Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer!

[ncbrewer]

Reading this thread I found that I would almost have to work at it to mess it up. Thanks for the confidence! haha

Don't get overconfident - it can happen.

 

[NC_Drewbrew]

Don't get overconfident - it can happen.

If anything I'm in over my head, but that s how I learn...Push and figure it out as I go.

 

[billpaustin]

I threw together a bunch of stuff I had at the house, and the result is a nice smelling, and good looking wheat beer. ABV about 2.5%. I don't think any amount of time will fix that.

 

[passedpawn]

ain't got nothing to worry about

i literally sat a beer (edit: wort) outside with no airlock and no yeast for a week and couldn't manage to pick up a decent infection.

Reading this thread I found that I would almost have to work at it to mess it up. Thanks for the confidence! haha

Hmmm. I can get a pellicle in a few days down here. I like your pluckiness, but I think you are rolling dice there. Best to keep to a strict cleaning/sanitation regimen.

 

[Bradinator]

Been a while since I last posted, but still brewing up a storm. Got another one for the 'Don't Dump It!": Made a all Amarillo/IIPA SMaSH and when I went to dry hop I could found it to have a on obvious infection of some kind (a milky, wax like growth sitting on top of the beer). I decided to skip try dry hopping and racked it too bottles and hoping for the best, though the smell it smelled like paint remover at the time.

At 3 weeks after bottling I tried one and it tasted akin to nail polish remover (right down the sink with that bottle). A couple weeks later I asked my wife to toss a couple beers in the fridge for me while I was at the office and one of them was this beer. I decided to try it again and to my delight it had gone from nearly undrinkable to an okay tasting IIPA. A couple weeks later I had another bottle and all signs of that nasty nail polish remover taste had disappeared, replaced with something of a boozy flavour that was really did not detract from the beer at all. Certainly not the best beer in my basement, but certainly one I can enjoy.

 

[knoxxy04]

Im a relatively new home-brewer and just made a heff batch everything went well up until day 2 of primary fermenting. Yeast went crazy and blew the cork and blowoff tube off the carboy, bew beer and foam everywhere in the fermenting fridge. Day 3 once again went crazy and repeated day 2's problems. day 4 no problems, day 5 fridge tripped breaker and spent 6+ hours at 80 degrees with the cork blown off and more foam everywhere. day 6 seems to have no issues yet. Should i be concerned? bubbles are still forming out the blowoff cap every 15 sec or so... Any advice is helpful.

 

[moscoeb]

Im a relatively new home-brewer and just made a heff batch everything went well up until day 2 of primary fermenting. Yeast went crazy and blew the cork and blowoff tube off the carboy, bew beer and foam everywhere in the fermenting fridge. Day 3 once again went crazy and repeated day 2's problems. day 4 no problems, day 5 fridge tripped breaker and spent 6+ hours at 80 degrees with the cork blown off and more foam everywhere. day 6 seems to have no issues yet. Should i be concerned? bubbles are still forming out the blowoff cap every 15 sec or so... Any advice is helpful.

Nope, there was enough co2 being produced to protect your beer, the higher ferm temp may produce some off flavors.

Next time make sure to do a blow off tube so you won't have these probs.
you will be fine

 

[knoxxy04]

thanks moscoeb, funny thing is i had a blow off tube but it kept blowing off due to it being too active.

thanks again!

 

[moscoeb]

I'm sure someone who knows more can tell you which off flavors you may get, but you should still be fine.
It will make beer!

 

[Mozart]

Newer brewer, but I thought I'd relate an experience along these lines.

On my third ever batch of beer, and my first hefeweizen, I made the mistake of leaving my bottling bucket spigot open when transferring the beer from the fermenter.

Ugh! Not only did I have a sticky mess on the floor, I lost an unknown amount of priming sugar. Since it was impossible to know how much I'd lost I couldn't replace it (didn't want to create gushers if I added too much priming sugar back in).

So I just bottled and mini-kegged it up.

About 1-2 weeks later, I tapped my first mini-keg from this batch, and it was hopelessly flat. There was some very small amount of carbonation, but not nearly enough, and no head to it at all.

I drank it anyway (reserving my other homebrews for guests).

A couple of batches of homebrew (and perhaps another 4 weeks or so later), I was running out of my 'better' beers to drink, so tapped the second mini-keg from the flat batch.

