HUGE, newbie mistake... What to expect?!?!

[bellaruche]

Alrighty, then. So my first batch yielded exactly 1/2 of what was expected. What the hell? I back-tracked and realized that when I was steeping my grains that my measuring tool for a gallon was a couple of growlers. Half gallon jugs i was counting as a whole. So, this half batch is bottled. The color looked great coming down the line. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale(ish). After capping, it is quite dense. What should I expect? Let it sit for good, long while, expecting it to take longer to settle... Dump it? Anyone deal with this newbie mistake?

 

[Gldnst8warrior]

Did you use all 4oz of priming sugar? If so maybe bottle bombs? I would never dump it. Absolute worst case scenario you call your buddy who crashes on people couches to help you drink it. Never dump! :rockin:

Seriously though I am thinking it might just taste bitter since the kit had hops for 5 gal. Did you reach your final gravity? I am no pro though just finished my 4th batch. I am sure someone will be able to tell you exactly what the effects of having twice the grain, hops, malt extract and priming sugar would do to a batch.

 

[TheDom]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but did you go straight to bottling? I only ask because I'm concerned for your safety once those bottles start to become bombs a little down the road.

If I am reading that wrong, how long of a fermentation did you give it before bottling?

 

[bellaruche]

12 days of fermenting. Airlock was on target.

 

[ThickHead]

Alrighty, then. So my first batch yielded exactly 1/2 of what was expected. What the hell? I back-tracked and realized that when I was steeping my grains that my measuring tool for a gallon was a couple of growlers. Half gallon jugs i was counting as a whole. So, this half batch is bottled. The color looked great coming down the line. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale(ish). After capping, it is quite dense. What should I expect? Let it sit for good, long while, expecting it to take longer to settle... Dump it? Anyone deal with this newbie mistake?

There is truly not enough information here to make much of an assessment. I, like TheDom, am confused as to whether or not you finished fermentation in a primary vessel prior to bottling. More information will be required about your process to give you any useful feedback.

 

[bellaruche]

After sealing the 5 gallon bucket and attached an airlock, it bubbled heartily for about 3-4 days, which is primary fermentation, correct? In the same vessel, it sat for another 8-9 days, which is secondary fermentation... am I tracking correctly? From there, I addded priming sugar to bottling bucket, transferred beer to bottling bucket, bottled and capped. Thanks for feedback, besides the 'newbie' water incident, i want to get it right.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

for future reference get a hydrometer.... no way of knowing if you have potential bottle bombs without that info....even with that info 2 times the recommended priming sugar amount could be dangrous...I have to ask however.. how did you not notice that you had half the volume in the fermentor or the bottling bucket BEFORE you bottled it?

 

[dogma9]

did u fill the fermenting bucket up to the 5 gallon mark?

 

[TheDom]

Oh, sorry I forgot to say this earlier, but welcome to the best hobby ever. Enjoy!

Edit: I forgot about the full 4oz of priming sugar being added to the half volume batch. With that and the possibility of other unfermented sugars in an unexpected high OG batch, I think there's a good chance those puppies could become dangerous. I'm not sure how others like to take care of potential bottle bombs, but I'd say dump.

 

[bellaruche]

My 5 gallon fermenting bucket isn't marked anywhere as to where the level is. The bottling bucket is larger and IS marked. It was then that I noticed. Shopping list for tomorrow: New ingredients, hydrometer, and paying closer attention to what the hell I'm doing. Thanks.

 

[bellaruche]

Yes, I'll move them from the upstairs hall closet to the outside storage. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. It can get down to -50 here. May have to keep it in the climate controlled garage. Hmmmm. Thanks for the gentle slaps. I'll be around... hopefully bouncing off good ideas instead of dumb mistakes. Think I'll have an Alaskan Winter Ale in the meantime.

 

[ChshreCat]

Whatever you made, add the word "imperial" to the front of it and act like you did it on purpose. Your friends will be impressed and only wonder why you didn't make twice as much.

Seriously, many breweries have done this. Take a great beer, double all the ingredients except the water (basically what you did, but the other way around) and it's twice as great. Stone does it with Arrogant Bastard when they make Double Bastard. Deschutes has done it with Black Butte Porter.

Anyway, don't be surprised if it ends up being good. It'll be strong. Twice the maltyness, twice the hoppyness, twice the ABV. But it'll probably be nice and tasty.

 

[Strangebird]

Shouldn't he wait a week or so, then uncap them all, let them sit for a bit to release some of the excess CO2 and recap? I thought I read about someone doing that the other day on here to avoid bottle bombs.

