Talk me down?

Talk me out of what I'm thinking of doing.

I usually hold back some wort for my keg for carbonation. On this batch of "Hoegaardarden" I probably sparged too much, but @ 1.054 the OSG was spot on. Believe it or not, over 5 weeks of fermentation down to 1.008 (vs. a projected 1.012). Well, I finally kegged and after the first pint and 1/2 of wort I'm to the top of keg! I ladled some out into a Pint bottle with my SG tube and put it back in a pint bottle. This happened last Saturday. Yesterday, I'm sampling the beer to get the keg level down (tough job!)

My temptation is to put the ladled pint back into the keg. My worry is that the pint bottle may be too much wort and blow up(?) My sane side says to just drink the pint as is and forget about it. I also prefer the head from wort vs. the head from CO2.

There are so many things in this post that baffle me, I'm not quite sure where to start.

So you kegged your beer after 5 weeks, but only 1 1/2 pints of wort fit in the keg? Was there something else in the keg already?

Why are you afraid of the keg blowing up? Does the pint bottle contain nitroglycerin? C4?

Wait...I may have part of it. The wort in the pint bottle is the wort you held back to carb the keg? Why would you drink it and not use it to carb the keg?

Ok, I think I have more questions than you do. Whee!

-Joe

Joe, he said talk me down, all i can assume is that he is a crazy person rambling nonsensically on top of a building and posting with his blackberry...

That being said... JMass, I understand that sometimes is gets hard, going to bar after bar, seeing BMC's on tap more than good beers, but you have to understand that life is worth living, we are at the very beginning of the craft beer revolution and it will only get better with time... The key word here is time, if you jump, you don't have any, so climb back in that windowm it's all gonna be fine...

Oh, and personally i prefer head from females, not wort or C02

I think you misunderstood. I had fermented beer after 5 weeks - about 5 gallons. I put this in the keg. Then I had a Grolsch and a Fisher's worth of unfermented wort, gyle speiss, what have you that I was going to add to the keg. This is what put me to the top of the keg with no headroom.

I think I understand . He is using some of the unfermented wort as the primer to carb the keg ,Krausening. And he can only fit 1-1/2 pints into the keg so he racked some back into the bottle. He now wants to add the Krausening wort into the keg after drinking some of the kegged beer...


The keg wont blow up they can handle a lot of pressure but if the keg is properly carbed why add the rest of the Krausening wort?

JMass said:

I think you misunderstood. I had fermented beer after 5 weeks - about 5 gallons. I put this in the keg. Then I had a Grolsch and a Fisher's worth of unfermented wort, gyle speiss, what have you that I was going to add to the keg. This is what put me to the top of the keg with no headroom.

Click to expand...

You posted this while I was typing .

springer said:

why add the rest of the Krausening wort?

Click to expand...

Sorry, dumb post. I was worried that the bottle would blow, not the keg, as it was maybe more gyle than fermented beer. Hopefully the gyle sunk to the bottom or at least mixed in to the keg.

In hindsight, I should had racked from the carboy to something else, added the gyle, then racked to the keg and put any excess in a bottle or 2.

I'll just go with your advice.

If you did save back some wort before fermentation (which I hope you put in the fridge/freezer or pressure canned) then just add the correct amount, you'll find online calculators to help. Just drink the extra you couldn't fit in the keg, I have a 1/2 gallon in a jar right now that wouldn't fit in a keg, not sure what to do with it, raspberry addition is probably in it's future.