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A few weeks ago I bottled my first lager, a festa brew pilsner. It was fermented at around 10C in a carboy with two satchets of Fermentis dry lager yeast. The bottles are overcarbed. It's very much like opening a bottle of champagne, even with the bottles down around 4C for a few weeks.

I've been trying to figure out why this happened as I only primed to about 2 volumes. I noticed that while in the carboy there seemed to be a decent amount of dissolved CO2 after fermentation was done. When bottling I did not wait for the carboy to come up in temp, and cold gas is more easily dissolved....

Could this be the source of my extra CO2? Any suggestions?

How long did you let it ferment at 10 degrees?
Sounds like it may not have finished. Did you do a D rest?

I had a batch that did the same thing a while ago. Every bottle I opened fountained out the top as soon as I opened it. I've since chalked it up to a gusher infection.

As always with overcarbed beers, chill them to the point of freezing, it's the best you can do to keep the beer from foaming like mad.

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I don't think that the beer being 10c when you bottled it could really be the problem. You would ideally leave out about an ounce of sugar to compensate for the residual dissolved c02 in the beer. However, since you were only aiming at 2 volumes, the extra ounce of sugar would only get you to 2.5 volumes, which is still a normal carbonation level.

Damn, it must not have been finished.

I left it on the cake for four weeks@10, but I admit that I didn't check my FG. Hadn't considered that it might take longer!

If you didn't do a diacetyl rest, perhaps there was more CO2 dissolved in the beer than if it had been brought up to ~70ºF and off gassed a bit?

I would never bottle or keg a beer without taking an FG. Stop doing that.

jeffsmith wrote:If you didn't do a diacetyl rest, perhaps there was more CO2 dissolved in the beer than if it had been brought up to ~70ºF and off gassed a bit?

That's what I was thinking...The d rest allows it to gas off due to the increase in temp

mr x wrote:I would never bottle or keg a beer without taking an FG. Stop doing that.

Also this.

Guilty as charged
Thanks for the help!!