partially filled bottle - OK?
- Thread starter JLem
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
I would just drink it.
People have mentioned, though I haven't experienced it, that too much headspace may cause the bottle to blow up.
I often end up with a 1/2 bottle or just a few ounces left over. I just drink it. Sometimes flat green beer can be enjoyable.
People have mentioned, though I haven't experienced it, that too much headspace may cause the bottle to blow up.
I often end up with a 1/2 bottle or just a few ounces left over. I just drink it. Sometimes flat green beer can be enjoyable.
BendBrewer
Well-Known Member
Not to start an argument with Revvy, but I have done that a couple of times with 2/3 filled bottles and it was fine.
Not something I would plan on storing for any length of time, but fine to carb up and drink.
Not something I would plan on storing for any length of time, but fine to carb up and drink.
JOHN51277
Well-Known Member
Like I said, I haven't experienced it, but others have. It was even brought up in a podcast I listened to over the weekend. It might even have been James @ Basic Brewing.
I didn't say it was definitive, just that folks have mentioned it happening.
BendBrewer
Well-Known Member
As long as we aren't arguing, I am fine.
neomantra
Well-Known Member
I've had mixed results. In some cases I think the bottle had too much head space and did oxidize as it tasted awful upon drinking it. Scared the hell out of me when that happened because I thought I ruined my whole batch somehow until I realized it was just that one bottle tasting bad. However I have had other 2/3 full bottles taste perfectly fine both before that occurrence and since then. Just something to keep in mind imo.
l1ranger
Well-Known Member
i had the same thing happen recently. I put it in a glass, stuck it in the freezer to cool it down for about 10 or 15 minutes and sipped on it as I made some notes and got ready for the next batch.
It aint great beer when its green and flat, but it aint bad either.
It aint great beer when its green and flat, but it aint bad either.
Atvar
Well-Known Member
My past few batches I've had my last bottle be ~3/4 full. I mark it special, let it carb for about a week and chill and drink it. That way it has carbonation but doesn't sit around long enough to turn into a bomb.
SteveM
Well-Known Member
Ditto for what Atyar said - the last couple are often a little sludgy, the last one often partially filled, so they become my test bottles. I open them up about a week or two after bottling to see how things are going. I mark them with a T on the cap (not creative but effective). Never had a problem.
OP
OP
JLem
Well-Known Member
I had my fill of the green, flat beer from the hydro sample. So, I went ahead and capped it and stored it away with the rest to carb up. I marked it with a special designation so as to be able to find it easily and it will be opened first when I break down after 10 days to see how things are coming, even though I know they won't be ready yet.
I have bottled 1/2 a bottle and 2/3 of a bottle before... but they were the first ones to be drunk...
When our little yeasties are eating sugar and there's oxygen they release CO2, when that oxygen is depleted they go into anaerobic respiration and turn sugar into alcohol... So if you have more oxygen in your bottles that makes the yeast produce more CO2, which can lead to beer bottles exploding... be careful...
home brewing bottles
When our little yeasties are eating sugar and there's oxygen they release CO2, when that oxygen is depleted they go into anaerobic respiration and turn sugar into alcohol... So if you have more oxygen in your bottles that makes the yeast produce more CO2, which can lead to beer bottles exploding... be careful...
home brewing bottles
Boondoggie
Well-Known Member
I take the road less travelled. I top up that last bottle with tapwater. (I mark it and set it aside tho...)
I have ended up with a half to three quarters bottle each time I have bottled a batch. I capped and used it as my test 2 weeks after I bottled. I imagine a bottle bomb would be possible with long term storage.
pr0cess
Active Member
I cap my halvsies and immediately chill them for a week or so and the use it in meat brine. I generally smoke 10+ pounds of meat on brew days and I brine most of that for a few days beforehand and a little alcohol helps break down connective tissues.
NorCalAngler
Well-Known Member
That didn't even occur to me if the bottle is more than half full. Good suggestion.
Not a bad idea!! I'm going to give this a try this weekend. Just bottled another batch of wit last night and ended up with a 3/4 leftover bottle. I have to smoke up 30lbs of pork butt on Saturday for a party anyways so looks like I'll give one of the butts a soak.
