blulight
Member
Oh boy. So the story begins with brewing up a five gallon batch of Oktoberfest... about 6 months too late. Indeed, I was unable to brew my favorite style of beer until the month of September for various reasons, but I was looking at the upsides: it would be my 5th batch of beer after 4 relative successes, my favorite style of beer, my first lager, and I'd get to enjoy a batch when the style is typically not in stock at any of the stores anymore. It was also going to be the first beer I get to have my family try, as I'm quarantining extensively before heading to my hometown for the holidays. It was also going to be the first beer I wanted my friends who live back in my hometown to try, as I was going to deliver several bottles to for them to enjoy.
So the expectations were high, and again, this being my favorite style of beer, my personal expectations were also high. The brew day itself went very smoothly and I hit my OG of 1.056 - a little high for the style but that got me more excited. Into the fermenter it went for two weeks. Upon hitting the final gravity of 1.015, I transferred to secondary and began the lagering process. I slowly got it down to around 40f and held it there for about three and a half weeks. After that, I tasted it - it was delicious, smooth, malty, everything I love about Oktoberfests. I was stoked! I added my priming sugar, bottled the whole batch, and left them in cardboard boxes in my pantry.
After I waited my usual carbonation time of 4-5 days, I transferred all the bottles to my fridge to condition, and it was at that point that the critical error was made - for a 4-5 day carbonation period worked fine for my previous 4 batches, as I live in Texas and the temp in my pantry downstairs is usually around 78 or even 80 degrees 9 months out of the year. But since my downstairs area was significantly cooler this time around, with temps around 62-64f, I don't think the fermentation completed before I moved to the fridge like I thought it did.
Fast forward two or three weeks after putting the bottles in the fridge to condition. I pop one open, excitedly, and take a sip. Flat as hell. I was immediately filled with dread. Hopefully this isn't the whole batch, right? Just got unlucky with the first bottle, right? Tasted good though, and though I wouldn't do this with any other flat beer, I drank most of it. I nervously grab a second bottle out of the fridge. This would be the dealbreaker, I thought. If this one was flat too, I could safely assume the whole batch did not properly carbonate. I pop open the cap, and could barely hear any gas escaping. I took a sip. Flat.
So I've got about 50 bottles of really tasty but flat beer. No way my family or my friends would enjoy this beer at all. My trip home is less than a week away, so the idea of transferring all these bottles out of the fridge and back into room temp to sit and carbonate for 1 or 2 weeks was no longer an option. I looked online and saw more interesting techniques like heating up the bottles, shaking them all, wild stuff that felt too experimental to try. Eventually, I ended up biting the the bullet, and going with the only option of carbonating a beer last-minute like this I had - buying a darn keg and doing that whole thing.
So today I went out and bought a used corny. I never wanted a keg for homebrewing. I am quite content dealing with bottles. I figured if I ever got a keg, it would be for batch 10 or 15 or 20, definitely not anytime soon. But I also knew it was my only salvation in this strange circumstance, so I cleaned it out, sanitized it, watched a hundred YouTube videos on how the thing works and how to take it apart and whatnot. There was still the daunting question - how do I transfer beer out of 50 or so bottles and into the keg without A) contaminating the beer, or B) introducing all this oxygen. It would be awesome if I had solved these difficult problems in some cool or interesting way, but I ended up just dunking the head of the bottles in starsan, popping them open, and carefully pouring the beer into a funnel with a line that went into the side of the keg. Clean? Maybe. Oxygen-free? No way. But I figured since the beer would be drank within a week of getting home, and it wasn't very hoppy beer, I am cautiously optimistic that oxygen won't ruin the whole batch. Make it a bit worse, sure, but not ruin it completely. Fingers crossed.
