Tough decision - emptied bottles back into fermentor

A bit of a disasterous bottling night tonight. I was bottling my Common Room ESB (recipe here). I had a taste while bottling and found it unusually sweet. I had already added the priming sugar but not much, only 1.5 oz for 6 gal batch, so it shouldn't have affected the sweetness that much. I thought maybe priming sugar was not well mixed and I got an extra hit of it in the bottom so was thinking maybe I wouldn't notice it so sweet further on in the bottling, but it was still sweet. Although I was concerned about it, I thought maybe it will be fine and I continued and completed the bottling apart from sealing the caps. I checked the SG and I measured it at 1.019. Expected FG is 1.013, so it was out by a significant amount and that tiny amount of sugar shouldn't have raised more than 0.001. If it was just the numbers I might let it go but it was the sweetness that scared me into pouring the bottles back into the fermenter. I concluded that it hadn't fully fermented out despite 2 weeks at fermentation temps (18-22C) followed by 5 days cold crash. I usually allways check SG before cold crashing but this time I didn't, I got too complacent as FG has always checked out fine in all my other brews and I had witnessed a vigerous, normal looking fermentation. But I've learned the lesson the hard way!

So I don't know if I've totally buggered it up now by bottling and pouring back. I tried to pour it in as smooth as I could but still pouring beer at this stage in the process has me expecting some significant damage. I did keep a few filled plastic bottles to see what develops. I'm going to pitch some additional yeast when it warms back up. As I bottle straight from cold crash temps it's still just at 15C. Hopefully the cold temps will help minimise damage.

Did I make the right decision to pour it back?

What was OG? Sometimes extract (I assume) batches just get stuck around 1.020, its pretty common actually. Meaning you may not get further fermentation. Your biggest concern now is oxidation. You've already introduced it, now its sorta a race against time (drink quickly!). Pitching more yeast sounds like a good idea, they may use up some of the oxygen to multiply. You may want to look into Beano as an enzyme to chew through a few more points. I would give the a chance with a couple days before you go that route though.

You do not need any more yeast. The yeast you have will eat the little priming sugar in less then a day. You should have just left it alone after you bottled it up and waited about 3 weeks then tasted it. So go ahead and re-prime and get it back into bottles let it do its thing for 3 weeks and give it a try

Did you ask any questions here before you made that drastic of a decision?

I have read that it is fairly common for extract brews to stall at or near 1.020. I have also found that the finished product is often very different from when tasted at bottling.

You might have actually been at FG.

I agree with oxidation being the worry now and to drink through this batch quickly.

If you poured you beer back in the fermentor, you more than likely oxydized your beer..

Next time, maybe you want to solicit help or ideas from here, BEFORE you do something that more than likely is going to be worse than had you left it alone.

You misjudged the sweeteness. More than likely had you let the beer carb and condition, it would have been prfectly fine...you really can't just what a beer is supposed to taste like until it's actually done.

There's nothign wrong with bottling a beer at 1.019, or any gravity, if the beer was actually done. If a beer is finished fermenting, meaning all the unfermentable sugars have gone, then that's it, the beer is finished. Nothing will happen if you add more yeast, the beer is done.

Your beer was more than likely perfectly fine, despite your panic/knee jerk reaction, but now it might not be......Next time be less hasty to do something so drastic.

Aidan - definitely a lesson learned here for you. Just keep brewing, and don't let things like this get you down! As they say: RDWHAHB!

Like Revvy stated, you probably should have came here first. You can usually get a very fast response, so you could have let it sit in the bottling bucket for an extra 15 minutes or so while we tried to talk you off the ledge.

With all that said, Revvy or other experienced brewers: Do you think there is anything that could help this guy out now? Does it make sense to try and get more fermentation with additional yeast/beano in order to use up some oxygen? Or should he cut his losses, bottle back up and try to drink as fast as possible?

Beno is not a good option seems to make the beer dry out too much. I guess he could boil a pound of DME in some water add that in and let it ferment out. That is just a guess though.

I would bottle it and be done with it.

One thing people always think, if it tastes sweet it means something...Remember if fermentation is complete, any sweeteness percieved, is from UNFERMENTABLE SUGARS. Many beers, especially extract beers finish high, because kettle carmalization both at the maltser and in our brewery can occur.

