Odd question - unbottling/debottling

[mmoran903]

I may have just made up a new word (or two). To make a long story short, we added way too much apricot extract to my IIPA. It's been in bottles for about 10 days, and the flavor is too cough syrup like.

Question is, can we open the bottles, pour back into a carboy and dry-hop to try and balance out the flavor? Or will carbonating and recarbonating ruin it even more?

Currently, i'll drink it at home, but I wouldn't offer it to anyone.

 

[Gunrunner]

You could try it. It sounds like if does not work you can't drink the beer anways. So what do you have to loose.

 

[bigemadrid]

You could blend the syrupy batch with an IPA each time you drink it. I found DogFish's Festina Peach undrinkable but when poured 50/50 with a 90 minute it was very nice - much like the aprihop.

 

[Revvy]

NO NO NO NO.....Don't even consider doing this.

There's really no easy way to move beer from one bottle to back to your carboy that won't risk oxydation. Or infection.

What do you think you're going to be pouring your beer through as it goes back into the fermenter? Air....and Oxygen + fermented beer = Liquid cardboard.

Rather than trying to fix it, stick it in the back of the closet for a few months.

Betcha the flavoring fill fade and you'll end up liking the beer.

But don't pour it back into something, there's no esy way to do it that won't expose the beer to excess oxygen.

 

[user 4295]

I've done it, but for a different reason. I brewed and bottled a RIS once, and after 9 months in the bottle they were still completely flat, even after repeated attempts to resuspend the yeast by swirling the bottles and moving to warmer temps. Obviously there were not enough viable yeast left to carbonate. Oddly enough, the unfermented priming sugar was not really detectable to me. I had a couple of choices. I could leave it longer, which really wasn't an option. I could pop each bottle and put in a little champagne yeast to kick in the carbonation, but not knowing how much to add to each bottle made me fearful of trying that, or I could pour them into a keg and force carbonate.

I opted to pour them into a keg and force carbonate, knowing that we would probably have to consume it quickly due to oxidation during the transfer process, which wouldn't be a problem, LOL! What I did was purge the keg with CO2 and sanitize my arm to the elbow so I could reach all the way into the keg with each bottle and pour it down the side of the keg to reduce any agitation of the beer as I poured it. The result was one of the best beers I've ever produced! I had some friends over and we kicked it that weekend.

This doesn't really apply to your case because you are asking if you could dry hop to balance out the flavor of the apricot extract. My understanding is that dry hopping is intended to increase the hop aroma, and to a lesser degree, flavor of the finished beer. Would it also balance out the apricot sweetness even though dry hopping does not provide any bittering? I don't know, I'll leave that to those with experience in dry hopping, as I've never done it.

 

[mmoran903]

Thank you for all the responses. I have no problem letting it sit, but obviously my curiosity got the best of me this weekend so I popped one of the bottles open.

I'll closet it for a while and see what happens.