Mischief_Brewing
Well-Known Member
This doesn't seem right. Everything that I've read points solely to the amount of sugar being the determining factor in carbonation.
I've short-filled several bottles with no harm, even with some unintentional extended aging.
carnevoodoo
Well-Known Member
think about it like a starter. If you add yeast to 1.040 wort and let it sit for 3 days, you'll get a good amount of yeast. If you use a stir plate that introduces more oxygen, you'll get more growth. Sure, you get uniform growth in a bottle when you add sugar, but giving the yeast more oxygen will in turn give them more ability to convert sugar, and in turn give you a higher attenuation rate.
It is all possible.
Oh no, there is more to it than that... you may not think of it when you are bottle conditioning your beer, but once you get into artificial carbonation methods (i.e. kegs) you'll discover a whole new world...
Pressure, time and temperature...
Here's the deal... yeast turns sugar into CO2 when there is oxygen and alcohol when there isn't oxygen... this is true whether you are fermenting your beer or bottle conditioning...
If you are not bottle conditioning you'll have to add CO2 and pressurize your kegs...
With bottle conditioning, the yeast gives you the CO2 and by capping your bottles you essentially pressurize your bottles...
Even when you are fermenting pressure builds up in the bucket/carboy, but it escapes through the airlock so you get flat beer when it's done fermenting...
When you bottle condition you add sugar or malt (they are both sugars) to get the yeast to produce CO2 again and pressure builds up in the bottle. At first the CO2 is in the head space, but with time it dissolves back into the beer (which is why you have to wait 2-4 weeks) and that's how you carbonate beer...
I have bottled beer with lots of head space and just like you, nothing happened, but that's because the amounts of sugar and temperature weren't a levels that would cause over-carbonation... In fact it would have to be an extreme case for beer bottles to explode by this factor, but it is possible given the right conditions, and I'm just explaining why it would happen, if it does happen...
FiddleTilDeath
Well-Known Member
Interesting... I've bottled many partial bottles over time and never considered it to be a danger zone nor have I had any exploding bottles. I have noticed sometimes these partial fills are very carbonated though... hmm...
Dynachrome
Well-Known Member
I mark them with "XXX" - you could top up with tap water - just a suggestion.
Mischief_Brewing
Well-Known Member
I keg and have done extensive reading on how liquid absorbs CO2 differently at different pressures and temperatures. I understand what I've read about how yeast works and how bottle conditioning works.
What's still not fully clear to me, even with the last two attempts at explaining it, is how yeast could produce excessive amounts of CO2 when you only give them enough sugar to eat to properly carbonate a bottle, based solely on additional oxygen in the bottle.
Is it a case of the additional oxygen along with the proper amount of sugar revives the yeast enough to have them eat some of the sugars they didn't eat the first time before going dormant? Kind of like adding champagne yeast to get a lower FG after your original yeast pooped out? I have to note, that this doesn't seem very logical to me. If you accidentally oxidize your beer during bottling, wouldn't that be adding an equivalent amount of oxygen as leaving a larger headspace, which would lead to the same scenario that carnevoodoo and beerjorge seem to be describing?
I'm not sure how else I can explain this... yeast metabolize sugar using aerobic respiration when there is oxygen around and produce 6 molecules of CO2 when this happens. When there is no oxygen around, they turn to anaerobic respiration where they metabolize sugar by turning it into one molecule of CO2 and ethanol.
If you oxidize your beer you would Not be adding an equivalent amount of oxygen as leaving a larger headspace because you can't fit the same amount of oxygen in liquid as you can in air...
Since the headspace is the primary source of oxygen, the best practice is to reduce that headspace by filling your bottles all the way up to the rim.
Mischief_Brewing
Well-Known Member
That makes more sense than how it was written earlier. It also brings up some discussions I've read previously about why you would use a different amount of corn sugar when naturally carbing in a keg. Different headspace volume etc. I'm going to try and research the difference between naturally carbing a keg with and without purging the oxygen out of the headspace.
It would seem that you could potentially use less sugar to carb a keg if you didn't purge the O2 out, but risk oxidizing the batch...
