Tiny bubbles when bottling - still fermenting?

[kestlemill]

Hi All,

I usually bottle my home brew and this was the 5th one I've done this way. However, this time when I was transferring to bottles there were loads of tiny little bubbles coming through the siphon tube. They'd stay in the tube and congregate into a mass of bubbles, occasionally all disappearing down the bottling stick. I'm worried that they were CO2 and that it means my beer hadn't fermented properly. I left it eight days but was slack about taking gravity readings :? After eight days I'd transferred to a fresh bucket (minus gunk) and noticed the yeast still had bubbles on the surface of the beer, but thought no more of it. I left it four days in the fresh bucket then botteld tonight, and had the aforementioned tiny bubbles problem. It was the first time I have used Safale SO5. Anyone know if the bubbles mean it hadn't finished fermenting and my bottles will explode, or if it is explained by something else? Additionally it was a very strong beer (final gravity 1.01) - 5.7 litres of malt extract in final vol 23 litres. Please tell me my bottles won't explode!!

Thanks for your help.
James

 

[MikeB]

I bottle just about all my beer and often see a similar thing. But to answer your question "will my bottles explode" needs a couple more details:

How much priming sugar did you use?

What type of bottles are they?

You do need an immense amount of pressure to get a proper beer bottle to go bang. I'd advise opening one fairly soon - if you get an large frothy eruption at this stage you're probably not going to be able to drink any of it as the yeast will likely be pulled off the bottom and/or the bottles will indeed go bang. But if you just get a little 'phut' it'll be fine.

 

[Aleman]

The bubbles you saw is probably CO2 breaking out of solution because of the turbulance in the syphon tubing. as such it's probably not worth worrying about.

US-05 does tend to chew up more of the sugars though . . .but in my case it did so in 48 hours.

Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings! Gravity readings! Gravity Readings!

 

[kestlemill]

Thanks for the advice guys. Not so worried now.

These were good sturdy bottles and I had left the yeast for 8 days, and yes there was enormous biomass after only 2 days!

I used approx 80g sugar for the 20 litres.

I reckon I'll open one in a couple of days and see how it reacts!