Incredibly long primary fermentation... help!

Hey ppl,

I made a nut brown ale... about 4 months ago. It's been sitting in a plastic bucket fermenter since then. No secondary or nuthin'. Unfortunately, as is often the case, life got in the way of brewing and I never got around to bottling it.

My question is; should I do anything special such as adding extra yeast at bottling time? Any other steps I should take? I've heard about oxidization being an issue with long fermentations in plastic buckets, any thoughts?

Thanks everyone

Should be fine, really. It's been awhile but I've heard of people waiting even longer and still having enough yeast in suspension to bottle. Also, as long as it's just been sitting in the primary without you really doing anything to it then there shouldn't be any oxidation, since the CO2 would still be sitting in there protecting the beer.

Really? Awesome, I have a sachet of yeast lying around. Would it hurt to rehydrate that and add it to the bottling bucket w/ sugar?

personally i dont see anything wrong with adding a sachet of yeast to bottling, people sometimes add different kind of yeast to add to complexity. but i doubt youll have any trouble at all when it comes time to siphon to a bottling bucket. the procedure for siphoning would stir up enough yeast for bottling. but the question is, would it hurt to add the yeast? i doubt it.

sweet. it's siphoning as i write this post. Thanks shanecb and doulovebeef!

It wouldn't hurt anything, unless you were pitching a yeast satchel that's known to be much stronger than the one you pitched originally. It might get at some sugars the original yeast didn't and carbonate it too much. But in general no, it won't hurt anything.

I left a pretty heavy beer (1.090) in the primary too long, and was worried about the yeast being maxed out. I pitched an LC-1118 and did not add any priming sugar. They actually carbed and came out pretty decent.

Ah cool. 1118 is a pretty hardy yeast, so maybe I was wrong about repitching with a stronger yeast.

I know this was about a year ago. But I just finished drinking the last bottle of this stuff (found one at the back of the fridge).

It was really really good.

That's awesome. I successfully carbed a batch that was sitting in the primary for 7 months plus. Just added sugar. I was stoked! Didn't taste perfect, but it was pretty cool anyway.

I've done 5.5 months with no problems.

The plastic is theoretically oxygen permeable, but based on these results, maybe that's overstated?

ksbrain said:

The plastic is theoretically oxygen permeable, but based on these results, maybe that's overstated?

Click to expand...

Yes...it's been proven to be negligably more permeable than anything else. Just another of those old wive's tales that folks instantly believe and pass on over and over, without looking into it further.

Proven? Sources, please