Re-fermenting bottled beer

[boist]

I have a heffe that I don't really like. It was bottled too soon (thanks to some bad advice) and while it tastes fine, it smells too yeasty and that ruins it for me (yes I know it's suppose to be yeasty, but this is too much). It's worth noting that the yeastiness doesn't go away when I cool a bottle to 3C for about a week

Yesterday I drank a bottle of this stuff mixed in with some Orange juice, and it was much better. The fruit masked the yeast, and gave it an extra interesting flavor. Since I still have about 3/4 of the batch in bottles I thought I'd try to take about six liters of it (18 bottles) and re-ferment it with some fruit.

My thought is to take about a kilo of dried apricots, boil them with in 2 litters of water, and put them in a sanitized demi-john. On top of that I'm planning to pour the bottles of hefe (yeast and all), and possibly add half a pack of yeast (the original yeast used in the beer was Safeale Wb-06, but I'm thinking U-33 for this, to try to avoid more "yeastiness" in the final product) According the randy Mosher, fruit ferments slowly, so I'm planning to let this stuff sit in the demi-john for at least a month before re-bottling. My demi-john is 12 liters, btw, so 6L beer+2L Water+ 1L fruit volume will leave plenty of headroom. Maybe even too much...

Has anyone here ever done this, and does it work? Anything else I might want to try (add a bit of sugar/honey to the beer, for instance, or yeast nutrient.)?

 

[killian]

You will pickup a ton of o2 if you pour bottles back into the carboy. The only reason I would try this would be if the original beer was pretty much only worth dumping and I had some fruit that I would end up throwing away. If you try it I hope it works out for you.

 

[boist]

I can try to minimize the O2 by pouring slow and close and trying to avoid splashing, and of course the boiled water should be ok, but yeah, there will be some of it. Don't know how much that would hurt assuming I'm not agin g the beer for too long.

 

[killian]

good luck!

 

[bigbeergeek]

Do whatever you want, but I wouldn't do that. Let the beer age for a little while. Brew another batch of beer and give this batch another month or two. A strong "yeast bite" is often associated with young or "green" beers -- it sounds like this batch was rushed a little bit. Skip the fruit and let the yeast clean up after itself and you'll probably have a tasty hefe on your hands.

 

[boist]

hmmm. Beer was brewed in mid August, which means it's been aging for two and a half months now, which should be ample for a hefe I'd think. The yeast taste is fine, it's the smell that's killing me. Do you think I should give it more time anyway?