I decided to finally pour out bottles from last year that were past their prime. To my surprise, all gushed foam, and a lot of it, except one. They all smelled like beer, but i did not taste any. The beers were from two different batches - one a pale ale and the second an IPA. Both of these beers were ok when fresh, at least to my untrained palate. The pale ale i entered into a club competition and it did well, especially considering it was my third brew ever. At the time, i was using carbonation drops for priming to save myself a transfer. (My fermenter is ported.) My two brews this year i transferred to a bottling bucket and used a sugar solution instead. Otherwise, I have not changed my procedure to clean and sanitize bottles from last year.
I am thinking along the lines of a slow growing infection. Am i right in thinking that either the carbonation drops or my bottle cleaning are the most likely culprit? I checked my notes from those two brews and nothing else stands out. I am also thinking that this may be the time to change out my hoses.
I wonder why you didn’t taste them and concluded that they were infected.
It is more likely that there was too much sugar in the bottles, either from bottling prematurely or from too much carbonation sugar.
Not all gushers are infected. Some are just overcarbonated.
How long would over carbonation take to show up? A couple of months after bottling, they didn’t gush and appeared normally carbonated. In looking at my notes, i didn’t wait for two identical gravity readings a couple of days apart, so it is possible that these two beers were bottled earlier than they should be.
I didn’t even think of tasting one at the time, only realized that as a mistake later.
As long as there is active yeast and sugar in the bottle they will keep going. I’ve noticed this myself opening very old bottles.
Another question, did you open them warm? Even a normal 2.5vol carb might gush if it’s warm. CO2 stays in solution much better in cold liquid. A warm Budweiser might not gush, but if you have a thick stout with oats or something and lots of protein to create bubbles you’ll get a lot of foam.
Years ago I was helping to clean out a family member’s basement. I found a couple of cases of my own brew, bottle conditioned but over 15 years old at that time. I had completely forgotten having stored them there once when I was moving to another town. I took them home to dump them and recycle the bottles. I was about halfway through when I decided I might as well learn just how awful beer that old could get and in what way, and took a sip. You see where this is going. It took weeks before the last bottle was finally, sadly, gone! Always taste before you assume your beer is ruined.