i forgot to bottle my homebrew. 6 weeks into it. drink it? or dump it?

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eaboatnuts76

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forgot about my batch. should i bottle it and refrigirate? is it safe? its been brewing for around 6 weeks. has not been opened, and i sanitized like i should have. what do u think?
 
Not too long. Proceed as normal.

Maybe a year or more might be too long but certainly not 6 weeks.

Bottle then 3 weeks at about 70° then a few days in the fridge.
 
My last one was in primary for 5 weeks and the bottling sample was great. With healthy yeast there isn't much concern for longer primary fermentation.
 
Last week I bottled up an Imperial Stout. That thing sat on the yeast for 2 months. It tasted great at bottling and will taste amazing in December once it's been in the bottles for 6 months. Your beer will be fine.
 
forgot about my batch. should i bottle it and refrigirate? is it safe? its been brewing for around 6 weeks. has not been opened, and i sanitized like i should have. what do u think?

Tell you what I'm willing to do: Bottle it up. Pack it well. Pay the shipping to send it to me. I will be your Quality Control Tester. For free even! :D

Ive had ales in the fermenter for nearly 2months and they came out just fine.
 
My current batch is a big beer that will be in primary for four weeks, secondary for eight weeks, and bottles for six more weeks before the first taste.

My last brew was a small 4% cream ale that was in the bucket for six weeks and secondary for another 5 because I couldn't find time to work on it. Tried the first one last night and it was great.

As long as you kept clean, and you said you did, it'll be fine.

Relax. Don't worry. Have a home brew.
 
I've gone 5 weeks in primary myself. Even though your beer may look to have settled out clear,there'll still be enough yeast in suspension to carbonate with. Look at it this way-the beer just got a little mellowing time.
 
Two weeks ago, I bottled my imperial nut brown ale that had sat for a month in primary and four months in secondary. Looked and smelled great.

I'll be cracking the first bottle in... oh, September, October. I expect that it will be really good by the turn of the year, though the original recipe suggests that it will be as long as next May before it hits its full stride.

Of course, that WAS a really big beer. Nevertheless, OP, you didn't hurt a thing with a six week primary. Bottle it, give it three weeks to carb at 70 degrees, then throw a few in the fridge for a couple of days. I'm betting you have better beer than you would have had you bottled at ten days or somesuch.
 
forgot about my batch. should i bottle it and refrigirate? is it safe? its been brewing for around 6 weeks. has not been opened, and i sanitized like i should have. what do u think?

Dude.. This is the way its done.
Being that's your 1st post.. All good.
 
By waiting 6 weeks, you probably made BETTER beer. For the most part, leaving the beer in the fermenter for longer times makes a better tasting beer. What happened was you accidentally did it the right way, because you forgot to be impatient and rush the process!!!
 
Welcome to HBT, eaboatnuts76! -

Just dry-hopped my IPA that's been sitting 6 weeks. Things happen. Life happens. Had some unexpected travel, etc...as long as it's kept sanitary, you're fine.
 
Welcome to HBT, eaboatnuts76! -

Just dry-hopped my IPA that's been sitting 6 weeks. Things happen. Life happens. Had some unexpected travel, etc...as long as it's kept sanitary, you're fine.

If the fermenter has been unopened and undisturbed, it is sanitary.
 
By waiting 6 weeks, you probably made BETTER beer. For the most part, leaving the beer in the fermenter for longer times makes a better tasting beer. What happened was you accidentally did it the right way, because you forgot to be impatient and rush the process!!!

I agree, this is how vulcanized rubber was made (by accident not by fermenting for 6 weeks) :cross:

It may take a little longer to carb then if you conditioned for 3 weeks but it will carb fine as long as you add enough priming sugar or keg!!
 
One of the great things about this site is that it seems everyone here all either has the same issue at some point in their brewing career, or have the experience to help lend some good advice.

Like this. I just bottled my 6th batch on Saturday. An extract version of a simple chocolate ale (porter?). Before I bottled, I opened up my brewlog for the batch, and saw that I brewed it 3 months prior, nearly to the day!

