Am I SOL?

[Gunkleneil]

So It's not been my week with the beers. My latest mishap is that I accidentally put Potassium Sorbate into my beer I was about to put sparkolloid into instead of the mead I took it out for. I don't have any kegging equipment and only bottle at this time. Is there anything i can do to get this to bottle condition now or am i pretty screwed?

 

[marc1]

So It's not been my week with the beers. My latest mishap is that I accidentally put Potassium Sorbate into my beer I was about to put sparkolloid into instead of the mead I took it out for. I don't have any kegging equipment and only bottle at this time. Is there anything i can do to get this to bottle condition now or am i pretty screwed?

Sorbate prevents replication, it doesn't kill the yeast.

In your situation, I would add bottling yeast like CBC-1 when I bottled to ensure that there were enough happy yeast available to carbonate.

 

[Gunkleneil]

@marc1 thanks for the quick reply. I'll check to see if my lhbs has any.

 

[marc1]

Let us know how it cones out

 

[RPh_Guy]

The activity of potassium sorbate (active form is sorbic acid) depends on pH, and it is more active with the lower pH characteristic of wines. My guess is that it will probably be OK, but maybe slower to carbonate. Yeast really don't replicate much when bottle conditioning anyway; the nutrients needed for growth have already been depleted.

 

[Gunkleneil]

So my lhbs didn't have any cbc-1. But he sold me some nottingham and said it was the best of what he had for my situation. I'm going to add it tomorrow wait about an hour, transfer to bottling bucket with priming sugar and bottle. Keeping my fingers crossed as this beer smells and tastes very good right now.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'm not sure why one yeast would be better than any other in this circumstance.

Regardless, adding more yeast at bottling is probably a good idea. I would rehydrate it before use.

 

[Sam_92]

I would be willing to bet it doesn't matter very much what yeast you use at bottling time because it's barely doing any work. I think bread yeast would work in a pinch, somebody should put it to the test (but I'm not going to).

 

[Walking_Target]

So my lhbs didn't have any cbc-1. But he sold me some nottingham and said it was the best of what he had for my situation. I'm going to add it tomorrow wait about an hour, transfer to bottling bucket with priming sugar and bottle. Keeping my fingers crossed as this beer smells and tastes very good right now.

Your LHBS guy is right, it's not about the strain, it's about cell count at this point. There is a small chance that if the new yeast you're using will ferment to a lower finishing gravity that it might throw off your carbonation level, but if you used something similar in your original batch you should be fine.

 

[Gunkleneil]

So I pitched the yeast per directions on the back of the package, hydrating it, then waited about 3 hrs. Added priming sugar to the bottling bucket, transfered and bottled. Here's hoping. I tasted it again and it's good so far.

 

[Gunkleneil]

It is in plastic totes just to be safe. I've done that with every batch so far.

 

[Gunkleneil]

So everything turned out well. Beer is good, no exploding bottles and it's carbonated. Have had about a dozen already.