Something else to keep in mind is that yeast only absorb oxygen in the early stages after pitching, as they build up their colony. Adding additional DME at this stage may not make any difference.

Revvy said:

If you poured you beer back in the fermentor, you more than likely oxydized your beer..

Next time, maybe you want to solicit help or ideas from here, BEFORE you do something that more than likely is going to be worse than had you left it alone.

You misjudged the sweeteness. More than likely had you let the beer carb and condition, it would have been prfectly fine...you really can't just what a beer is supposed to taste like until it's actually done.

There's nothign wrong with bottling a beer at 1.019, or any gravity, if the beer was actually done. If a beer is finished fermenting, meaning all the unfermentable sugars have gone, then that's it, the beer is finished. Nothing will happen if you add more yeast, the beer is done.

Your beer was more than likely perfectly fine, despite your panic/knee jerk reaction, but now it might not be......Next time be less hasty to do something so drastic.

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I didn't think I had time to wait for an answer back from this forum especially due to the time difference it been early hours of the morning in America where the majority for forum members reside, so I was on my own for this decision. It was the sweetness that drove me to it, I wouldn't have worried so much about the SG numbers if it wasn't for the sweetness. I always taste my brews at bottling and never have tasted anything so sweet even with way more priming sugar added. If it stayed at this sweetness it would be undrinkable anyway. If it fermented out in the bottles I'd be worried of bottle bombs. It was my first time with glass too as I normally use PET bottles but just got a capper and glass bottles.

It's back in the fermentor now, up to 18C. I added back in the yeast I had harvested from the batch and some yeast nutrient. I was planning on leaving it a few days to a week depending on what happens with the SG.

Is it totally buggered?

I've heard it's really hard to oxidize a beer at the homebrew level ... I think it would be best for everyone to know how this beer turns out by letting it sit and see if the FG does come down ... maybe just a week or so and then report back ... turn this beer into an experiment for all of us is my opinion ... cheers .. and brew another one soon !!

cadarnell said:

I've heard it's really hard to oxidize a beer at the homebrew level ... I think it would be best for everyone to know how this beer turns out by letting it sit and see if the FG does come down ... maybe just a week or so and then report back ... turn this beer into an experiment for all of us is my opinion ... cheers .. and brew another one soon !!

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Well that's a slight glimmer of hope for me, I'm hoping there is some truth to it as from the other responses here this batch was looking really doomed. I still have 2 litres of it in plastic bottles so I will also be able to see the result of if I had just left it in the bottles. Will definately report backa and write a cautionary tale on my blog.

I'm annoyed with myself for getting lax on checking the SG. My main fermenter has a spigot so it's easy for me to take a sample. But this one didn't have a spigot and I haven't been able to obtain a wine thief, although I could just have sanitised a cup measure and dipped it in for a sample, I just decided not to hassle with it this time as I've done 13 brews before and never had an issue with not hitting FG. First time I don't measure SG and this happens! It was also my first time using S04 yeast (mostly use US05), but I dunno if S04 is more prone to stuck ferments than US04. And my first time bottling to glass which was another factor in my hasty decision, the fear of bottle bombs.

cadarnell said:

I've heard it's really hard to oxidize a beer at the homebrew level ... I think it would be best for everyone to know how this beer turns out by letting it sit and see if the FG does come down ... maybe just a week or so and then report back ... turn this beer into an experiment for all of us is my opinion ... cheers .. and brew another one soon !!

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It's really hard to oxydize beer on the homebrew level, when you make a little mistake, like maybe splashing you wort a little too viguorously or having to pump an autosiphon a couple of extra times...we're not talking about that here. I wish it were the case....

We're talking about pouring beer out of bottles and into another vessel, and unless the op did it in outer space, he poured it through the air. There's no way pouring beer that it didn't come into contact with oxygen....that's a little different than the "normal" situations where we tell folks it's difficult to ruin your beer.

I'm usually the one to say to Rdw, but in this case it's really not an ideal situation.

Revvy said:

It's really hard to oxydize beer on the homebrew level, when you make a little mistake, like maybe splashing you wort a little too viguorously or having to pump an autosiphon a couple of extra times...we're not talking about that here. I wish it were the case....

We're talking about pouring beer out of bottles and into another vessel, and unless the op did it in outer space, he poured it through the air. There's no way pouring beer that it didn't come into contact with oxygen....that's a little different than the "normal" situations where we tell folks it's difficult to ruin your beer.