I instantly freaked, I thought for sure it was only just over a month. I figured that it probably didn't matter much, so went along my merry way getting ready. Since the bottling process hadn't been done in /evidently/ 3 months I spent extra time cleaning and sanitizing.

I really did imagine I'd open the primary (no secondary, this was 3 months in primary) and discover some bad looking gunk all over the surface. What I found however was actually just a 'few' spots of what I'd imagine were floating yeasy colonies, similear to what I've seen in my other fermentaiton buckets at bottling time. In fact, there were FEWER of them than in other brews I've done, and the sometimes 'skin' that forms on some types wasn't there either. It smelled like beer of course, so bottling we go!

I guess I'll know for sure in at least 3 weeks, but I have high hopes. Actually, even if it isn't great, the experience is worth everything. I'm loosing nothing but my time, and even if it doesn't turn out good, what I'll have learned from the mere act of doing so is worth more than my time.

While filling out my online brewlog, I made a note about the 3 month timeframe and how 'clean' it looked inside the fermentation bucket about 'guess I'm santitizing and cleaning well'. :)
 
One of the great things about this site is that it seems everyone here all either has the same issue at some point in their brewing career, or have the experience to help lend some good advice.

Like this. I just bottled my 6th batch on Saturday. An extract version of a simple chocolate ale (porter?). Before I bottled, I opened up my brewlog for the batch, and saw that I brewed it 3 months prior, nearly to the day!

I instantly freaked, I thought for sure it was only just over a month. I figured that it probably didn't matter much, so went along my merry way getting ready. Since the bottling process hadn't been done in /evidently/ 3 months I spent extra time cleaning and sanitizing.

I really did imagine I'd open the primary (no secondary, this was 3 months in primary) and discover some bad looking gunk all over the surface. What I found however was actually just a 'few' spots of what I'd imagine were floating yeasy colonies, similear to what I've seen in my other fermentaiton buckets at bottling time. In fact, there were FEWER of them than in other brews I've done, and the sometimes 'skin' that forms on some types wasn't there either. It smelled like beer of course, so bottling we go!

I guess I'll know for sure in at least 3 weeks, but I have high hopes. Actually, even if it isn't great, the experience is worth everything. I'm loosing nothing but my time, and even if it doesn't turn out good, what I'll have learned from the mere act of doing so is worth more than my time.

While filling out my online brewlog, I made a note about the 3 month timeframe and how 'clean' it looked inside the fermentation bucket about 'guess I'm santitizing and cleaning well'. :)

And here is another brewer who just made some great beer by just leaving the yeast alone and letting them do their thing. I'm betting this turns out somewhere around excellent.
 
Only thing I would have done differently on Saturday while bottling would be to have taken a sample for a gravity reading, and tasted it.

I wasn't concerned about the final gravity, because it had been 3 months on the yeast, so didn't. But, in retrospect, should have just for curiosity and for a tasting sample.

But really, what's 3 more weeks to taste a full bottle.... And yes, I'm assuming that it will NOT be carbed at 3 weeks because of most of the yeast having dropped out in 3 months, but yeah. 3 weeks.
 
Just kegged a stout that was in primary for 3.5 months. Warm flat sample was amazing.
 
Say you're making an IPA and you leave it in the primary for a few months and don't transfer to a secondary. When would you dry hop it?
 
Say you're making an IPA and you leave it in the primary for a few months and don't transfer to a secondary. When would you dry hop it?

Add your hops, leave them in the primary for a week then bottle/keg. Adding hops using a sanitized mesh bag (sanitized marbles help weigh it down) can make it easy for glass carboys but you may need to add about 10% more hops since they are enclosed in the bag. Just toss the hops in if you are using a bucket and put the lid back on!

Sanitation is important at this stage but not super crucial as the beer should be at a low PH which the "bad guys" don't like!

A "secondary" is really a misnomer. It would be better called a clearing or bright tank. Now if you are adding fruit or extended conditioning etc.., then you will want to transfer to a "secondary" to get the beer off of the yeast cake. 3 months on the yeast is not a problem, 10 months may be a problem.
 
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