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Grolsch style bottles and gushers

Angels Nectar

Apprentice
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
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Location
Brighton, MI
I have a question regarding the flip top bottles and a problem with gushers that I have experienced several times. I have brewed a dunklewiezen beer, same recipe several times and the carbonation level is about 2.4 and bottled with either corn sugar or malt extract. Every time I bottle this beer with these bottle I get gushers. I have used the bottles as back ups when I run out of 12 oz. longnecks. The 12 oz. bottles are fine each and every time. Same batch, same priming. I may have chalked it up to bacteria or other infections, but last month, I bottled a wheat beer at the same time I did the dunkewiezen. Those do not gush. Everything was sterilized the same way and the carbonation level was the same for that also. Any ideas to why just this one beer can't be bottled this way? I would like to keep using this beer, but if it something that may be "recipe" specific, I would like to know so I don't end up wasting a batch.
 
Infections tend to leave a ring in the neck of the bottle.  Take one of your bottles, tilt it, and hold it to a light. If you see a ring at the fill level, then you've got an infection.  If it gushes without a ring then I'm not sure what to suggest. Maybe get it really cold before opening it. 
 
No rings in the bottles. I did try to cool it down prior to opening the last one, luckily I was outside when I opened it. The entire bottle shot foam across my yard. The foam then froze on the lawn. It was only cooled down to 45 degrees F. I literally had nothing left in the bottle. I wish I had gotten that on video.  It is the most puzzling and by far the strangest thing I have seen in my last 15 years of brewing. I am planning on bottling my ESB into those bottles, so I will see what happens. I know that I won't ever bottle a dark beer in one of these.
 
That's weird. Sounds to me like you should stick to 12oz bottles for the dark brew. As to why one size gushes and the other does not, I have no idea. 

Gushers can be caused by an infection, incomplete fermentation, and too much priming sugar. I can't think of any other cause off the top of my head.

What you describe is just plain odd.  I'm out of ideas.
 
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