I'm usually the one to say to Rdw, but in this case it's really not an ideal situation.

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I've a real sinking feeling your right Revvy, I know you're one of the highly trusted posters on this board. I had read a thread on here about someone who had bottled bear that was not done fermenting and the recommendation on the thread was to do what I did and return it to the fermenter and let it finish. But I can't find that thread now. It possibly could just be in my imagination, but the memory of that thread (if it actually existed) was another factor in my decision.

Am I correct in assuming oxidised beer = stale beer = tip it?

aidan said:

I had read a thread on here about someone who had bottled bear that was not done fermenting and the recommendation on the thread was to do what I did and return it to the fermenter and let it finish. But I can't find that thread now. It possibly could just be in my imagination, but the memory of that thread (if it actually existed) was another factor in my decision.

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Yeah, that's one of the most idiotic things I ever heard, if I saw that advice given, I'd be all over that poster like white on rice...In fact I have when I've seen that. Oxygen + Fermented Beer = Liquid cardboard.

Am I correct in assuming oxidised beer = stale beer = tip it?

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Carb it up and drink it fast and hope you'll beat the staling.

Beano?! No way, like the stuff for chronic farts? I've never heard about this. Tell me more....

I believe it contains an enzyme (alpha amylase, or something to that effect) that converts unfermentable sugars into fermentable ones. I have never used it, and I imagine it would be difficult to control the amount of enzymatic activity as to how much body was left to the beer. That said, I have heard of it being used in the case of mash temps getting too high, to the point where the beer was gonna be like syrup because of the unfermentable sugar content.

The ideal course of action for this situation came to me this morning. I should have kept the beer in the bottles but covered each bottle with glad wrap instead of capping them and then monitored them closely to see if the SG drops and then capped them when the SG started to get near the target. If it doesn't move in a few days, just cap them anyway. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

aidan said:

The ideal course of action for this situation came to me this morning. I should have kept the beer in the bottles but covered each bottle with glad wrap instead of capping them and then monitored them closely to see if the SG drops and then capped them when the SG started to get near the target. If it doesn't move in a few days, just cap them anyway. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

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That is a pretty good solution to this type of predicament. Lets all remember this response for the next guy who posts a similar situation! Here's to your beer turning out just fine anyways!

aidan said:

The ideal course of action for this situation came to me this morning. I should have kept the beer in the bottles but covered each bottle with glad wrap instead of capping them and then monitored them closely to see if the SG drops and then capped them when the SG started to get near the target. If it doesn't move in a few days, just cap them anyway. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

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I still think its good for an experiment at this point .... you have some that is bottled that you can compare against the stuff you poured back in the fermenter .... be sure to update us all as you begin to drink them ... we can all learn something .... cheers

cadarnell said:

I still think its good for an experiment at this point .... you have some that is bottled that you can compare against the stuff you poured back in the fermenter .... be sure to update us all as you begin to drink them ... we can all learn something .... cheers

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will do

It's been 3 days now and it's still at around 1.020. Still tastes the same, very sweet. Wondering should I leave it a few more days and see if there is any drop in the SG?

Wait.....how did you check the gravity after bottling?

aidan said:

It's been 3 days now and it's still at around 1.020. Still tastes the same, very sweet. Wondering should I leave it a few more days and see if there is any drop in the SG?

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Like I said intially, it was more than likely done at 1.020 before you messed with it. If there's no fermentable sugars then there's nothing for it to ferment. Your beer's done.

Revvy said:

Like I said intially, it was more than likely done at 1.020 before you messed with it. If there's no fermentable sugars then there's nothing for it to ferment. Your beer's done.

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Maybe so, but right now I'm completely puzzled by how it could stop at 1.020, it's not a high gravity beer to start with (OG 1.053) and is mostly malt extract with a small amount of steeped grain so there shouldn't be that much unfermentable sugars in it:

3.500 kg Light Liquid Malt Extract
0.350 kg Crystal 60
0.200 kg Carapils
0.100 kg Crystal 120

Very similar to a lot of other batches that I brew and those have always finished around the 1.012 - 1.014 mark. The LME is even from a same batch as I've used before. The biggest difference here is that I used S04 yeast instead of my usual US05. Does S04 finish higher? Can you think of anything else that could possibly explain it? I know this recipe should not finish so high and turn out so sickly sweet, and I'd like to understand what could have caused this. Fermenation signs seemed totally normal, airlock activity started within 12 hours and was vigerous for 4 or 5 days.

