The Thread for How to Fix your effed up beer...

Okay... so recently I brewed a Belgian dubbel, similar to Chimay Red. Weeks later, when I tapped the keg, I thought that I had tapped my pale ale by mistake. Turns out that my LHBS accidentally forgot some key dark grains from my order. So instead of the balanced malty dubbel I was expecting, I ended up with an unbalanced Belgian medium-golden ale carbed up and ready to drink sitting in my keg. It did not taste all that great without the maltiness that needed to be there. I brewed it for a birthday party that is happening tomorrow and I really did not want to serve it; it was way too out of whack. Solution?

Two mornings ago I bagged up 1.5 oz of Centennial in a paint strainer bag and added it to the keg. I purged out the oxygen and then shook up the keg a bit, also upped the CO2 by a couple psi. Sampled a taste this morning- delicious! Just enough added citrusy hop character to round out the flavors. Now it's a pretty refreshing 7% golden Belgian ale, drinkable and delicious.

I got lucky that this worked well so late in the homebrew process. There are a myriad of things that can go awry during the process and I'm sure a lot of you have creative solutions for fixing mishaps, so let's hear 'em!

I recently had an honorable mention in the Best of Show round for the largest competition in the state of Washington. The beer that won was a blend of 4 beers - three of which never carbed in the bottle (big barley wines). They were all great flat, but phenomenal blended in the right proportion and carbonated in a keg. Granted, it isn't a fix all for bad beer, but worked well when the beers going in were of high quality. I also did about 7 test blends before deciding on the right one.

I've never actually experimented with blending. I assume you had to uncap all of your beers... What sort of blending process did you use? How did you minimize oxidation?

My Pilsen sMaSh seems a bit sweet, but it has only been carbing for about 4 days. Checked the FG and it is 1.018. May have to do some blending if the carbonation doesn't give it more bite. I've set it at 13 PSI for the time being. It had been in the primary for about 16 days.

tedclev said:

Okay... so recently I brewed a Belgian dubbel, similar to Chimay Red. Weeks later, when I tapped the keg, I thought that I had tapped my pale ale by mistake. Turns out that my LHBS accidentally forgot some key dark grains from my order. So instead of the balanced malty dubbel I was expecting, I ended up with an unbalanced Belgian medium-golden ale carbed up and ready to drink sitting in my keg. It did not taste all that great without the maltiness that needed to be there. I brewed it for a birthday party that is happening tomorrow and I really did not want to serve it; it was way too out of whack. Solution?

Two mornings ago I bagged up 1.5 oz of Centennial in a paint strainer bag and added it to the keg. I purged out the oxygen and then shook up the keg a bit, also upped the CO2 by a couple psi. Sampled a taste this morning- delicious! Just enough added citrusy hop character to round out the flavors. Now it's a pretty refreshing 7% golden Belgian ale, drinkable and delicious.

I got lucky that this worked well so late in the homebrew process. There are a myriad of things that can go awry during the process and I'm sure a lot of you have creative solutions for fixing mishaps, so let's hear 'em!

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I'm just curious, and not trying to poke, but how did you not notice the color issue while brewing? While Kegging? Etc.?

Ahhhh yes... curlyfat. I knew that I'd have to answer that question and it is pretty silly for sure. Basically, I brewed it in a bucket, so I couldn't see it in there. When peering into the bucket, it looked much darker. It looked light to me when I was siphoning into the keg, but all beers look a lot lighter when passing through a small diameter hose. My LHBS has never messed up before so I just had faith it was right. Oh well. Accidents happen, and it's all good; the final product is still tasty

tedclev said:

I've never actually experimented with blending. I assume you had to uncap all of your beers... What sort of blending process did you use? How did you minimize oxidation?

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I purged the heck out of a co2 keg, then carefully popped each bottle and poured into the co2 blanket. I then sealed the keg and purged the heck out of it again. Didn't pick up any bad oxidized flavors although it is a pretty flavorful beer where a touch of oxidation could be a good thing.

Thanks wonderbread. Sounds like a winner

i did a similar fix on a mild blonde... came out way too mild and blonde... i really wanted a nice malt character and it never happened so i dry hopped it late and it changed the profile of the beer so much that its actually drinkable now.

its not what i intended to make, but a late hop addition can do wonders on "mistakes"...

Pick said:

My Pilsen sMaSh seems a bit sweet...

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Kinda new to the forum and I've seen this term thrown around a few times.

What does it mean exactly?

I went a different route last summer. I had a blonde ale, and once I kegged it just tasted way too light. Not enough malt to round out a dry hop addition. So I dumped in a batch of strawberry wine flavoring. Turned out great.

npauley88 said:

Kinda new to the forum and I've seen this term thrown around a few times.

What does it mean exactly?

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Single Malt and Single Hops.

tedclev said:

Ahhhh yes... curlyfat. I knew that I'd have to answer that question and it is pretty silly for sure. Basically, I brewed it in a bucket, so I couldn't see it in there. When peering into the bucket, it looked much darker. It looked light to me when I was siphoning into the keg, but all beers look a lot lighter when passing through a small diameter hose. My LHBS has never messed up before so I just had faith it was right. Oh well. Accidents happen, and it's all good; the final product is still tasty

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Fair enough. It is indeed difficult to judge color unless it's in a glass.