MrRoche
Member
I just bottled my 3rd batch after 1 week in bucket primary and 1 in a BB secondary. Over that time I've been reading a ton of HBT forums posts and learning a lot. Last night I spend a few hours reading historical threads about when to go to secondary and when to bottle, and now I'm stressing that I bottled too soon.
When I went to secondary on day 7, there was still krausen (I now realize this was too soon). The gravity at that point was 1.014. Yesterday when I bottled, on day 14, the gravity was at 1.012. I was pretty happy, since the recipe said it should be between 1.010-1.012. (This is a pretty standard Ale recipe; I didn't take an OG reading, but the recipe says it should have been 1.042-1.046.)
After racking to the bottling bucket, I put the airlock back on my secondary (I was planning to rack batch #2 onto it, which had a stuck fermentation). There was about an inch of beer around the bottom and a small yeast cake (there was a bigger yeast cake in the primary the week before). As I was bottling, I noticed the airlock still bubbling about 1x/minute. This seemed a little odd, but I'd never reapplied the airlock to my secondary, so I figured this may be normal since the yeast had been disturbed.
I was laying caps across the tops of my bottles as I went along, until I got to 6 bottles, at which point I've crimp them on. A few times as I was bottling, the loose bottle caps "popped" as if releasing gas. The lip of the bottle was wet with starsan, so it must have made a seal that was broken by some CO2. At the time I figured it might be CO2 released by the swirling in the bottling bucket.
I spent last night reading about when to go to secondary and bottle and I realized:
1. I should have left it in the primary until the krausen was gone.
2. I should have given it at least 3 weeks to ferment.
3. I should have been careful to do a hydro reading over 3 days before bottling.
So, my question is: am I screwed? I really don't want bottle bombs. I've found a few posts about people getting hurt by exploding bottles, and it's freaking me out.
Should I carefully pour these back into a bucket, and let them age for a few more weeks? Or, since I'm close to the target gravity, should I just RDWHAHB?
When I went to secondary on day 7, there was still krausen (I now realize this was too soon). The gravity at that point was 1.014. Yesterday when I bottled, on day 14, the gravity was at 1.012. I was pretty happy, since the recipe said it should be between 1.010-1.012. (This is a pretty standard Ale recipe; I didn't take an OG reading, but the recipe says it should have been 1.042-1.046.)
After racking to the bottling bucket, I put the airlock back on my secondary (I was planning to rack batch #2 onto it, which had a stuck fermentation). There was about an inch of beer around the bottom and a small yeast cake (there was a bigger yeast cake in the primary the week before). As I was bottling, I noticed the airlock still bubbling about 1x/minute. This seemed a little odd, but I'd never reapplied the airlock to my secondary, so I figured this may be normal since the yeast had been disturbed.
I was laying caps across the tops of my bottles as I went along, until I got to 6 bottles, at which point I've crimp them on. A few times as I was bottling, the loose bottle caps "popped" as if releasing gas. The lip of the bottle was wet with starsan, so it must have made a seal that was broken by some CO2. At the time I figured it might be CO2 released by the swirling in the bottling bucket.
I spent last night reading about when to go to secondary and bottle and I realized:
1. I should have left it in the primary until the krausen was gone.
2. I should have given it at least 3 weeks to ferment.
3. I should have been careful to do a hydro reading over 3 days before bottling.
So, my question is: am I screwed? I really don't want bottle bombs. I've found a few posts about people getting hurt by exploding bottles, and it's freaking me out.
Should I carefully pour these back into a bucket, and let them age for a few more weeks? Or, since I'm close to the target gravity, should I just RDWHAHB?