Ask The Brewmasters

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey Vincent, 

Is your can gushing occurring during the filling process, or a significant time afterwards? Is it a few particular brands or random across varying brands that are significantly different? What type of can filler are you using? I would think you'd need a significant amount of stuff settling in your empty cans to cause gushing, and if that was the case you'd likely see gushing off the filler as compared to weeks/months afterward. How long are you leaving cans uncovered for that would allow material to settle inside of them? Probably best to never leave cans uncovered if they aren't about to get filled.

I'd also recommend the MBAA podcast about rinsers(#171). Ben Bailey talks about chemical usage in water rinsers and it may answer some other questions you might have. 

https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/171

https://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/2019/Documents/TQ-56-3-0730-01.pdf

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey Tim,

Sorry for the long delay in responding but my membership had lapsed and I'm just catching up on things on this site.  Our can gushing happens normally after seaming and a few weeks after entering distribution.  We have an X-ray level inspector to catch short fills so if a can gushed pre seamer I would imagine it would get rejected.

We see random gushing across different brands and have sent gushing cans for micro with no spoilers.  Our rinser uses city well water with peracetic injection in line (unlikely to receive adequate contact time for sanitation but Ben Bailey recommended this from Troegs).  

Our can filler is a BC MasterCan which is now owned by CFT and was manufactured in 1996.  I've reached out to David Garab years ago about other problems with this machine but it was well before CFT inherited the intellectual property.

We've stopped leaving cans uncovered but still experience this issue so I'm not sure what to do next.

Hey Vincent, 

Is your can gushing occurring during the filling process, or a significant time afterwards? Is it a few particular brands or random across varying brands that are significantly different? What type of can filler are you using? I would think you'd need a significant amount of stuff settling in your empty cans to cause gushing, and if that was the case you'd likely see gushing off the filler as compared to weeks/months afterward. How long are you leaving cans uncovered for that would allow material to settle inside of them? Probably best to never leave cans uncovered if they aren't about to get filled.

I'd also recommend the MBAA podcast about rinsers(#171). Ben Bailey talks about chemical usage in water rinsers and it may answer some other questions you might have. 

https://www.masterbrewerspodcast.com/171

https://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/tqPastIssues/2019/Documents/TQ-56-3-0730-01.pdf

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey Vincent, have you ruled out calcium oxalate as the source of gushing? Considering that the issue is only with cans, it seems unlikely that calcium oxalate is the cause. Nevertheless, I thought I'd ask!

Good luck!

Nassim

------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2024 09:58
From: Vincent Dalfonzo
Subject: Random Gushing Cans

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey all,

We will start saving and cutting open some of the gushing cans and take a look at the liner to look for a possible culprit.  I have spun down some brite (post centrifuge) samples in our lab without finding much calcium oxalate under a microscope but will go ahead and take another look since this issue has cropped back up.

Thanks for the help,

Vince Dalfonzo

Hey Vincent, have you ruled out calcium oxalate as the source of gushing? Considering that the issue is only with cans, it seems unlikely that calcium oxalate is the cause. Nevertheless, I thought I'd ask!

Good luck!

Nassim

------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2024 09:58
From: Vincent Dalfonzo
Subject: Random Gushing Cans

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Vincent-

Have you checked out previous threads in Ask the Brewmasters regarding gushing or over-foaming in cans? If not I think there's some interesting reads on this topic in our forum. I searched 'Gushing' and 'Gushing Potential' and found a few threads. You indicate that this happens a few weeks after packaging date. I might take a look at upstream factors that affect yeast health, even if that's a bit counterintuitive.

As an aside, there does seem to be something particular to cans in many of the over-foaming incidents I've seen and read about. Maybe it's the canning process (you'd mentioned moving to ionized air as a possibility so you're keen to that). Maybe it's how cans are stored, transported, or handled prior to opening. Maybe it's something specific to the geometry of a can. Any chance it tends to happen in IPAs or heavily hopped beers more than other styles?

Just a few thoughts based on threads I found in this forum. 

Hey all,

We will start saving and cutting open some of the gushing cans and take a look at the liner to look for a possible culprit.  I have spun down some brite (post centrifuge) samples in our lab without finding much calcium oxalate under a microscope but will go ahead and take another look since this issue has cropped back up.

Thanks for the help,

Vince Dalfonzo

Hey Vincent, have you ruled out calcium oxalate as the source of gushing? Considering that the issue is only with cans, it seems unlikely that calcium oxalate is the cause. Nevertheless, I thought I'd ask!

Good luck!

Nassim

------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2024 09:58
From: Vincent Dalfonzo
Subject: Random Gushing Cans

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

If you have a CO2 package tester, you can check the level carbonation in the gushing cans.  If the carbonation is 2.9 volumes or higher, and/or higher than what it was at the time of packaging, that clearly indicates fermentation activity in the can and is probably the cause of gushing.  But sometimes properly-carbonated cans will still gush when you open them.

If you have ruled-out over-carbonation, check the DON level on your malt analysis.  This number pertains to Fusarium contamination of you barley malt, which has been linked to gushing tendency.

Also, last year I encountered gushing of properly-carbonated cans due to blistering of the epoxy liner at the bottom of the can.  The rough surface of the epoxy coating provided a nucleation site for CO2 bubbles to erupt out and make a foamy mess.  Not every can had blistered liner, so it was only every 3rd or 4th can that would gush.  If you use pre-sleeved or decorated cans, you might assume the gushing is related to a batch or beer style, when it's actually related to the batch of can bodies you got for that style.  Cut open those cans and take a careful look, especially at the very bottom of the can.

