Bottle it or Toss it??

OK, I screwed up a couple weeks back when making an AG Barleywine.

My wort volume after boil was around 6 gallons, rather than the 5.5 I was targeting (helps explain why my OG was 1.096 rather than 1.100+ I was shooting for). I pitched the wort onto a big yeast cake and used a 6.5 gallon primary fermenter to account for the large starting volume and the anticipated explosive fermentation. After two weeks of vigorous, steady fermentation, activity slowed a lot... my SG reading was 1.018 and the beer was sitting on 4" of trub, so I decided to rack into a 5 gallon carboy for a nice long secondary.

All went well except I filled my 5 gallon carboy to capacity and still had 2qts+ left! This has never happened to me. I racked that into a large beaker I'd sanitized in iodophor and capped it with a bubbler for the time being.

What do I do with it? I don't dare risk the whole batch by remixing the extras at bottling or back into a larger carboy, but I really don't want a big beaker of fermenting beer sitting around for 3-4 months either... besides, it's my yeast starter beaker.

Can I bottle it with just a smidge of reconstituted DME and keep them safe (to see if they become bottle bombs, as I'm unsure if the fermentation is complete) or just toss it?

Bottle it and use Munton's carb tabs or the gum carb drops looking things from the LHBS. I use the munton's and use 4 or 5 tabs @ 12 ozbottle or 8 tabs in a 22, depending on style.

Thanks mrk305.

LHBS was closed so I mixed up a small priming mix w/ dme (1.060) and only added enough to raise the sg of my leftovers by .002 and bottled in fliptops. I'll keep them in safe location and drink them green when they carbonate.

Better than tossed out!

I purchased a bag of carb tabs for just such an emergency. Although, I think you might have been ok had you bottled less the priming sugar and left them be for a long time.

at 1018, should be ok, but i'd keep them contained in case they decide to go off. had 2 bottle bombs some time ago; fortunately no one was in the room, but they diced a lampshade and shattered the bulb

Yep, two things will happen:
- These bottles will be well shielded until I open them in a few weeks.
- I'm buying a sack of carb tabs, just in case I ever miss my volume like this again.

Thanks again for the tips and support.