Is it still good to drink?

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pcancila

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:mug:

Last weekend, 7/5 to be exact I brewed a Imperial Stout Extract Kit from Midwest supplies. All went well, only thing different that I did was I used 6 gallons to start the boil and due to the 102F outside temp and being able to literally sip the propane, I was able to keep a nice low boil, and hence only being a home brewer for 1 year and prone to making mistakes (learning) I ended up with 5.75 gallons yield. I had an OG of 1.074, so I am not worried about the end result; even though it was a 5g recipe.
In the spirit of not wasting, I decided to go 5.5g into my 6.5 primary and when I rack to my secondary, bottle the .5g into a bomber to experiment. Also in the spirit of experimenting, I filled a growler and 80% full and made a make **** lid out of saran wrap with a tiny hole in the top, and a rubber band around the neck of the bomber to hold the wrap tight. I figure why not see if I can ferment this thing and bottle it by filtering into another growler and closing the lid??? (what is the worst that can happen, right?)
So anyway, I added a homebrewed bottle of an old Belgium triple for the yeast and put next to my 6.5 primary to see what would happen. So after 4-5 day no fermentation at all, I decide to shake it up, came back on day 7 and noticed some white groupings of glob, not your standard krausen filling up all the head area of the growler, just some white gunk, almost as like some areas of melted vanilla ice cream. To be honest, it looked gross and I said to myself damn I have some kind of bacteria going on. I was going to dump the whole thing but was lazy and let it go until today when I was actually going to dump and clean the bottle.
So I checked on the beer today, and there you go, full blow fermentation with nice 1 inch krausen and active body to the beer as it moves around in the growler. ????? Not sure what to do here? Again it was an experiment, I am ok with dumping the whole thing, but I am kind of interested in seeing this through? Is this safe? Could I get sick? Is filtering into another growler and just locking it up ok for bottle conditioning it?
I know this is not the right way to make an imperial stout, but why not see what bottom of the pot, hop pellet abundant, fermented with an homebrewed Belgium triple taste like?

If I will get sick let me know? Ha! If not I will let everyone else know how it works out!!!!
 
I love belgians, and I love imperial stouts. Sounds like it's ruined, so you should send it my way...

I kid. Chances are, the white stuff was just the beginnings of a krausen forming. The tiny amount of yeast at the bottom of a single homebrew bottle isn't really enough to ferment even a half gallon, so that's why it took so long to get started. Sounds as if everything is going fine now though, so I'd let it go.

As far as bottling in a growler...If it's a swing-top, you'll be fine. If it's got a screw on lid, it's not going to stay airtight enough to build up carbonated.
 
that's good feedback! It's a swing top! I will let you know how it works out! I will try to get some pictures together!

Thank you!
 
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