Vincent-

Have you checked out previous threads in Ask the Brewmasters regarding gushing or over-foaming in cans? If not I think there's some interesting reads on this topic in our forum. I searched 'Gushing' and 'Gushing Potential' and found a few threads. You indicate that this happens a few weeks after packaging date. I might take a look at upstream factors that affect yeast health, even if that's a bit counterintuitive.

As an aside, there does seem to be something particular to cans in many of the over-foaming incidents I've seen and read about. Maybe it's the canning process (you'd mentioned moving to ionized air as a possibility so you're keen to that). Maybe it's how cans are stored, transported, or handled prior to opening. Maybe it's something specific to the geometry of a can. Any chance it tends to happen in IPAs or heavily hopped beers more than other styles?

Just a few thoughts based on threads I found in this forum. 

Hey all,

We will start saving and cutting open some of the gushing cans and take a look at the liner to look for a possible culprit.  I have spun down some brite (post centrifuge) samples in our lab without finding much calcium oxalate under a microscope but will go ahead and take another look since this issue has cropped back up.

Thanks for the help,

Vince Dalfonzo

Hey Vincent, have you ruled out calcium oxalate as the source of gushing? Considering that the issue is only with cans, it seems unlikely that calcium oxalate is the cause. Nevertheless, I thought I'd ask!

Good luck!

Nassim

------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2024 09:58
From: Vincent Dalfonzo
Subject: Random Gushing Cans

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,

Hey again,

I'm going to take a look at some of the epoxy on a batch of cans we know was problematic recently and see if any blistering occurred and possibly bring that up to our can manufacturer.  It does seem to be across different can vendors which is confusing.  We also have a CO2 tester that hasn't shown an increase in cans we knew had issues and have had the issue occur in beer treated with amlyoglucosidase to finish with no fermentable extract.

We primarily make dry hopped beers but nothing in our current lineup gets much more than 2#/ BBL so they're not like many of the dry hopped beers on the market.  I can also take a look back through previous posts on gushing or gushing potential to see what we can rule out.

Thanks again everyone,

Vince Dalfonzo

If you have a CO2 package tester, you can check the level carbonation in the gushing cans.  If the carbonation is 2.9 volumes or higher, and/or higher than what it was at the time of packaging, that clearly indicates fermentation activity in the can and is probably the cause of gushing.  But sometimes properly-carbonated cans will still gush when you open them.

If you have ruled-out over-carbonation, check the DON level on your malt analysis.  This number pertains to Fusarium contamination of you barley malt, which has been linked to gushing tendency.

Also, last year I encountered gushing of properly-carbonated cans due to blistering of the epoxy liner at the bottom of the can.  The rough surface of the epoxy coating provided a nucleation site for CO2 bubbles to erupt out and make a foamy mess.  Not every can had blistered liner, so it was only every 3rd or 4th can that would gush.  If you use pre-sleeved or decorated cans, you might assume the gushing is related to a batch or beer style, when it's actually related to the batch of can bodies you got for that style.  Cut open those cans and take a careful look, especially at the very bottom of the can.

Vincent-

Have you checked out previous threads in Ask the Brewmasters regarding gushing or over-foaming in cans? If not I think there's some interesting reads on this topic in our forum. I searched 'Gushing' and 'Gushing Potential' and found a few threads. You indicate that this happens a few weeks after packaging date. I might take a look at upstream factors that affect yeast health, even if that's a bit counterintuitive.

As an aside, there does seem to be something particular to cans in many of the over-foaming incidents I've seen and read about. Maybe it's the canning process (you'd mentioned moving to ionized air as a possibility so you're keen to that). Maybe it's how cans are stored, transported, or handled prior to opening. Maybe it's something specific to the geometry of a can. Any chance it tends to happen in IPAs or heavily hopped beers more than other styles?

Just a few thoughts based on threads I found in this forum. 

Hey all,

We will start saving and cutting open some of the gushing cans and take a look at the liner to look for a possible culprit.  I have spun down some brite (post centrifuge) samples in our lab without finding much calcium oxalate under a microscope but will go ahead and take another look since this issue has cropped back up.

Thanks for the help,

Vince Dalfonzo

Hey Vincent, have you ruled out calcium oxalate as the source of gushing? Considering that the issue is only with cans, it seems unlikely that calcium oxalate is the cause. Nevertheless, I thought I'd ask!

Good luck!

Nassim

------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2024 09:58
From: Vincent Dalfonzo
Subject: Random Gushing Cans

Hey all,

We have been experiencing issues with our cans gushing over when opened and it appears to only be random and isolated to our canning line (we also package in kegs and bottles).  Our current belief is that our twist rinse isn't adequately rinsing our cans to remove what may have settled in an uncovered can but I'd love to hear some other ideas as to why this is happening on a very small % of our total canning runs, why it's only with our cans, or any other ideas.

After re-listening and reading through the MBAA podcast/presentation episode 142, we are considering removing our twist rinse and moving to an ionized air rinse with a germicidal light to minimize any contamination from our empty cans.  Has anyone experienced issues with this set up from a HAACP/FSMA perspective?  I can understand how this would check the box for removing physical and biological hazards, but not sure if it would adequately address a chemical hazard.  

For reference, our current twist rinse procedure is to use raw well water, dosed in line with peracetic acid, and sprayed through a rinser with no collection/recirculation.  Considering peracetic's required contact time with a surface, I'd to love to hear if anyone else has experience using a different sanitizer chemical.

Thank you,