Holy Crap Please Help!!!

Alright gents here's my problem


My buddy and I brewed a beer a while back...probably 3 months....we have had the most unbelievable scheduling conflicts since then....we Brewed a Belgian Strong Ale....now we are finally able to bottle the damn thing but i've realized that since we brewed it so long ago...perhaps the whole thing is totally sccrewed....can we bottle it? if we do bottle it, is it going to suck? generally we always bottled on time or maybe a little after fermentation was complete....but now we've hit this bump in the road and could use some solid advice..

My thanks for your assistance.


-Desperate Beer guy-

Where is it now? in the primary? secondary?

Is there water in the air-lock?

I'm not a gent but I'll give you some thoughts. I take it that it has been sitting on the yeast all this time. If that is so, if the smell doesn't gag you when you open it (I mean really smell like $hit), then all is good and your beer is better for the wait. If it's been in a secondary all this time then I would say your timing is perfect for a strong ale.

Whatever you do - don't throw it out. Are you short on bottles? Just go ahead and bottle, what's the worst that could happen? You get drunk on foul beer, again?

I hope it ends up a masterpiece! Good luck!

Nurmey said:

I'm not a gent but I'll give you some thoughts. I take it that it has been sitting on the yeast all this time. If that is so, if the smell doesn't gag you when you open it (I mean really smell like $hit), then all is good and your beer is better for the wait. If it's been in a secondary all this time then I would say your timing is perfect for a strong ale.

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That is some good advice there! +1

its in the primary,(we stopped doing secondaries before we stopped brewing)there's vodka in the airlock, and hopefully all is well. We were just concerned that we might have starved the yeast to death letting it sit too long, and the beer wouldn't carbonate after bottling.

If the temp has been under control, I imagine all is well...

It's not old, it's experienced. (Or at least finely-conditioned!)

John Beere said:

If the temp has been under control, I imagine all is well...

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It has not been. It's had to endure the transition from Chicago winter to Chicago summer. While I'm confident it never got too far over 70 degrees in the basement, it has not enjoyed a steady temperature. However, none of our beers have because we can't afford a cool fermentor or even a mini fridge.

Well, I've never had a basement, but I imagine the temp swings are pretty gentle and it doesn't sound like its gotten so out of control its turned into jet fuel or anything...

Three months is a long time to be sitting on the trub and yeast cake. Despite what others have said, I'd be surprised if it was good. Let us know.

There is nothing "bad" in there as long as it tastes and smells good. Autolysis is VERY obvious. I just bottle some triple that had been on the yeast since 5/10/08 and it was mighty tasty. As a matter of fact, I can't wait to taste it carbonated because it was so good coming out of the primary.

A year or two ago it was more common for a majority of the cognoscenti on this board to utter stern warnings to new brewers telling them to avoid leaving a beer on the trub and yeast cake in primary for more than 2 or 3 weeks, or risk the horror of autolysis. Now it seems that more and more people say that months on the cake is perfectly fine. A year or two from now I predict the pendulum will swing back.

As to how long before the risk of stinking beer death really becomes a reality I don't know. I've never left a beer in primary longer than three weeks. Personally, I think a yeast cake that is two weeks old already stinks pretty bad, and I can't imagine what autolysis smells like. I doubt I'll ever find out. At least I hope not.

No one said it was a good idea, but Nurmey has it right - there should be nothing "bad" about it if it smells and tastes OK...

Revvy? Revvy? where are you?

here - I'll handle this one for you.

Read this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=73254&highlight=Revvy

bobwantbeer said:

It has not been. It's had to endure the transition from Chicago winter to Chicago summer. While I'm confident it never got too far over 70 degrees in the basement, it has not enjoyed a steady temperature. However, none of our beers have because we can't afford a cool fermentor or even a mini fridge.

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Basement temps in most northern homes are very consistent and would be considered as having your temp under control.
I think you made beer, probably good beer. Bottle it up and give it a try. There will be plenty of viable yeast for carbonation. Atleast one person has bottled a beer after more than a year and had it carbonate. Anything less than 6months isn't even a concern.

Craig

What they said.
But I’m going to say it again. Don’t worry. Just bottle it. You know you are going to taste some of it when you do, I bet it will taste fine. if not give it 2 months and come back to it.

I just did something very similar with a Victory HopDevil clone. Due to brew buddy schedule conflicts it sat in the basement for about 2 months. Went to bottle it last weekend and noticed no vodka in the airlock. Yikes. No visible sign of infection though and it smelled and tasted great. Bottled it up and will let you know in a month!

When beer goes bad, it is obvious. Autolysis is unmistakable and extremely rare.

Pick up some Munton's and add it to the bottling bucket, if you are really worried about carbonation.

We secondary in the keg. We found a steam beer in a 5 gallon keg that we had forgotten about 5 years ago. It was in an un-insulated garage that Im sure has reached over 90 deg in the last 5 years.

The worst thing you can say about it is that it has a very slight witbeer "tang" - other than that its very drinkable. So bottle it See what its like after a while. I have found beer to be remarkably hardy if you guard against infection and light.

damn. that’s pushing the limits of a beer. To bad it wasn’t a barley wine, you would be golden.

Good news...it smelled okay...and it tasted okay...little strong but thats what we expected...thanks for the help friends

Yay!

Heh heh. A lot further than you realize...

Cheers!

[edit] Awww. You went and edited your post.
That's just bad form right there.
Should have just owned it

talk about dragging out an old one !
LOL

As long as I'm typing, These days (lol)the general consensus about autolysis in home brewing buckets is that the yeast is spread out across a large area and due to this, it's very unlikely to happen in a brewing bucket. Conical fermenters pack the yeast in a tight confined space, this can exert high enough pressures, and provide lack of cooling, to promote autolysis.