Can I give my primary a snack?

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Nonyaz

Nonyaz

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I made a second batch of beer as soon as my first batch got moved to the secondary, so it was basically a week behind, it ended up finishing primarying before the first one, but I bottled the first one first (confused yet?). The limiting factor is bottles, I have a little less than 5 gallons worth of bottles, and I'm only a week into carbing the first batch, and all this time the second batch is just sitting in my closet without an airlock (just some tape over the hole). I removed the airlock to transport it (I learned that lifting a better bottle with an airlock vacuums all the fluid into the bottle), and never got around to replacing it, now I'm concerned it has air in it. So my idea is since I'm not going to have bottles for a while, can I boil a bit of table sugar and feed it to my primary and replace the airlock so that it can make some more co2 and push any air that might be in it out?
 
Nonyaz said:
I made a second batch of beer as soon as my first batch got moved to the secondary, so it was basically a week behind, it ended up finishing primarying before the first one, but I bottled the first one first (confused yet?). The limiting factor is bottles, I have a little less than 5 gallons worth of bottles, and I'm only a week into carbing the first batch, and all this time the second batch is just sitting in my closet without an airlock (just some tape over the hole). I removed the airlock to transport it (I learned that lifting a better bottle with an airlock vacuums all the fluid into the bottle), and never got around to replacing it, now I'm concerned it has air in it. So my idea is since I'm not going to have bottles for a while, can I boil a bit of table sugar and feed it to my primary and replace the airlock so that it can make some more co2 and push any air that might be in it out?
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No. I wouldn't. But if you never replaced your airlock, you may have allowed some oxidation already, and starting fermentation again wont' fix that.
 
Soooo, what would you do? Plan b is go to the store and get 9 2L of soda or the cheapest plastic bottle I can find and get this into bottles asap.
 
Was it done fermenting before you moved it? If not then there should be a blanket of CO2 over the top of the beer CO2 is heavier then ambient air. If you didn't jostle it around then I would just put your airlock on it and hope for the best
 
Nonyaz said:
Soooo, what would you do? Plan b is go to the store and get 9 2L of soda or the cheapest plastic bottle I can find and get this into bottles asap.
Click to expand...

What's done is done. I'd put an airlock on it and hope it didn't get oxidized or infected. If it did, it doesn't matter if you bottle tomorrow or next week.

It's like if you got pregnant a month ago. It happened, and not much you can do about it now to make it not happen.
 
Bottles are easy to find. Some people have even bought a really cheap beer where they sell them at Costco and pour the beer out. Ask your friends for empties, check out local recycle center, ask at a bar if they will give you empties. Even check out local underage hangouts.

Get bottles and bottle the beer. There is also no real need to do a secondary, just primary for about three weeks then bottle.
 
Yooper said:
It's like if you got pregnant a month ago. It happened, and not much you can do about it now to make it not happen.
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A liberal would disagree, but point taken. It was done fermenting when I moved it, and I just moved it again to my desk :/ Will tasting it now tell me anything about its current state?
 
Nonyaz said:
A liberal would disagree, but point taken. It was done fermenting when I moved it, and I just moved it again to my desk :/ Will tasting it now tell me anything about its current state?
Click to expand...

Not really. Oxidation (sherry-like flavors, or wet cardboard) or infection can be present but take a while to show up. If present, they get worse over time. So, once you bottle and start drinking it, be aware of those flavors. If you notice a sherry-like flavor or aroma, or it starts to taste a bit sour, drink faster because it'll get worse with age.
 
Yooper said:
Not really. Oxidation (sherry-like flavors, or wet cardboard) or infection can be present but take a while to show up. If present, they get worse over time. So, once you bottle and start drinking it, be aware of those flavors. If you notice a sherry-like flavor or aroma, or it starts to taste a bit sour, drink faster because it'll get worse with age.
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Ooo, that's not a half bad prescription there doc. I'll get right on that :)
 
A local shop by me sells used bottles for $6 a case, you might find a bunch on craigslist or something like that if you look around.
 
Nonyaz said:
Will tasting it now tell me anything about its current state?
Click to expand...

I really doubt it as infection takes time to spread. Based on your limited bottles, sounds like you're in no rush to bottle. So watch it for a while. You can keep it in the primary for 2-3 months and it'll age nicely. If it doesn't smell like ass in a month, then you're good. (Seriously, Bacteria smells like the worst breath you've ever smelled. Like what that kid in the back of french class had).

Next time, us cheap, unflavoured vodka in the airlock. That way if you have a drawback, it'll just increase your ABV without infection or adding off flavours.

Good luck.
 
Just in case anyone was curious, I ran out the next day and got 5x 3L bottles of orange soda ($1 per bottle!), only used 4 of them and some miscellaneous small bottles. At certain points I got whiffs of what I would lovingly describe as barf smell, but it was a variant of the same smell coming out of the airlock during fermentation, so I'm fairly certain it par for the course. It tasted better than it smelled, which I'm happy about considering these recipe was just off the top of the guy at the local store's head and I then added some table sugar (4%) to get a better ABV.

I'll keep an eye on it and sample my smaller bottles along the way before I crack a 3L :) Would you expect 3L's to carb at the same rate as 12oz's?
 

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