I have never had the 1.020 curse, but over a number of extract batches, I have seen different FGs for the same recipe. The age of the extract, and/or the specifics of the boil, can create more unfermentable sugars. More unfermentables equals higher FG.

Prob. the diff. in yeast, but I'm a noob.

Kevin

aidan said:

Maybe so, but right now I'm completely puzzled by how it could stop at 1.020, it's not a high gravity beer to start with (OG 1.053) and is mostly malt extract with a small amount of steeped grain so there shouldn't be that much unfermentable sugars in it:

3.500 kg Light Liquid Malt Extract
0.350 kg Crystal 60
0.200 kg Carapils
0.100 kg Crystal 120

Very similar to a lot of other batches that I brew and those have always finished around the 1.012 - 1.014 mark. The LME is even from a same batch as I've used before. The biggest difference here is that I used S04 yeast instead of my usual US05. Does S04 finish higher? Can you think of anything else that could possibly explain it?

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My first beer was a porter that started in the low 50's and ended at about 19.
It was extract plus steeping grains. It turned out fine.
S-04 doesn't attenuate quite as much as some other yeasts. 70-75%.

I think your beer was done.

GrainWhisperer said:

My first beer was a porter that started in the low 50's and ended at about 19.
It was extract plus steeping grains. It turned out fine.
S-04 doesn't attenuate quite as much as some other yeasts. 70-75%.

I think your beer was done.

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My recipe calc (BrewMate), shows 75% attenuation for S04, giving 1.013 FG for this recipe. If I reduce the attenuation to 70% it indicates an FG of 1.016. Ok we're getting closer to my 1.020 but I'm not entirely convinced yet that the yeast is the whole answer to my question, but it could be part of the answer. Have others here experienced S04 leaving a high FG sweet beer? It was my first time using S04 and it might be my last as I don't like too much sweetness in my beer.

Actually the mild (04 yeast) I am drinking right now started at 42 and ended at 14 .... it was supposed to go all the way to 10 with 04 ... but 14 it was .... the beer isn't really sweet to me though ... in fact its very good ... only 21 ibus too .... id go ahead and rebottle the stuff you poured back ... it will probably still be highly drinkable stuff in a few weeks .... cheers

I messed up my bottling sugar once. I put in 3 times the required amount. After a couple bottles exploded, I uncapped and poured them back into a stainless steel pot to finish fermenting.

Now if I think bottles might explode, I place them in a Rubbermaid container to catch the mess.

Have you enough extra bottles? Bottle it and wait a few weeks. If it is skunky, pour it. If it's too sweet for your taste but good beer - find a friend who likes it to empty the bottles for you.

I'm doing another one "free style" right now.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/what-i-thinking-165148/

If you dump it, there is no salvation. If you give it a chance, you may find redemption.

;-)

I bottled it up last night after letting it sit for 6 extra days. The FG had dropped to 1.016 and it lost some of the excessive sweetness. An interesting thing to note is the beer seemed like it had some carbonation, or was a bit fizzy. I noticed when I poured in the priming sugar that it was fizzing in the fermenter. I've never seen that before. I wonder if it was the yeast still active or could it be something to do with oxidation?

Aside from being a bit too sweet is still tasted fine, how long have I got before the oxidation ruins it?

Dynachrome said:

I messed up my bottling sugar once. I put in 3 times the required amount. After a couple bottles exploded, I uncapped and poured them back into a stainless steel pot to finish fermenting.

;-)

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I'm curious, did your beer end up tasting like it was oxidized when you finally finished fermenting and re-bottled? Did you try to drink them fast?

OP,

For homebrewers Oxygen and homebrewing is sort of catch 22. Seems like we can never get enough O2 into the wort to successfully support our little yeast buddies reproduction (but somehow we do) and we are seriously afraid of introducing O2 in one way or another after the wort has turned into beer.


