pouring bottles into kettle and rebrewing it.

[grathan]

Lets say I have a failed batch of beer. The hop profile is all wrong and I'd like more malt flavor. Can I take the bottles, dump them into a kettle and start over?

I am assuming boiling would destroy any flavor hops and possibly evaporate a lot of alcohol? Or would the alcohol stay?

Also what about dumping half of the bottles into a fermenter with half of a new fixer wort and letting that ferment out?

 

[mlg5039]

No, drink your mistakes (builds character) or cook with them.

 

[freisste]

Alcohol boils at something like 172f. That's how you distill, which we don't talk about here. So yes, as you guessed, boiling would remove all of your alcohol.

How bad is it? I know it wasn't what you were looking for, but is it unpalatable? Many beers get better with time.

Could you brew another batch and mix as you go? Like a crappy Black and Tan? Or just drink these after you drink something better?

Personally, dumping is always last resort...

 

[Gameface]

Alcohol boils at something like 172f. That's how you distill, which we don't talk about here. So yes, as you guessed, boiling would remove all of your alcohol.

How bad is it? I know it wasn't what you were looking for, but is it unpalatable? Many beers get better with time.

Could you brew another batch and mix as you go? Like a crappy Black and Tan? Or just drink these after you drink something better?

Personally, dumping is always last resort...

Water boils at 212, so would you also say that if you get your wort to 212 you will boil off all of your water?

It takes time to boil off alcohol just like it does to boil off water. You will most likely not boil off all the alcohol unless you also boil off a considerable amount of the water.

 

[grathan]

The beer is 2 years old. It was meant to be fermented with Nottingham, but the yeast failed and emergency yeast (i forget which strain now) was used and it tastes like rubber. It has beautiful mouthfeel, but just a very awkward taste that I cannot get around and was thinking instead of dumping, trying to mask it with more malt and hops. I might try mixing it with some other finished mediocre beers.

 

[dstranger99]

Dude, I have about 40 flat beers I'm still drinking on from one batch this past spring, I can't even give them away, but the hell with it, I'm gonna drink each one while telling myself "This is what happens when oxygen gets in during racking"!!!!!............

 

[gr8shandini]

Gameface,

Do a search on here for how to make non-alcoholic beer. In the 10 minutes or more it takes to go from 170 to 212 degrees, you'll have lost most of the alcohol.

And for the OP, I agree with the others. If it's drinkable, you'll likely do more damage trying to "fix" it. Besides, by the time you're done with everything you've mentioned, you'll have put in more work than just brewing a new batch. Seems pretty silly to do in order to save the cost of another kit - especially if you already have beer you can drink while waiting for the new batch.

Edit: Just looked at your last post, grathan. Just dump it and try to pinpoint where you went wrong. Happens to the best of us.

 

[dfc]

Dude, I have about 40 flat beers I'm still drinking on from one batch this past spring, I can't even give them away, but the hell with it, I'm gonna drink each one while telling myself "This is what happens when oxygen gets in during racking"!!!!!............

That sounds more like a priming solution problem rather than oxidation. Oxidized beer primarily has the description of wet cardboard.

 

[freisste]

Water boils at 212, so would you also say that if you get your wort to 212 you will boil off all of your water?

It takes time to boil off alcohol just like it does to boil off water. You will most likely not boil off all the alcohol unless you also boil off a considerable amount of the water.

No, but if I got pure water to 213 I would say it is all steam. If his beer is back in a pot and is boiling, since it is mostly water I would say it is in the 210-215 range (not exactly 212 because of other constituents). I can almost guarantee that all the alcohol is gone.

You can't get to a boil instantaneously. He would go through the boiling point of the alcohol and before he got to the boiling point of water, he would have surely added more than the latent heat of boiling to the alcohol. Try it. If it boils the alcohol is gone.

 

[billl]

Once the beer is fermented, you definitely shouldn't add it back to the kettle. All the fermentable sugar is gone. The alcohol will boil off and all you will be left with is a bad tasting, non-alcoholic, flat beer.

If you want to try blending it with another beer, that is perfectly fine. I'd do a few test bottles vs the whole batch though. You might just be turning 5 gallons of bad beer into 10 gallons of bad beer.

 

[dstranger99]

That sounds more like a priming solution problem rather than oxidation. Oxidized beer primarily has the description of wet cardboard.

When I racked, I was taking advice from a youtube idiot and let the beer siphon (splash) thru a colander into the bottling bucket instead of putting the tube in the bucket and letting the beer cover it as it was transferring...

 

[Gameface]

Gameface,

Do a search on here for how to make non-alcoholic beer. In the 10 minutes or more it takes to go from 170 to 212 degrees, you'll have lost most of the alcohol.

And for the OP, I agree with the others. If it's drinkable, you'll likely do more damage trying to "fix" it. Besides, by the time you're done with everything you've mentioned, you'll have put in more work than just brewing a new batch. Seems pretty silly to do in order to save the cost of another kit - especially if you already have beer you can drink while waiting for the new batch.

Edit: Just looked at your last post, grathan. Just dump it and try to pinpoint where you went wrong. Happens to the best of us.

It is from reading stuff on here that I thought I had learned that making NA beer was not very easy and certainly not as easy as getting your beer to a boil. I'll take your word for it, though. Making NA beer isn't something I'm terribly interested in.

 

[kylevester]

What style is it? Not all styles age well and if it's 2 years old...

But, hell, if you don't like it, give this a try. You'll boil off pretty much all the alcohol so you can kinda just treat the beer as water, but be aware you do have unfermentables in there and you don't want to mess with that too much.

Here's an idea off the top of my head: add the beers to your kettle, add corn sugar and malt extract in a 3:1 ratio to arrive at your desired SG, top off with water, boil 60 minutes and do a 60 minute hop addition and a 5 minute to arrive at 75% of your original hop level.

Experiment! If you don't like it now, it's not gonna really matter if you screw it up by experimentation.

 

[zeg]

Useful link regarding alcohol boil-off: http://www.ochef.com/165.htm

TLDR: as much as 50% of the alcohol may remain after a short simmer (sitting just below 212°) and 5% may be left after 2.5 hours. It's not instantaneous.

 

[duboman]

If the beer is 2 years old and tastes like crap then just dump it!

I would like to assume that over the last 2 years you've become a much better brewer and are making much better beer

Why waste so much effort trying to reclaim something that sucks

 

[menerdari]

If the beer is 2 years old and tastes like crap then just dump it!

I would like to assume that over the last 2 years you've become a much better brewer and are making much better beer

Why waste so much effort trying to reclaim something that sucks

I have to agree, you are just throwing good money after bad. unless you don't mind wasting money on ingredients that probably won't make it any more palatable.