Hi fellow brewers,
I have been reading the forums here for a while, and this is my first homebrew attempt (and post), and... first emergency. I hope you can offer some helpful advice.
Two weeks ago I started fermenting a wheat ale. It was time to bottle, and I did a lot of research on cappers and bottling and purchased a Ferrari bench capper (the one with the black button). I had practiced with it on test bottles over the last few days, but on my second bottle tonight I broke the capper.
The black part that sits between the geers is shattered into about two dozen pieces. It isn't useable. It can't lock into place above the bottle so when I try to cap it just slides up. It will likely take about a week to get replaced because my nearest homebrew place is 8 hours from where I live.
I had already siphoned my beer into a pail that had my priming sugar for carbonation. I used John Palmer's scale for adding sugar-- I am making an American Wheat Ale. I added 5 oz. corn sugar (boiled with 2 cups of water) to get a mindrange CO2 volume (3.0 on 5 gallons).
So in a panic, I sanitized my backup glass 6.5 gallon carboy with star san and siphoned the remainder of my pail into it and put an airlock on it. Its bubbling nicely lol.
I think a week is way too long to wait for a replacement capper and let this sit and eat up all my priming sugar. All the CO2 will be lost. Can I add another batch of priming sugar in a week? would that work for bottling?
My other option is racing off tomorrow to a local hardware store-- they have plastic bottles and caps. I could pick up a few cases and use them to bottle this batch. That would result in only losing a day of carbonation-- sounds like it might work as long as they have the bottles in stock.
I drank the flask of beer I used to sample the final gravity-- it was really good and I am pretty sure I got a good buzz off it lol. I have 2-3 uncapped (flat) beer in the fridge that I will have to drink so I'll be able to comment more on that later.
I don't want to lose this batch because of my own stupidity. Please... your advice is welcomed!
Oh, and of significance the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I pumped a little bit of air back into the beer between the pail and the second carboy. Bacteria won't be a risk. I used at least half a gallon of star san today. I'm surprised I'm still alive.
I have been reading the forums here for a while, and this is my first homebrew attempt (and post), and... first emergency. I hope you can offer some helpful advice.
Two weeks ago I started fermenting a wheat ale. It was time to bottle, and I did a lot of research on cappers and bottling and purchased a Ferrari bench capper (the one with the black button). I had practiced with it on test bottles over the last few days, but on my second bottle tonight I broke the capper.
The black part that sits between the geers is shattered into about two dozen pieces. It isn't useable. It can't lock into place above the bottle so when I try to cap it just slides up. It will likely take about a week to get replaced because my nearest homebrew place is 8 hours from where I live.
I had already siphoned my beer into a pail that had my priming sugar for carbonation. I used John Palmer's scale for adding sugar-- I am making an American Wheat Ale. I added 5 oz. corn sugar (boiled with 2 cups of water) to get a mindrange CO2 volume (3.0 on 5 gallons).
So in a panic, I sanitized my backup glass 6.5 gallon carboy with star san and siphoned the remainder of my pail into it and put an airlock on it. Its bubbling nicely lol.
I think a week is way too long to wait for a replacement capper and let this sit and eat up all my priming sugar. All the CO2 will be lost. Can I add another batch of priming sugar in a week? would that work for bottling?
My other option is racing off tomorrow to a local hardware store-- they have plastic bottles and caps. I could pick up a few cases and use them to bottle this batch. That would result in only losing a day of carbonation-- sounds like it might work as long as they have the bottles in stock.
I drank the flask of beer I used to sample the final gravity-- it was really good and I am pretty sure I got a good buzz off it lol. I have 2-3 uncapped (flat) beer in the fridge that I will have to drink so I'll be able to comment more on that later.
I don't want to lose this batch because of my own stupidity. Please... your advice is welcomed!Oh, and of significance the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I pumped a little bit of air back into the beer between the pail and the second carboy. Bacteria won't be a risk. I used at least half a gallon of star san today. I'm surprised I'm still alive.
