gushers!

It's been a little while since I last posted on this blog. I've been sort of busy. First of all, I released my first novel, which I mentioned in the last post. Secondly, I got married.

But now I'm back. I've been brewing, and doing brewing-related things, throughout this month-plus gap in posts, and I plan on trying to catch this blog up with at least some of that stuff. I've also been dreaming up some new brewing projects, and I plan on writing about them here, too. So, hopefully I'll manage to be a little more regular with updates on this blog in the next few months (or at least until something else distracts me).

I figured I'd start by catching any readers up with the newest news on my Lilikoi Amber. I've written about lilikoi on this blog before, both how to grow it and how to brew with it. I've also mentioned that my Lilikoi Amber turned out to be such a lovely beer that I decided to enter it in the Sam Adam's Longshot Contest. Well, now I've got something new to report.

Every bottle of Lilikoi Amber has turned into a gusher. I pry off the top, and the beer just foams for days. You can see a picture of this up above.

This wasn't an issue during the first few months of drinking the beer. I brewed the Lilikoi Amber back in March, and it was a delight throughout April and May. But a few weeks into June I had a bottle explode, which has never happened to me with any of the beers in the 35+ batches I'd brewed before this. I tried opening another bottle that had been sitting in the basement, and it gushed foam vigorously. Fearing that all of the bottles had built up a dangerous level of carbonation, and worried I'd have more exploding bottles if I didn't act, I put all of the remaining bottles of Lilikoi Amber in the fridge--to force the yeast into dormancy and prevent any additional carbonation-pressure. I've been trying to drink through them quickly since then, but the gushing just keeps getting more pronounced. The beer still tastes great, but I only end up with a few ounces from each bottle, and those ounces have a good amount of suspended yeast.

Why is this happening? When I transferred the beer to secondary--which is when I added the lilikoi juice--the yeast seemed to have already done its thing (converted all the fermentable sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide). It didn't really bubble at all for the next two weeks. And so I bottled, thinking all was kosher. And now they're gushers. Why?

Here's my theory: despite its tartness, lilikoi juice has sugar in it. Because of it's tartness, it took the yeast an adjustment period before it could start fermenting that sugar. So, despite the fact that the secondary carboy didn't bubble, the yeast was still adapting to the new sugar, and it finally roused itself after I'd already put it in the bottle. It got used to the lilikoi sugar, and started to consume it.

This is important for anyone who wants to brew with lilikoi: expect a delay before a secondary fermentation period. If you're going to try adding lilikoi juice to secondary, like I did, don't bottle it until the gravity drops back down to near where it was before you added the lilikoi. It might take more than two weeks.

Of course, knowing this now doesn't help my chances for the Longshot competition, and I figure my beer doesn't have a chance if it gushes like a volcano when they open the bottle. (It is sort of a funny image, though--judges gathered around a table, numerous samples scattered in front of them... they crack a bottle labeled LA and all of a sudden the whole table gets flooded with foam!) Oh well, live and learn.

I've got another crop of lilikoi fruit on the vine now, and am thinking about brewing this beer again soon. I'll be sure to take what I've learned into account for that beer!