's just short of the 'gusher' stage and you need to be near a sink when you open future bottles.

If you're curious, let a glass of the beer warm up to room temp and stir it to get rid of any carbonation, then take a gravity reading. That should confirm an infection if the reading is near 1.000.

 

I have never witnessed this phenomenon in any of my beers. Why the carbonation effect would 'intensify' after permitting the beer in the glass to sit for 5 minutes is perplexing to me. There are two things (maybe more?) going on by letting the beer sit. One is the beer is warming up and carbonation tends to come out of solution at warmer temperature but over those 5 minutes the beer is permitted to outgas which would lead one to think the beer would get flatter vs. more carbonated. Maybe the warming action is 'winning out' here?

Well, that is an issue since those are colder temperatures for the bottle conditioning process. A temperature range of 10 - 15 degrees C (50 - 59 degrees F) is colder than ideal. You really should be targeting something like 20 degrees C (68 degrees F).

Can you bring the beer inside to a warmer environment? Maybe another week at 20 degrees C will 'fix' your issue?

I would say yes and if you are able let it condition at a warmer temperature.

Cheers!