Best of luck to you and your beer. Patiently awaiting the results. I hope for you and all of us the beer turns out great!

aidan said:

Maybe so, but right now I'm completely puzzled by how it could stop at 1.020, it's not a high gravity beer to start with (OG 1.053) and is mostly malt extract with a small amount of steeped grain so there shouldn't be that much unfermentable sugars in it:

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Because in the creating, and boiling (carmalizing) of the extract, non fermentable sugars are created to an extent. And then boiling extract again during brewing causes some more carmalization, and that is what lingers as unfermentables. That's why for example if you want a more pronounced honey or brown sugar taste in a beer, you use the darkest color possible, same with using candi sugars, the clearer the sugars, the higher the fermentabilty, but what lingers in terms of flavor is actually un or less fermentable than it's clear counterparts.

This seems more pronounced in using liquid extracts, especially darker ones.

We call it the 1.020 curse. It's one of the most common issues where extract brewers are concerned.

I've found it less an issue with using dry extract, and especially basing your recipes on extralight dme, and getting your color and flavors from steeping grains.

Additionally some malt "BLENDS" are made with some un or less fermentable grains in there, like carapils, which is meant to give you more body...more body is from the presence of unfermentable sugars.

Revvy said:

Because in the creating, and boiling (carmalizing) of the extract, non fermentable sugars are created to an extent. And then boiling extract again during brewing causes some more carmalization, and that is what lingers as unfermentables. That's why for example if you want a more pronounced honey or brown sugar taste in a beer, you use the darkest color possible, same with using candi sugars, the clearer the sugars, the higher the fermentabilty, but what lingers in terms of flavor is actually un or less fermentable than it's clear counterparts.

This seems more pronounced in using liquid extracts, especially darker ones.

We call it the 1.020 curse. It's one of the most common issues where extract brewers are concerned.

I've found it less an issue with using dry extract, and especially basing your recipes on extralight dme, and getting your color and flavors from steeping grains.

Additionally some malt "BLENDS" are made with some un or less fermentable grains in there, like carapils, which is meant to give you more body...more body is from the presence of unfermentable sugars.

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Until this time I haven't had any problem getting down to target FG brewing with light LME. I think the big difference factor here was the yeast, my first time using S04 instead of my usual US05. I've learned that S04 does not attenuate as well and is more suceptable to temp fluctuations. This was brewed an my second fermentor which does not have a temp strip so I was operation a bit blind on temp so it's possible temp could have swung a bit low and affected the performance of the yeast and then I may have cold crashed a bit too early (having assumed it was done instead of checking SG). Anyway the FG did drop down to 1.016 by bottling time so it does seem like there were still some fermentable sugars left. My question now is how long have I got before oxidation makes it undrinkable?

aidan said:

I bottled it up last night after letting it sit for 6 extra days. The FG had dropped to 1.016 and it lost some of the excessive sweetness.

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This beer had already been at 1.019 for three days. Then it dropped to 1.016 after another three days. If it had been bottled at 1.019, as is standard practice, this would have been badly overcarbonated (maybe even bottle bombs?). That makes me wonder about standard practice, although I don’t have any better ideas.

DonutMuncher said:

I'm curious, did your beer end up tasting like it was oxidized when you finally finished fermenting and re-bottled? Did you try to drink them fast?

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No, I did not notice any oxidized flavor in that batch. There is a link in the post above. Also, I drank it at a rather slow pace and it seemed like it improved with age as I normally seem to find.

It was light colored, dry and a tad on the fizzy side. I noted that it reminded me personally of Budweiser.

I currently have one fermentor that I just bottled which I think may have sat in my primitive 5 gallon buckets too long without CO2 production to keep the air out. It tasted oxidized maybe. It is a slightly darkened wheat.

I'm thinking about pouring it back into a bucket and seeing if re-fermenting might fix it. I'll let it condition first to see if that helps.

Update: I drank some of this batch this weekend and so far it's fine. Not the best batch I've brewed but still totally drinkable and nothing wierd or funky about it at this point (1 week after bottling). I had a sample of the stuff I bottled a week earlier and it was definately much sweeter. The beer I threw back in the fermenter is not as sweet and tastes better to me. So my conclusion is that the beer was not finished at 1.020. It may not even have been finished at the 1.016 that I bottled it at either but hopefully that's low enough so not to have any bottle bombs. I reckon why the gravity didn't budge much in the first few days after throwing it back in the fermenter is because the yeast was still recovering from the premature cold crash. In any case it will teach me to not get complacent about checking SG prior to cold crashing or bottling.