Well, hmmmmm.
I made the decision to go ahead and bottle on Sunday (25 second bubbles). Whatever the reason for the action, I'm hoping I do not end up with a situation like my last batch of AG - increasing eruptions upon opening. The final bottle I opened left me with exactly 3 ounces of liquid. However it was good.
As for this batch, I did sample at bottle time and it was really, really good. Detected no off flavors at all. As for temperature, I use a wine cooler for storage and is consistently 68 degrees F. At 1.011 "FG", it was clearly done fermenting. Being worried about the bubble rate, I used only a half cup of priming sugar. After 3 days now, no bottle rockets yet.
If "intense gushing" means I have an infection (and same with previous batch), I've a mind to just give up on the AG brewing and go back to (gasp!) extracts. I am VERY careful of sanitation when I brew - nothing else I can think to do. Of this is "off gas CO2", then I do not know the reason, but I'm tired of wasting 2/3 of my brew just because I open the bottles. Yes, perhaps I should go to kegging, but I have space issues.
I guess it would have eventually stopped bubbling and then maybe I would not be risking the high volatility of the final product. But I had to make a decision to go and I did. If there would have been a noticeable decline in bubble rate, I would have waited, but it was increasing - as unlikely as that seems.
BTW, as far as airlock (trying to answer everyone's questions), I destroyed mine when I racked to secondary, so I was just using a blowoff tube run into a pitcher of water. I don't see how I could have been getting "suck back" there.
Maybe AG brewing is not for me - yeah, I'm getting depressed. lol
Thanks all.
Don