I have an IPA that I bottled a few days ago. Sadly I bottled about have the brew in Abita bottels I had saved not knowing until after the fact that Abita bottles do not work well. Alas the caps did not seal correctly and I don't they they will carbonate correctly. Is there any hope of salvaging this beer into different bottles several days after initial bottling or do I need to dump it? Thanks for any input!
Fate of Beer in unsealed bottled
- Thread starter snboggs
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snboggs I'm only going off of what I've read on this forum mainly, so for your amusement only, here is what I think.
If you were careful with cleaning and sanitizing the bottles, you have basically put them into individual secondary fermenters. The main concern I've read about with secondaries is the beer's exposure to oxygen (more so with additional transfers required), which can increase the chance of off flavors or even infection to the beer. I'm assuming you would pour direct from bottle to bottle?
Another concern i could dream up is the question of do you need to add just a little bit more priming sugar to each bottle? Safest, easiest, and probably least effective would be adding no additional sugar and rebottling. Less chance of bottle bombs, but i would imagine less carbonated beer. I guess you have to leave them be in the abita bottles until a new stable FG is reached, then you could recalculate needed primary sugar with your new ABV
Long story short. I'm sure you could 'salvage' something, and if you have more time than money, it might be worth it, but store the bottles in a large covered tupperware to protect against glass shrapnel from over carbonated bottles if you re prime.
Hope some of this helps.
If you were careful with cleaning and sanitizing the bottles, you have basically put them into individual secondary fermenters. The main concern I've read about with secondaries is the beer's exposure to oxygen (more so with additional transfers required), which can increase the chance of off flavors or even infection to the beer. I'm assuming you would pour direct from bottle to bottle?
Another concern i could dream up is the question of do you need to add just a little bit more priming sugar to each bottle? Safest, easiest, and probably least effective would be adding no additional sugar and rebottling. Less chance of bottle bombs, but i would imagine less carbonated beer. I guess you have to leave them be in the abita bottles until a new stable FG is reached, then you could recalculate needed primary sugar with your new ABV
Long story short. I'm sure you could 'salvage' something, and if you have more time than money, it might be worth it, but store the bottles in a large covered tupperware to protect against glass shrapnel from over carbonated bottles if you re prime.
Hope some of this helps.
To calculate the amount of sugar for priming you can use an online calculator like this one.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
Just enter in how much beer you have in gallons, the highest temp the beer reached during fermentation and the level of carbonation you want and the calculator will tell you how much you need.
If you want to try it, this method worked for me once when I had to reprime a batch.
Gently pour your bottles without splashing into a fermenter.
Add a half pound of boiled DME mixed with water after it has cooled.
This will start a new round of fermentation which is important because you want to let your yeast eat up all of the old priming sugar and avoid bottle bombs.
Once the new fermentation round is completed use the priming calculator to see how much you need to mix up for this batch.
Bottle as normal.
It takes time but if it saves your batch it's worth it.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
Just enter in how much beer you have in gallons, the highest temp the beer reached during fermentation and the level of carbonation you want and the calculator will tell you how much you need.
If you want to try it, this method worked for me once when I had to reprime a batch.
Gently pour your bottles without splashing into a fermenter.
Add a half pound of boiled DME mixed with water after it has cooled.
This will start a new round of fermentation which is important because you want to let your yeast eat up all of the old priming sugar and avoid bottle bombs.
Once the new fermentation round is completed use the priming calculator to see how much you need to mix up for this batch.
Bottle as normal.
It takes time but if it saves your batch it's worth it.
Update to this post. This batch has come up with some very mixed results, and being my first has got me a little discouraged cause I'm not sure what went wrong. After 2 weeks of bottle conditioning the first 2 bottles opened with a beautiful hiss and perfect carbonation. Since then I've opened 3 more; all tasting extremely rotten, 2 extremely overcarbonated and one with none whatsoever. Given the bottling issues I had I'm not surprised by the flat one, but the inconsistency of the rest and awful, rotten taste have me confused. Any insight would be great! Thanks!
Kerrbrewer
I just wanna brew!
Awsome! 2 of your first 5 brews were a success! Here is what I learned. Check this out if your bottles have a longer shoulder under the crown like the IPA pic, you can easily cap with a wing capper. If it's short like the Angkor pic you will have to be more careful and check for leaks. Most of my bottles have the short shoulder so I got a bench capper.
![Craft A Brew - Safale BE-256 Yeast - Fermentis - Belgian Ale Dry Yeast - For Belgian & Strong Ales - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bcKEwQmWL._SL500_.jpg)
dad23ds
Well-Known Member
+1 to a bench capper. Got one after a bottling session that saw me crack a couple necks off with the wing capper.
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