Guess what? It was carbonated, and had a nice, frothy head! No, it wasn't quite up to the levels I was going for before I lost the priming sugar, but the additional time made a distinct difference.

Cheers!

 

[Mozart]

Im a relatively new home-brewer and just made a heff batch everything went well up until day 2 of primary fermenting. Yeast went crazy and blew the cork and blowoff tube off the carboy, bew beer and foam everywhere in the fermenting fridge. Day 3 once again went crazy and repeated day 2's problems. day 4 no problems, day 5 fridge tripped breaker and spent 6+ hours at 80 degrees with the cork blown off and more foam everywhere. day 6 seems to have no issues yet. Should i be concerned? bubbles are still forming out the blowoff cap every 15 sec or so... Any advice is helpful.

Generally, a hefe fermented warm is perhaps likely to produce more esters (banana) that it would have at a cooler temperature. Fortunately, hefes are a style which calls for some of that banana aroma, even if you get just a tad bit more of it than you otherwise would have.

Also, the earlier in the fermentation process, the more critical the fermentation temperatures are. That your high temperature was on day 5 (as opposed to earlier) and was only there for 6+ hours, and not days, leads me to believe that what ever off flavors or aromas you might get, will likely be minimal, if even detectable at all.

 

[knoxxy04]

Generally, a hefe fermented warm is perhaps likely to produce more esters (banana) that it would have at a cooler temperature. Fortunately, hefes are a style which calls for some of that banana aroma, even if you get just a tad bit more of it than you otherwise would have.

Also, the earlier in the fermentation process, the more critical the fermentation temperatures are. That your high temperature was on day 5 (as opposed to earlier) and was only there for 6+ hours, and not days, leads me to believe that what ever off flavors or aromas you might get, will likely be minimal, if even detectable at all.

Yeah I was going after the banana flavors but was trying to keep them more mellow fermenting at a slightly cooler temp. I am going for a Pina Colada style summer hefe, by adding pineapple and toasted coconut in the secondary.

I was just hoping it wasnt contaminated from the blow-off tube keep blowing off and letting whatever fall in or whatever, but from what i read and you guys responded with i have nothing to worry.

Cheers

 

[JimRausch]

Hi folks, I'm Jim, and I'm a beer dumper.......
I've always been in Revvy's camp of never dumping your beer, but I finally have a batch that I dumped today. It's a Mocha Cherry Stout that I brewed back in February. My sin was goofing on the coffee addition. Last year I did a batch that was nice but could have used a little more coffee flavor, so this year I doubled the amount and added grounds (plus the coldbrew) to secondary. Horrible, almost compost flavor when I bottled it, but I figured it would mellow. Well, no. I've tried a bottle every couple weeks and they've all been bad. Stupid, stupid me. Finally, after 5 months in the bottles I've given up and tossed a case and a sixer. Still going to keep a sixer plus 3, 22ozers for marinating. Oh well, hopefully I've learned for next year's batch.

 

[Cheapo]

I have to confess...I dumped a batch last night. It was a batch of cornerstone ale that I fermented in the same bucket as my kombucha had been in.

I was sure I had used enough sani brew to more than do the job, but I guess kombucha is quite the hardy culture.

The brew tasted like sour sour k-tea, vinegar basically. Sigh, time to replace that bucket to keep enough of a pipeline for beer.

 

[socencounter]

I have to confess...I dumped a batch last night. It was a batch of cornerstone ale that I fermented in the same bucket as my kombucha had been in.

I was sure I had used enough sani brew to more than do the job, but I guess kombucha is quite the hardy culture.

The brew tasted like sour sour k-tea, vinegar basically. Sigh, time to replace that bucket to keep enough of a pipeline for beer.

Never ferment in plastic buckets/carboys. Bacteria will trap in tiny crevices and could remain even after a good sanitation.
I use a borosilicate glass (pyrex) carboy which is an overkill as its quite expensive. However the benefit of that is the carboy is extremely light, strong and has a very smooth inner surface preventing bacteria from forming inside. Big breweries use a brew kettle that is very smooth even at the corners. Use a glass carboy next time, good luck !