So, after meticulously funneling 50 bottles of beer into my keg, I sealed it, set the PSI to 20, and stuck the keg and the C02 bottle into the minifridge and turned the temp down to 40f. I don't know how this story ends yet. I'm going to leave the keg at 20 PSI and check the carbonation of the beer at the 24hr mark, and again at the 36hr or 48hr mark if need be. There's still a 5 hour car ride to get through, and arriving home and getting the keg settled. But this has all been a crazy ride in my homebrew experience so far for me, and I hope the beer is decent at the end of it all. And hey, now I have this keg system. So even if this goes wrong and the beer sucks, maybe its not all bad
So the expectations were high, and again, this being my favorite style of beer, my personal expectations were also high. The brew day itself went very smoothly and I hit my OG of 1.056 - a little high for the style but that got me more excited. Into the fermenter it went for two weeks. Upon hitting the final gravity of 1.015, I transferred to secondary and began the lagering process. I slowly got it down to around 40f and held it there for about three and a half weeks. After that, I tasted it - it was delicious, smooth, malty, everything I love about Oktoberfests. I was stoked! I added my priming sugar, bottled the whole batch, and left them in cardboard boxes in my pantry.
After I waited my usual carbonation time of 4-5 days, I transferred all the bottles to my fridge to condition, and it was at that point that the critical error was made - for a 4-5 day carbonation period worked fine for my previous 4 batches, as I live in Texas and the temp in my pantry downstairs is usually around 78 or even 80 degrees 9 months out of the year. But since my downstairs area was significantly cooler this time around, with temps around 62-64f, I don't think the fermentation completed before I moved to the fridge like I thought it did.
Fast forward two or three weeks after putting the bottles in the fridge to condition. I pop one open, excitedly, and take a sip. Flat as hell. I was immediately filled with dread. Hopefully this isn't the whole batch, right? Just got unlucky with the first bottle, right? Tasted good though, and though I wouldn't do this with any other flat beer, I drank most of it. I nervously grab a second bottle out of the fridge. This would be the dealbreaker, I thought. If this one was flat too, I could safely assume the whole batch did not properly carbonate. I pop open the cap, and could barely hear any gas escaping. I took a sip. Flat.
So I've got about 50 bottles of really tasty but flat beer. No way my family or my friends would enjoy this beer at all. My trip home is less than a week away, so the idea of transferring all these bottles out of the fridge and back into room temp to sit and carbonate for 1 or 2 weeks was no longer an option. I looked online and saw more interesting techniques like heating up the bottles, shaking them all, wild stuff that felt too experimental to try. Eventually, I ended up biting the the bullet, and going with the only option of carbonating a beer last-minute like this I had - buying a darn keg and doing that whole thing.
So today I went out and bought a used corny. I never wanted a keg for homebrewing. I am quite content dealing with bottles. I figured if I ever got a keg, it would be for batch 10 or 15 or 20, definitely not anytime soon. But I also knew it was my only salvation in this strange circumstance, so I cleaned it out, sanitized it, watched a hundred YouTube videos on how the thing works and how to take it apart and whatnot. There was still the daunting question - how do I transfer beer out of 50 or so bottles and into the keg without A) contaminating the beer, or B) introducing all this oxygen. It would be awesome if I had solved these difficult problems in some cool or interesting way, but I ended up just dunking the head of the bottles in starsan, popping them open, and carefully pouring the beer into a funnel with a line that went into the side of the keg. Clean? Maybe. Oxygen-free? No way. But I figured since the beer would be drank within a week of getting home, and it wasn't very hoppy beer, I am cautiously optimistic that oxygen won't ruin the whole batch. Make it a bit worse, sure, but not ruin it completely. Fingers crossed.
So, after meticulously funneling 50 bottles of beer into my keg, I sealed it, set the PSI to 20, and stuck the keg and the C02 bottle into the minifridge and turned the temp down to 40f. I don't know how this story ends yet. I'm going to leave the keg at 20 PSI and check the carbonation of the beer at the 24hr mark, and again at the 36hr or 48hr mark if need be. There's still a 5 hour car ride to get through, and arriving home and getting the keg settled. But this has all been a crazy ride in my homebrew experience so far for me, and I hope the beer is decent at the end of it all. And hey, now I have this keg system. So even if this goes wrong and the beer sucks, maybe its not all bad
