Should I call the bottle bomb squad? Advice needed quickly!

[seanyt]

Okay, here is the situation. I finished my third batch of beer and everything looks OK. This batch I try to experiment and put together different extracts and grains to make a malty amber sort of ale. The batch was in the primary for 10 days and the secondary about two weeks. OG = 1.068

So last week I break my hydrometer. While I am waiting for a new hydrometer to come in the mail I decide to bottle this batch, the other two batches I have brewed sat the same and came out great. The hydrometer comes in the mail the day after bottling so I crack open one to check the FG and it comes out as 1.024. This seems too high, but they are already bottled so now what? Am I looking at potential bombs? Is the FG OK for this type of Ale? Can I pour everything back into the carboy or do I need to pour it all down the drain . Please say it ain't so!

 

[Choguy03]

I think with the added priming sugar you would get a higher FG then when you bottled. I'm not 100% sure but that seems to makes sense to me.

 

[BierMuncher]

With a lot of malty additions, your FG will be higher.

You should probably never bottle without knowing the gravity of your beer.

Don't pour it out.

Don't try and re-pour and restart fermentation. You'll just aerate the crap out of it.

Follow your normal protocol and if the bottles are overcarb'd (I doubt seriously they'll be bottle bombs), then check back and we'll discuss de-gassing the bottles. Chances are you ended up with what you wanted...

 

[ohiobrewtus]

The impact of priming sugar on the gravity of a beer is very, very minimal. It's not enough to raise your reading by any significant amount.

Every batch is different, so yours may end up being just fine. You may want to cover those bottles with some towels just in case.

 

[seanyt]

Yeah, I know it was a bad move to bottle without a final FG reading, don't worry I have kicked myself plenty already. My main concern has been about safety (and losing an entire batch).
My other two batches were an amber and a pale ale, both with FG under 1.010 so when I read my newest reading out of the bottle I became concerned. Thank you all for the replies, I will keep abs on progess and check back.

 

[BierMuncher]

...I will keep abs on progess and check back.

Store your bottles at 70 degrees (like normal) and after one week, chill a bottle for 24 hours and taste test. That will give you a good idea of the carbonation “velocity”. If it’s already highly carbonated…then we need to discuss.

 

[seanyt]

Well I left my bottles for about 10 days wtih no explosions showing. I took a couple out and put them in the fridge to cool down and give a test. the carbonation looked fine and the taste is coming along much better than before, losing some of its malt and showing some of the hoppy aromas I was hoping would show up.

It was after this I noticed some sticky residue along the bottle. I seems the bottles "leaked" instead of exploding. After inspection it looks like all the bottles leaked to some extent. I used old Blue Moon bottles for my brew and it turns out that they are screw cap. (I never noticed since I pop the top on ever brew). The bottles I tasted seemed fine, I would think they they would be flat or infected since all the books say " never use screw on bottles", but they came out quite appropriately carbonated and tasty

To me this seems like a good solution for possible overcarbonation. The screw caps work as screw caps after being capped and it looks like it saved me from a brew lagoon. Did I just get lucky?

 

[Revvy]

Some people here use a bench capper on screwtops successfully. But if you just used a wingcapper, I think you might have gotten lucky.

It would probably be a good idea to consume this batch as soon as possible, before you lose carbonation.

And get some new bottles for your next batch!

 

[landis]

It would probably be a good idea to consume this batch as soon as possible, before you lose carbonation.

Sounds like a wonderful idea

 

[BierMuncher]

...And get some new bottles for your next batch!

And a spare hydrometer.

 

[Homercidal]

I wouldn't chance it. An exploding bottle can be a very dangerous thing! Send me over the rest of your batch and I'll dispose of it in a safe manner. No need to thank me, just tryign to help a brewer out!