 

[NuclearRich]

I would definitely be afraid of bottle bombs. The priming sugar should have been cut in half, and I assume that you just added what was said to add. I would uncap ASAP but there is absolutely no reason to dump. It is still good beer, just dangerous how you have it right now. Bottle bombs are glass shrapnel, and make a big mess. Everyone does it differently (just like the entire brewing process for anyone). Heres what I think I would do:
Sanitize your fermentor. Uncap all bottles and gently pour into bucket. Put a lid/airlock on it. Allow to sit for 5-10 days. Rebottle, following the entire process you did originally, but using half the priming sugar.
If you don't, you risk accidentally dumping perfectly good beer. Also you risk injury and mess.
If you do, you will be so excited that you have a great (albeit much different than originally planned) beer, especially after salvaging it from what you were afraid was a disaster.
Good luck! Keep us updated

 

[BigJerk]

Shouldn't he wait a week or so, then uncap them all, let them sit for a bit to release some of the excess CO2 and recap? I thought I read about someone doing that the other day on here to avoid bottle bombs.

+1, better safe then sorry in this case I would think, maybe sip one to see if it has carbed enough. if it has, maybe fridge them to stop fermentation. Welcome to the hobby! I made a couple of minor mistakes before I found this forum. Check out anything Revvy has to say, he tends to explain things in good detail.

 

[Revvy]

Please, get the words "Dumping Beer" out of your mindset.....

Since nothing pathogenic can grow in beer, that's a really silly worry and would be a waste of potentially excellent beer.

That's why I've been collecting success stories like this, to hopefully teach you overly worried new brewers the folly of your ways.


Most of the time a new brewer (and it's usually new brewers who do) is because they think something like that, though, and are actually tasting their beer usually when it is really green. Or they make a mistake and because of all the worst case scenarions they've come upon in books, they dump it thinking in their naievty that their beer will instantly go bad.

I wrote this awhile ago...it should be committed to memory...

You don't dump your beer, for making a minor little mistake. Your beer is hardier than that.

And you don't dump something because you think it's going to turn out bad. You only dump a beer that you KNOW is bad, and you give it at least a couple of months in the bottle before you even make THAT decision.

Read theses two threads that were compiled for nervous new brewers to realize that your beers are not a weak baby that is going to die if you look at it wrong.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

Our beer is really resilient despite the boneheaded things we do to it. And even if something appears to be wrong, often time and the yeasties go along way to correct itself.

And if everyone dumped their beer just because of a common thing like an airlock suckback, no one would be brewing. We ALL have had sanitizer from our airlock get into our beer at one time or another. There's a ton of panic threads on here about that, and the answer is always the same, RELAX.

I think about it in terms of my time and money, I'm not going to dump 30 or more dollars worth of ingredients, 6 hours of brewing time, and at least 2 months from yeast pitch to cracking the first bottle, on what could be a minor mistake (that may not even harm the beer anyway,) until I have exhausted all probability that the beer won't improve. And even then that means at least walking away from the bottles for maybe 6 months or more.

And so far I have never beer wrong.

After all these years of brewing I still haven't had a dumper.

And I've made some big mistakes.

But I have never had a beer that wasn't at least palatable, after all that time.

They may have not been stellar beers, but they were still better than BMC or Skunky Beers in green bottles that people actually pay money for.

So just read those threads and next time, relax, and give your beer a chance to prove how strong it really is.

Read these stories while you relax...And especially erase the words "Should I dump this" from your thought process....

 

[bob1852]

Please, get the words "Dumping Beer" out of your mindset.....

Read these stories while you relax...And especially erase the words "Should I dump this" from your thought process....

I agree, but precaution should be taken for potential bottle bombs. I mean, he did use 4 oz. of priming sugar in a ~2-2.5 gallon batch....

 

[snipper_cr]

Definitely be concerned about bottle bombs. You added the amount of priming sugar to bottle 5 gallons but only got 2.5 gallons so each bottle has TWICE the amount of sugar. I would carefully open each bottle to let the CO2 out then recap.

Then wait a nice long while. A bigger beer like that will need some time to condition and mellow out but I have a felling you are going to have one HELLA tasty beer there!

I second what ChshreCat said, just call it "Imperial ______" and add mention that it should not be drank on an empty stomach

 

[TheDom]

Well, I guess you learn something new every day. I've never had to deal with botle bombs, but NuclearRich is absolutely right, the same process is described in the HBT wiki. I hope my 2am kneejerk safety post didn't contribute to you dumping anything.

