Bottling this weekend - couple first time questions.

[jdmason]

Hi All,

I just read through the "Think You Ruined Your Beer" thread, although I still have a couple questions.

I'm about to bottle this weekend for my first brew. I'm pretty excited, and I've got my hands on a bunch of Grolsch bottles so that I can re-use them. I still have to clean them out though.

My questions are this. During the brewing process, we made a small mistake. When activating the yeast (we used dried pre-packaged yeast), we just grabbed a random bowl from the cupboard, and also just poured hot water directly from the sink into the bowl (not the pre-boiled water that was called for in the instructions ) I am wondering what the chances are that this screwed something up? I definitely know that fermentation has been going on because there has definitely been some notable bubbling over the last three weeks. Which brings me to my second question...

During the fermentation process, I guess I added a bit too much water into the dust collector/gas valve and it caused a blowoff. This was a big blowoff - there's beer on the ceiling haha! Now I'm not too worried about the blowoff itself, because that is clearly an indication of fermentation. What I am concerned about is I have no idea when it happened. The beer has been stored in a broom closet (no light, constant temp), and I was out of town for a week. When I returned, I came back to find it blown off and I have no idea when during the week it would have blown off. I have attached some photos for reference.

Now I know the best thing to do is to sit back, wait, and see what happens. It has now been three weeks of fermenting, and I'm bottling this Sunday, planning to wait another two weeks before drinking. I just want to know how I can tell if the batch has been toasted? If something did go wrong in the process, is the only negative a bad taste, or do I have to worry about anything else?

Thanks in advance!

Photos of the blowoff:

 

[dcross41796]

The only way to tell is by taste. Some rare cases you would see something growing in the beer that shouldn't. You had a few mishaps that could cause a problem but you won't know until you taste it.
Try a taste of it before you bottle. If it Tastes good proceeds and fill sterile bottles. If it taste extremely funky research for what caused the flavor your tasted that was bad to determine something that went wrong.

 

[frazier]

Awesome! You're not a true homebrewer until you've had to mop the ceiling. So, cross that one off your list!

The possible hazards caused by the improper pitching of the yeast are pretty insignificant. Make a mental note to do it better next time, and move on.

For centuries, many breweries used a method called "open fermentation," a practice which continues to this day. In a homebrew setting, it may not be ideal. But you have no choice now, go ahead and bottle it. Is the surface of the beer covered with filmy bubble, streaks, or fuzzy growth? That would be a bad sign, but you can rack out from underneath it and hope for the best.

And now, some advice for brew #2: Don't leave town during the first few days. If you gotta go, then plan your brewday for when you get back. Rig up a blowoff tube, and and leave it on until the kraeusen falls (some folks just leave it on for the duration).

Cheers!

 

[flars]

I would suggest checking the SG of the beer. The sample will be your taste. Sometimes time in the primary doesn't always finish a beer. SG samples a few days apart, that are the same, will indicate if FG has been reached, or the fermentation stopped at a high SG.

 

[Rockn_M]

You'll be fine.

The improper yeast pitching obviously didn't hurt anything because of the blow off. As for the blowoff occurring while you were away, like frazier said try to be home during the first few days of fermentation as a just in case. But I doubt you'll have any issues. Looks like an active enough fermentation to not only to kill any rouge bacteria or mold but probably enough to have a positive pressure out of the airlock to keep anything from getting in.

Go ahead and bottle this weekend and enjoy!

 

[eadavis80]

@ Frazier - guess I'm still an apprentice home brewer as my ceiling has been beer free in my 13 months of brewing

 

[unionrdr]

I agree to taste it, but after a look for big white slimy bubbles, webs connecting the bubbles, etc. Doesn't look like it in the pics though. Just pays to be sure I say.

 

[jdmason]

Hi All,

So we tasted the beer and it tasted pretty good. It was very watery, which is because when we did the original boil it didn't boil down from 6gal to 5gal as we expected, but remained closer to 6gal and we only had enough for a 5gal brew.

A couple more questions:

When bottling, I got a little to excited and forgot to add the components for carbonation - I simply bottled straight from the big glass jug and put it into the cupboard. Do I still have to wait 2 weeks before it's ready to drink, or can I technically drink it now?

Lastly, when we measured the SG with the hydrometer provided, it indicated that we were sitting around 1% alcohol. However we received almost an identical reading when we placed the hydrometer in a sample of beer with a known alcohol content of 5%. Do you think the hydrometer is broken? Thoughts?

Either way, pretty excited that at least it tasted good, and I know almost exactly where all my mistakes were! Next batch will hopefully be even better!

 

[mrdail87]

As for your hydrometer reading, subtract the original reading from your final reading to get your ABV:
That is, 5% - 1% = 4% ABV.

Your hydrometer isn't broken, that's just how it works. It floats higher at first because of the sugars in the solution. Essentially you're taking the first measurement to measure your sugar levels, the second to measure how much of the sugar your yeast ate: this gives you your ABV.

And yes, the beer is still safe to drink before two weeks. I've drank plenty of uncarbed beers myself, due to various problems.