Have we messed up a special batch?

[KushroomMoon]

Firstly this batch means a lot to us as we made it the day one of us found out they have a brain tumour and it just..means a lot.

So, The three of us all misunderstood the instructions and thought it said to add priming sugar on day one fermenting which we did when mixing it all together, I know we can just add more sugar at the end to bottle, but it looked a bit quiet so we did a hydrometer test and it's dropped from 50 down to 20, is that supposed to happen and have we messed up testing it today? Oh also we accidentally cut open the bag with out hops in too. It's been a total disaster of a brew (it's not my first either it's just all going wrong!)

Temps of the beer are around 22-25°c Room temps are 22-24°c

Sorry this was so long, any help is appreciated.

As I said it means a lot to us.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Look to me like an early krausen. 50 down to 20 is half the sugars converted to ethanol and CO2, fermentation. When was it brew brewed?

What signs are making you think it went wrong?

 

[AlexKay]

A little extra sugar won’t hurt a thing, except to give you minutely more alcohol. You’ll indeed have to add more sugar when bottling.

Not sure what you’re saying about hops.

You’ll be good.

And also, try not to open the fermenter too often.

 

[day_trippr]

Context matters - in this case, the time context: how many days after the yeast was pitched was that picture taken?
25°C ambient is kinda high during the (exothermic) fermentation.
Judging from the obvious "high water line" I'd say peak krausen passed some time ago.
Yes, the specific gravity should drop. From 50 sg to 20 says the yeast are working

Give us some idea of that time thing...

Cheers!

 

[amber-ale]

taste it. if it tastes good, its fine. if its yucky do it again. call it a do-over batch

KISS

 

[khannon]

If you are bottling when you are done, you will need to add some sugars at the time of bottling to allow it carbonate in the bottle. It does not have to be corn sugar, table sugar will do. There are multiple calculators Beer Priming Sugar Calculator | Brewer's Friend is one.

I second the keeping it as cool as you can, avoid opening the lid as much as possible, let it ride for a bit, then taste it. As long as you did all of the sanitation parts, you will have beer.

 

[KushroomMoon]

Context matters - in this case, the time context: how many days after the yeast was pitched was that picture taken?
25°C ambient is kinda high during the (exothermic) fermentation.
Judging from the obvious "high water line" I'd say peak krausen passed some time ago.
Yes, the specific gravity should drop. From 50 sg to 20 says the yeast are working

Give us some idea of that time thing...

Cheers!

Appologies for the slow response been in hospital. The photo was taken 6 days, post yeast. I should have added timings that was my bad.

 

[KushroomMoon]

If you are bottling when you are done, you will need to add some sugars at the time of bottling to allow it carbonate in the bottle. It does not have to be corn sugar, table sugar will do. There are multiple calculators Beer Priming Sugar Calculator | Brewer's Friend is one.

I second the keeping it as cool as you can, avoid opening the lid as much as possible, let it ride for a bit, then taste it. As long as you did all of the sanitation parts, you will have beer.

Awesome, we don't plan on opening it again until bottling as we made that mistake in college with our first run checking it every other day and we demolished the co2 layer totally.

We've just got to work out how much sugar to add now per bottling requirements but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

[KushroomMoon]

If you are bottling when you are done, you will need to add some sugars at the time of bottling to allow it carbonate in the bottle. It does not have to be corn sugar, table sugar will do. There are multiple calculators Beer Priming Sugar Calculator | Brewer's Friend is one.

I second the keeping it as cool as you can, avoid opening the lid as much as possible, let it ride for a bit, then taste it. As long as you did all of the sanitation parts, you will have beer.

Oh thank you so much for this calculator that's going straight into my bookmarked!

Thankfully we have only opened it the once to hop it and don't intend to open it until bottling day, made that mistake before in college where we wrecked the co2 layer completely.

We sanitised everything, washed our hands so should be good.

 

[KushroomMoon]

taste it. if it tastes good, its fine. if its yucky do it again. call it a do-over batch

KISS

From the tiny sample I took, tasted fine.

taste it. if it tastes good, its fine. if its yucky do it again. call it a do-over batch

KISS