 

[HItransplant]

I would definitely be afraid of bottle bombs. The priming sugar should have been cut in half, and I assume that you just added what was said to add. I would uncap ASAP but there is absolutely no reason to dump. It is still good beer, just dangerous how you have it right now. Bottle bombs are glass shrapnel, and make a big mess. Everyone does it differently (just like the entire brewing process for anyone). Heres what I think I would do:
Sanitize your fermentor. Uncap all bottles and gently pour into bucket. Put a lid/airlock on it. Allow to sit for 5-10 days. Rebottle, following the entire process you did originally, but using half the priming sugar.
If you don't, you risk accidentally dumping perfectly good beer. Also you risk injury and mess.
If you do, you will be so excited that you have a great (albeit much different than originally planned) beer, especially after salvaging it from what you were afraid was a disaster.
Good luck! Keep us updated

+1, well put.

 

[kpr121]

My 5 gallon fermenting bucket isn't marked anywhere as to where the level is. The bottling bucket is larger and IS marked. It was then that I noticed. Shopping list for tomorrow: New ingredients, hydrometer, and paying closer attention to what the hell I'm doing. Thanks.

Sorry, I chuckled at this. Only because we have all made goofy mistakes. I agree to just call it an imperial like you meant to do it!

You also might want to make sure you put the bottles in a large tubberware container or garbage bag in case of bombs, in addition to letting off co2 periodically.

 

[Beer_Guy]

My 5 gallon fermenting bucket isn't marked
...

Sorry, I chuckled at this.
...

Me too. How can you fill a 5 GALLON bucket to only half way and expect it to be 5 GALLONS of wort?

(Ok, so maybe at the time he thought he had a 10 gallon fermentation bucket. It could happen!!!)

 

[bellaruche]

Ha! Glad to be a muse of entertainment. A little humility is good for the soul. I'll heed the advice of popping them open, gently pouring into a fermenter with airlock. Ironic, I had the Dueschetes Porter last night. Will be using the bottles for futures brews. The re-ferment is a good reason to go ahead and pick up a carboy since my one & only fermenter has been re-employed with a steam ale. I'll definitely keep posted on the 'Accidental Brew'... The original recipe was Rogue Dead Guy Ale, which is delicious. A little muddy on the bottom. I'll look at it like an old bottle of Burgundy.

 

[Revvy]

Ha! Glad to be a muse of entertainment. A little humility is good for the soul. I'll heed the advice of popping them open, gently pouring into a fermenter with airlock. Ironic, I had the Dueschetes Porter last night. Will be using the bottles for futures brews. The re-ferment is a good reason to go ahead and pick up a carboy since my one & only fermenter has been re-employed with a steam ale. I'll definitely keep posted on the 'Accidental Brew'... The original recipe was Rogue Dead Guy Ale, which is delicious. A little muddy on the bottom. I'll look at it like an old bottle of Burgundy.

Pouring them back into a fermenter is a gaurenteed way to ruin your beer. There's no way you can do that withoty oxydizing it, and ending up with 4 gallons of wet carboard. If you are going to do anything, you are best to wait til carbonation happens and open and re-cap them to release the pressure. But there's no way to put them back into another container without them falling through the air when you pour them out, and that will intoduce oxygen to it.

 

[bellaruche]

Ok. With a skewed brewed going on... When would you deem appropriate to *pop* these and recap? Do I stick with the normal 3 week of bottle conditioning, or sooner due to excessive sugaring? 'Preciate your expertise and help.

 

[XxonValdez]

You could try sanitizing some foil, pop all the caps, place the foil over the top of the bottles and let them ferment out, the foil will prevent nasties from getting in while letting pressure out as the priming sugar ferments out, then take one bottle and test with your new hydrometer a couple of days in a row to be sure the specific gravity has not changed, then add carbonation drops to the bottles re-cap and enjoy in 4 weeks, possibly longer as "Imperial" beers take a little while longer to bottle condition. We keep sterile media in our lab for months with foil over the top, just don't clamp the foil down over the top or the pressure may pop the foil off.

 

[Revvy]

Ok. With a skewed brewed going on... When would you deem appropriate to *pop* these and recap? Do I stick with the normal 3 week of bottle conditioning, or sooner due to excessive sugaring? 'Preciate your expertise and help.

I would check in about a week and a half or so. Let the carbonation develop and see. If it doesn't look like anything's happening wait 3. You don't have to do anything fancy. Just open one up and re-cap it with a freshly sanitized cap. Just do it one at a time.