Cooper's IPA extreme head...

[Mo06]

My Cooper's IPA, brewed to 20L with light hopped DME & dextrose, has been in the bottle for four weeks.

It's now quite quaffable, but it's VERY fizzy, I have to pour it into a 2 L jug before letting the huge head subside.

Bottled with a teaspoon of brown cane sugar, any ideas as to the cause of the excessive head ?

My Cooper's Stout bottled in exactly the same way a week or two earlier displays just a regular head.

[Haggis]

Hi There, I had the same issue with my Coopers English Bitter. It was a sensational pint brewed with a Kg of dried malt and a cup of demerara.
In time it seemed to be a lot less fizzy and produced a smaller head. It helped if i chilled it a little, but leaving it alone for three months helped it no end.

Very difficult when there is no other beer in and it was so tasty.

[milo]

Hi

Did you check FG before bottling?
It may not have finished fermenting. Don't worry too much!

Just try and chill the bottles right down or you could release a little co2 by slightly opening cap an hour or two before pouring.

And Most important, enjoy!

[Kev888]

Yep, the main ways of getting too much carbonation in bottles are either to over-prime and/or to bottle whilst theres still some of the primary fermentation left to go - both resulting in too much CO2 being produced after the bottle is sealed. Also (just like fizzy pop) you can make it worse by shaking about or opening when the beer is warm, but they're obviously things you know about.

If you find some bottles are fizzier than others you may want to consider bulk priming - racking the beer temporarily into a well sanitised fermenter/bucket (without too much splashing/oxidising) and mixing in the sugar in bulk before bottling. That method introduces another stage to be sure about sanitising and so on, so its not perfect, but it can be quite fiddly to measure small separate bottle quantities of sugar accurately, especially by volume rather than by weight.

Cheers
kev

[Mo06]

Thanks, I'm pretty sure it had finished primary fermentation as the gravity went from 1045 to 1010 after 9 days.

Guess I will just have to try a few more bottles, only had four so far, all of which have been very lively...

[hommebru]

sounds like it hadn't finished fermenting. stick a hydrometer in it when you next pour one, you can expect it to be a point lower due to priming but anything lower than that could suggest it was still fermenting.

[irc]

My last Cooper's IPA with 500g spraymalt and 500g brewer's sugar fermented down to 1002 before I bottled it after 12 days. Batch primed with 110g sugar. Lovely pint - no foaming. 1010 sounds too high to me to bottle.

[Kev888]

From a single gravity reading you can tell if its roughly sensible for a FG (i.e. that it hasn't stuck when only half way fermented or something like that) but it doesn't say if its actually finished. If you then take another reading a day or so later as well and its identical, then it indicates that the fermentation has indeed stopped, not just that its low.

Cheers
Kev

[Stomach]

At one teaspoon per bottle, you have doubled the priming rate, it should be around half a teaspoon per bottle/pint so a 40 pint batch would be around 85g in total which is just over 2g per pint/bottle, you have doubled it to lager carbonation! Around 160g! But as long as it tastes good!

Cheers

[tazzymutt]

[quote="Stomach"]At one teaspoon per bottle, you have doubled the priming rate, it should be around half a teaspoon per bottle/pint so a 40 pint batch would be around 85g in total which is just over 2g per pint/bottle, you have doubled it to lager carbonation! Around 160g! [/quote]

The Coopers kits I've made all recommend priming with around 160 or 170g of sugar. I generally use about half that as I don't like my beer too fizzy but have to admit to often having less head on the beer than I'd like.

I always batch prime but still see a variation in the amount of head I get between one bottle and the next. I don't know the cause but maybe slightly different serving temperatures or maybe it is my pour technique failing as the number poured recently increases...

[quote]But as long as it tastes good! [/quote]

My philosophy precisely

Happy brewing,


Ian.