 

[socencounter]

Hi folks, I'm Jim, and I'm a beer dumper.......
I've always been in Revvy's camp of never dumping your beer, but I finally have a batch that I dumped today. It's a Mocha Cherry Stout that I brewed back in February. My sin was goofing on the coffee addition. Last year I did a batch that was nice but could have used a little more coffee flavor, so this year I doubled the amount and added grounds (plus the coldbrew) to secondary. Horrible, almost compost flavor when I bottled it, but I figured it would mellow. Well, no. I've tried a bottle every couple weeks and they've all been bad. Stupid, stupid me. Finally, after 5 months in the bottles I've given up and tossed a case and a sixer. Still going to keep a sixer plus 3, 22ozers for marinating. Oh well, hopefully I've learned for next year's batch.

Hi Jim, I didn't know you could add stuff to the secondary other than hops (dry hopping). I think stuff should be added at during wort boiling. Just a thought!

 

[grem135]

Hi Jim, I didn't know you could add stuff to the secondary other than hops (dry hopping). I think stuff should be added at during wort boiling. Just a thought!

It is common to rack to secondary on top of fruit, oak chips and other things.

 

[Channel66]

Hi Jim, I didn't know you could add stuff to the secondary other than hops (dry hopping). I think stuff should be added at during wort boiling. Just a thought!

Coffee during boiling would destroy the beer faster than what Jim did

 

[logan3825]

Never ferment in plastic buckets/carboys. Bacteria will trap in tiny crevices and could remain even after a good sanitation.
I use a borosilicate glass (pyrex) carboy which is an overkill as its quite expensive. However the benefit of that is the carboy is extremely light, strong and has a very smooth inner surface preventing bacteria from forming inside. Big breweries use a brew kettle that is very smooth even at the corners. Use a glass carboy next time, good luck !

There is nothing wrong with using buckets. Just don't scrub them with anything that will scratch them. You can get them clean without much effort or scrubbing.

 

[kombat]

Big breweries use a brew kettle that is very smooth even at the corners.

I don't know of any professional brewery that ferments in their brew kettle.

They boil in their brew kettles, but ferment in cylindroconical fermenters (stainless steel or plastic).

 

[socencounter]

Coffee during boiling would destroy the beer faster than what Jim did

I see! That's what the right approach?

 

[socencounter]

I don't know of any professional brewery that ferments in their brew kettle.

They boil in their brew kettles, but ferment in cylindroconical fermenters (stainless steel or plastic).

Sorry about that! I meant the same - cylindroconical fermenters!

 

[socencounter]

There is nothing wrong with using buckets. Just don't scrub them with anything that will scratch them. You can get them clean without much effort or scrubbing.

While it's true that scratching will make things worse, plastic has more propensity to develop scratches/tiny cracks than glass ever could! Also unlike buckets, glass is transparent and you'd get a good view of active fermentation and infection if any! I just happen to be a big fan of glass carboys

 

[logan3825]

While it's true that scratching will make things worse, plastic has more propensity to develop scratches/tiny cracks than glass ever could! Also unlike buckets, glass is transparent and you'd get a good view of active fermentation and infection if any! I just happen to be a big fan of glass carboys

Food grade plastic only develops cracks over a very long period of time or if you misstreat them. I just want to make sure that nobody thinks you have to use one or the other.

 

[ncbrewer]

Food grade plastic only develops cracks over a very long period of time or if you misstreat them. I just want to make sure that nobody thinks you have to use one or the other.

+1
Personal preference

 

[Cheapo]

Honestly I love the plastic buckets myself. I wouldn't mind using the glass if it weren't for cleaning the krausen all contortionist style after. I have a bad back so homebrewing is one area I do my best to avoid as much lifting as I can too, and plastic makes things so much easier.

 

[Trail]

I clean my carboys with oxyclean, and when that's done I rinse them out and run some Starsan through. This combo took off a year-old spot of yeast sludge from the time I bought a better bottle and forgot about my glass one without cleaning it first. Not really a problem lifting-wise, so long as you can sit next to the carboy on the porch steps and rock it back and forth for ten minutes.

 

[m3n00b]

I've made a couple beers which I don't think time can heal. My first beers where I boiled too much lme in too little water and the ones where I fermented too high. Time can't save these but I won't dump them. I try about one a month.

 

[moscoeb]

Food grade plastic only develops cracks over a very long period of time or if you misstreat them. I just want to make sure that nobody thinks you have to use one or the other.

In think I would rather risk an infection than an amputation.

 

[Darwin18]

You can also get a good look at the party with a better bottle.