Oooops...

I have been lurking here for awhile, and have learned a tremendous bit by just reading what you brew wizards have posted. Today I finally have a question for you.

I had a Kolsch in secondary and was getting ready to bottle today. I began transfering to the bottling bucket and had 5oz of priming sugar mixing while it siphoned away. I went to prep the bottling area and discovered in my haste I had no caps left. DOH!!!

Earliest I will be able to get caps is tomorrow. So I stuck an airlock on the bucket and have it sitting in the corner. Will I need to add a tad bit more priming sugar tomorrow, or will it be fine with what is already in it? Thanks in advance guys .

Dave

Can't say for sure. But I think I'd probably guess and add 50% more.

But I ain't got a clue.

Any idea exactly which yeast strain you used? Some ferment out faster than others.

Far be it from me to contradict the Great Orfy - he's been around a lot longer than I have and has a lot more experience - but 50% additional sugar sounds high. Considering it takes a full two weeks to ferment out the entirety of the priming sugar, I find it hard to believe that half of it is gone in the first 24 hours. I'd suggest 25% more.

If you put too much in, you may have bottle bombs. If you put too little in, it'll just take longer to carb and may have low carbonation. I'd rather you have to wait a few more weeks and have something to drink than have them blow up and lose them entirely.

The yeast was wyeast kolsch, it has been in the secondary for a little over 2 weeks till I transfered today. Lol and I agree last thing I want is bottle bombs. I will be hitting the LHBS first thing in the morning when he opens.
So looking at a timeframe of roughly 24 hrs from when I added the 5oz of priming sugar to when I will be able to actually bottle

Conservative approach:

Let the beer sit in the bottling bucket until it has finished the additional fermentation. Then start the priming process over.

Aggressive approach:

Go ahead and add 2 Oz of corn sugar tomorrow and then bottle. I doubt that 2 additional Oz's after the beer has had 24 hours to chew up your priming sugar will create a problem.

Do yourself and your felow brewers a favor though. Whatever the outcome, post the results in a few weeks so others can learn.

I agree with Bier's safe approach......let it ferment out for a couple of days, then add the correct amount of priming sugar (about 4.5 oz by weight) then bottle it.

For future reference..

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html?9086617#tag

What was the final gravity?

You could take a hydrometor reading and see how much it's up and how much it changes in 24hrs....it would give you at least a LITTLE bit more of an idea how much to add...

I'm going with the Munchers approach. Now there was a good lesson learned here though.

Folks should remember the Boy Scout Motto when brewing. Be Prepared!!!

Why not stick the bucket in the fridge and crash it below fermentation temps? Siphon it cold, and then return to room temp after capping.

Great Ideas everyone thanks for the input. Unfortunatly as far as the FG goes I got lazy with this batch and never took any gravity readings. I figured after making 6 identical batches what could go wrong lol.

I like the idea of sticking it in the fridge and keeping it there till I get the caps and bottle, but don't think SWMBO would take to the notion of me emptying the fridge for that.

So I believe I will end up taking BierMuncher's conservative approach and let it sit a few more days in the bottling bucket. I will post back the results from this unplanned experiment after everything plays out.

Thanks again everyone for the great advice.

Dave

EdWort said:

I'm going with the Munchers approach. Now there was a good lesson learned here though.

Folks should remember the Boy Scout Motto when brewing. Be Prepared!!!

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Ironically, I found myself in a similar situation this morning. Was planning for a friend to come over and help me bottle. He called saying he would be here about 2 hours earlier than planned. I scrambled around and discovered I didn't have anywhere near enough bottle caps. Would have taken too long for either of us to drive to the LHBS and back especially having to wait until they opened. Called up my bro-in-law, he left some on the porch for me to pick up. Whew! Didn't have to call off bottling day.

Did I mention I prefer kegging?

Okay, to fill everyone in on how this unintended experiment went.

It has been a little over two weeks since this originally happened. I let the beer set in to bottling bucket for 3 days then added another 4oz of corn sugar to it, gently stirred it in, then I bottled as per the norm.

So anyhow the beer has been sitting in my closet, and I decided to crack a test bottle open today just to see what was happening. Well the beer has defiantly carbonated, if anything just a tad to much for my taste, but SWMBO loves it . So it looks like I will either have to replicate this or add a bit more sugar to the next batch for her, since she obviously likes the extra carbonation.

So to sum it all up, IMO had I let it sit probably another 3 days or so the beer would have been back to "neutral", (the state it was in secondary originally) and carbed per my norm. I just wanted to bump this back up a bit for anyone else this may happen to. As well as fill in everyone who threw in ideas for my original problem.

Anyhow SWMBO is happy so I am happy lol and all is good, and my kolsch is going to be a winner.

Thanks for all the ideas and support,

Dave

Thanks for the update.

Nothing wrong with a well carb'd Koslch. If it's only been two weeks, you may want to get all those bottles chilled down to serving temp and store them like that.

Conditioning in the bottles can stretch out to three weeks in mild ales like Kolsch's.

Here's a preemtive tip: If you find the bottles are too carb'd after a couple more weeks, get them to room temp, pop the tops, let sit for 10-15 minutes and recap.

That will degauss the bottles just enough to bring them back into proper carb range...just in case.

Right on, I'm glad it worked out...

Did you notice any "extra" trub in the bottles because of the ferementation in the bottling bucket?

greenhornet said:

Right on, I'm glad it worked out...

Did you notice any "extra" trub in the bottles because of the ferementation in the bottling bucket?

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Yeah most definitely there was a little more junk in the bottles. The yeast were in "little clumps" if you got greedy and tried poring to much. It looked kinda nasty when some made it through but let the glass sit for a extra minute or so and all was fine.

I don't think they were overcarbed per say in the threat of bombs just a little more carbonated than I care for. I will keep a close eye on em though BierMuncher.

Thanks again for the words of support and knowledge passed guys.

Dave