BioBeing
Well-Known Member
This would make sense if the oxygen in the headspace were the limiting factor during bottle conditioning. Since I can prime with different amounts of sugar to get different levels of carbonation, it would appear to me that this is not the case (at least at lower, normal, sugar amounts). Therefore, the amount of sugar must be limiting the amount of CO2 produced. Do I have that right?
Anyway - I cap and save my halvsies as early sacrificial tests too.
Right... oxygen is just one factor. Temperature, pressure, amount of sugar and then time it takes for the CO2 to dissolve back into the beer are the others I know of...
throwbookatface
Well-Known Member
DAMMIT - one of my bottles of Belgian tripel just exploded, a Grolsch swingtop! It's been conditioning about 1.5 weeks at 70-75. Dangit. After reading through this thread, I'm a little scared that I wasn't filling the bottles up high enough and might get more bombs. Any recommendations, or should I just hope for the best? The recipe recommended waiting 2 weeks for bottle conditioning. If they don't blow up by then, should I throw them in the fridge, or will they even out a bit if I keep them at room temp?
Now I have to take out the remaining potentially lethal bottles and clean up the box and area they were in... wish me luck. :cross:
Now I have to take out the remaining potentially lethal bottles and clean up the box and area they were in... wish me luck. :cross:
throwbookatface
Well-Known Member
Here are photos:
Recommendation: put your whole batch in a large plastic bag (or bags)
I'm away on business and now you've got my worrying about the batch conditioning in my garage (first batch). That said, I filled to the top on every bottle (which leaves just a tiny bit of headroom when the wand is removed), which is I think the right thing?
I'm away on business and now you've got my worrying about the batch conditioning in my garage (first batch). That said, I filled to the top on every bottle (which leaves just a tiny bit of headroom when the wand is removed), which is I think the right thing?
throwbookatface
Well-Known Member
Good call - I put them in trash bags lining several more boxes. I moved them to a cooler spot where it hopefully doesn't exceed 70 degrees. I'm pretty sure I used the correct amount of priming sugar (in this case, honey) which I dissolved into the beer before bottling. If anything, I may have used slightly less, so maybe I had a bad bottle. Either way< I was nervous handling those bottles!
I may have left more room than you - the bigger Grolsch bottles threw me off, maybe left about an inch, but that's what even 12 oz longnecks seem to leave as airspace. Well, we'll just hope for the best.
ChshreCat
Well-Known Member
I'm in the same boat as Revvy on this subject. Haven't had it happen myself mainly because when I get the last full bottle and see less than a bottle left in the bucket, I stop. But, I've seen people post on here about half-filled bottles exploding after a few weeks.
Either using the beer for cooking on bottling day or capping it and opening it really early as a tester seems like good plans to me. Not sure if I'd top up with water because that would alter the beer and wouldn't give a good example of how the rest of the batch would be, but that'd just be m personal preference.
Either using the beer for cooking on bottling day or capping it and opening it really early as a tester seems like good plans to me. Not sure if I'd top up with water because that would alter the beer and wouldn't give a good example of how the rest of the batch would be, but that'd just be m personal preference.
OP
OP
JLem
Well-Known Member
To jump back into this thread...I capped and conditioned the not-quite-full bottle for the past 2 weeks along with the rest of the (full) bottles. I put it in the fridge last night and will give it a try in a couple of days.
Pommy
Well-Known Member
So lots of ideas here, liked the one of using the left overs for a marinade or something, would finish off a long brewing day nicely. In the past I have just filled up with water, I know I shouldnt but Ive just thought that it would taste watered down (obviously) and drank it after a couple of weeks. Also how good of an indication of the final beer is the half bottle on bottling day? If the primary and/or secondary have been long enough I would expect it to just be a flat version of the final product and a good indication of what to expect in 3-4 weeks time?
throwbookatface
Well-Known Member
I just bottled a batch of blonde ale this weekend. The last bottle was sludgy and 3/4 full. I'll let you guys know how it goes - I may have to filter this one through a coffee filter above the glass, as I couldn't even see through the bottom of the bottle below the label!
ChshreCat
Well-Known Member
It should settle out. You'll just have a thick layer in the bottom of the bottle.
