Here we go again

[oguss0311]

Because my brother in law dropped my 6.5 gal. carboy while he and I made his first extract batch, I just used a bucket for the first time. After a solid two weeks using one as the primary, I decided to go ahead and bottle the mai-bock kit that I ordered. (In order to be drinking it by the holidays, I thought I'd skip the secondary) Woe was me when I opened the thing up to see some evidence that active fermentation was not totally done with. The fermentation lock had not been active for quite some time, but there was much that I would have let settle to the bottom- had I been able to See it. Not wanting to risk exposing the stuff to too much Oxygen, I decided to bottle the stuff anyway. OF course, I got Plenty of yeast from the bottom too- as I could not see how much room was left. This was my first time leaving White Labs and using Wyeast- and I must say- there was a colony of yeast in there that could have overtaken the house- had it the mind. So I was WAY off in judging where the level of inactive yeast was.
I saw clouds of milky debris getting into the bottling bucket, and now the bottled beer looks more like a yeast starter than anything else. I guess I'm exaggerating- but seriously- I even added Irish moss to this- after my previous successes with the stuff.

Has this type of thing happened to anyone out there? Am I to expect that the beer should be fine- if not overly cloudy?
Another oddity- the final gravity was .999 at 68 deg. WTF? Can't say I've ever gotten that to happen before. My starting gravity was lower than I though it should be- and given that most of the sugar was from extracts, I KNOW that its in there, and have heard that if you don't stir wort enough, an accurate gravity reading is hard to get. Makes sense. But I'm a little curious about this ending gravity. I can see how all of the suspended matter (the excess yeast) might show a Higher that actual reading- but I'd be lying if I said I knew much about the physical world on that scale.

The things I've learned thus for from this batch are that 1. I prefer carboys. Maybe they are harder to aerate and clean, but I like the ability to watch everything. 2. I'm about Really sick and tired of sanitizing bottles. I wish I had let SWMBO get that flipping dishwasher.
Any thoughts, comments, advice and insightful comments would be very helpful!
Thanks'

 

[boo boo]

Well first count your lucky stars that either you or your BIL wern't hurt by the carboy breaking. Better Bottles are way better than glass carboys, so your next investment should be to get some of these vs glass.

second, Irish moss is a kettle coagulant and won't work unless it is being boiled.

Third, a little patience will go far in this hobby as things generally work out for those who wait.

Both WL and WY are great yeasts so don't worry about using either. How you got the .999 sg is beyond me as I haven't seen that low a sg other than in wine.

And last but not least, did I mention patience let your brew age a bit before trying to drink it all and watch your fermention so that you don't bottle too early and end up with higher than needed pressure in your bottles.

Cheers and good luck

 

[oguss0311]

Right- I added the Irish moss during the last 15 min of the boil- what I meant was that I was bumbed that I had nullified its ability to clear things up. And I agree and am aware about being patient- but because active fermentation had slowed to the point where the fermentation lock was inactive for so long- I thought that by waiting for the sediment in the beer to settle, I'd be risking letting too much oxygen reach the surface of my beer- since CO2 was not pushing it all out of the bottle. That’s why I said that I said that I bottled it anyway so as to not risk a big exposure to oxygen.
Have you even ended up with more yeast in the bottle than desired? I'm curious what to expect.
After sleeping on it- I've decided that with such a degree of yeast still in suspension- the- final gravity was perhaps thrown by the odd mixture that included yeast- which makes CO2- which most definitely would through off a gravity reading. At the time I thought that things had just not settled- because I've never had anything but clear beer ready for the secondary or bottling after two solid weeks. Guess that’s a learning experience.
Do you think that the beer would have been safe-regarding its contact with outside air- had I just put the lid back on and let the thing settle for a while longer?

 

[Kai]

If you were at .999 and still had active yeast, I think it's time to consider the possibility of a gusher infection. Put those bottled beers in a box, friend, because you might not be as lucky the next time a vessel explodes.

Of course, I'm being inordinately alarmist here. I'm not yet experienced enough to say any of this for sure - it's probably more likely a leaky bucket, and suspended solids throwing off gravity readings, and impatience bottling it early, etc. Any bottling when there's still activity, though, is risky. From what I understand.

Experts - what do you guys think of the possibility of infection?

I'm with boo-boo on the patience; relax, let things finish out before you go doing your thing to it. I don't know much yet, but it seems that beer is awfully good at taking care of itself.

Good luck!

Kai