Used wrong yeast type. Oops.

I am new to brewing, so bear with me. I have done a few batches with other people, but this is my first batch using my own equipment.

So last night I started an American Style Bock Recipe, but I inadvertently grabbed the wrong smack pack of yeast out of my fridge . I had already activated it, so I just decided to go with it since it had been sitting all day and was ready to pitch. So what I ended up with is a Bock style recipe with a package of Wyeast American Ale II yeast in it, instead of the Bavarian Lager yeast.

I am not sure what to do with this batch of beer. It has been happily fermenting in a bucket for about 12 hours at around 68 degrees in my closet. Do you think it would be okay to bottle in a 7-10 days when the primary fermentation is done, or do I need to maybe secondary ferment it?

If it helps, here's the info on the recipe. The recipe has chocolate malt, Crystal malt, Mt hood hops, and cascade hops to finish with. The Original Gravity was 1.065 right before i pitched the yeast.

Any help / ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to HBT!
I don't remember ever using that yeast but I'm pretty sure you will end up with beer.
No matter what yeast, I would never bottle a week old beer. That is just asking for bottle bombs and we don't like those. I leave mine for several weeks in primary so the yeast can finish fermenting, clean up its waste, and clear the beer.

Yeah I think you can bottle in 10 days without too much concern. Obviously .. don't attempt to lager your beer, or you will probably crash the yeast. Wait at least 48 hours after your fermentation has completed to rack off the initial trub. Nurmey is correct in describing a process where the yeast will re absorb off flavors and chemicals after the fermentation process is complete. However, your goal is to move the beer before the yeast start to die, and re release those flavors back into the beer.

Your gravity would imply that a short rest in a secondary, or a longer rest in bottles will likely not hurt your beer. If you assume a minimum of 4 weeks in bottles , another 4-6 weeks would not hurt.

gl
~J~

I'm sorry but bottling a 7 - 10 day old beer is a terrible idea. There is good reasons that most folks leave their beers for 3 weeks before bottling. The yeast may not be finished, it will taste like crap, and you'll end up with a huge pile of sediment in your bottles (if they don't explode first). If you are going to the trouble of making good beer, why would you do something so silly?

I have to agree that bottling beer after a week is not a good idea. There are no set instructions on when a beer will be ready. Typically i leave my beers in primary for at least a month and usually cause im lazy i dont even bother with a secondary, and then when its time to bottle i leave them in bottles to condition for at least another month before i even think about cracking them open.

If you bottle at 1 week, be prepared to drink sour sewer yeast ale cause thats what its going to taste like for months

The 1 - 2 -3 method has been used for a while, that is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary and 3 weeks in bottles (at 70* in bottles). A lot of people instead go for 3 weeks in primary and 3 weeks in bottles to simplify and have more yeast for a longer period of time to clean up some of their byproducts from fermentation.

As for your beer, it may be a bit strange, but I bet it will turn out good. You have it at a good temperature so I'd just relax and wait it out.

As far as the yeast error goes, obviously you won't have a bock, but American Ale II yeast will give you a good result. I'd call it a Brown or a Texas Brown depending how much Cascade you've got in it.

Thanks for the replies. I am just going to go ahead and secondary ferment this batch when the primary fermentation winds down, and then bottle it after that. I'll let you know if it's any good once it's ready.

So I moved my Brown Ale (or whatever it is) into a secondary after 10 days. The gravity was at 1.020 for 3 days, so I moved it. It's been in the secondary for 10 days, the gravity is still the same, and after sampling, it has way to much unfermented sugar in it. I tried warming it up into the mid 70's. and also tossed in some yeast reactivator. None of this has restarted any fermentation.

Not sure what to do at this point. Should I wait longer, bottle it, dump it out, add more yeast? Will the sugary taste go away if I let it age longer, or will it not be noticeable after the beer is carbonated? Maybe it's supposed to be slightly sugary at this point. This is my first batch, so not sure.

Never dump it! The lack of carbonation could contribute to the sweet taste, and speaking for myself, I don't have enough faith in my skill and hydrometer calibration to be sure of a reading that seems to be off by maybe a hundredth from where you want it.

If it was mine, I would use the normal priming sugar and bottle it up.

Thanks Steve. Love your Brewery. I live 2 miles from Black Diamond, a small town in Washington State. They don't have a brewery though.

BeeRad77 said:

Thanks Steve. Love your Brewery. I live 2 miles from Black Diamond, a small town in Washington State. They don't have a brewery though.

Click to expand...

: D

It's inspired by another avocation - skiing. And I'm only a short 300 miles from there!