Tough decision - emptied bottles back into fermentor

[cadarnell]

Actually the mild (04 yeast) I am drinking right now started at 42 and ended at 14 .... it was supposed to go all the way to 10 with 04 ... but 14 it was .... the beer isn't really sweet to me though ... in fact its very good ... only 21 ibus too .... id go ahead and rebottle the stuff you poured back ... it will probably still be highly drinkable stuff in a few weeks .... cheers

 

[Dynachrome]

I messed up my bottling sugar once. I put in 3 times the required amount. After a couple bottles exploded, I uncapped and poured them back into a stainless steel pot to finish fermenting.

Now if I think bottles might explode, I place them in a Rubbermaid container to catch the mess.

Have you enough extra bottles? Bottle it and wait a few weeks. If it is skunky, pour it. If it's too sweet for your taste but good beer - find a friend who likes it to empty the bottles for you.

I'm doing another one "free style" right now.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/what-i-thinking-165148/

If you dump it, there is no salvation. If you give it a chance, you may find redemption.

;-)

 

[aidan]

I bottled it up last night after letting it sit for 6 extra days. The FG had dropped to 1.016 and it lost some of the excessive sweetness. An interesting thing to note is the beer seemed like it had some carbonation, or was a bit fizzy. I noticed when I poured in the priming sugar that it was fizzing in the fermenter. I've never seen that before. I wonder if it was the yeast still active or could it be something to do with oxidation?

Aside from being a bit too sweet is still tasted fine, how long have I got before the oxidation ruins it?

 

[DonutMuncher]

I messed up my bottling sugar once. I put in 3 times the required amount. After a couple bottles exploded, I uncapped and poured them back into a stainless steel pot to finish fermenting.

;-)

I'm curious, did your beer end up tasting like it was oxidized when you finally finished fermenting and re-bottled? Did you try to drink them fast?

 

[Dan]

OP,

For homebrewers Oxygen and homebrewing is sort of catch 22. Seems like we can never get enough O2 into the wort to successfully support our little yeast buddies reproduction (but somehow we do) and we are seriously afraid of introducing O2 in one way or another after the wort has turned into beer.


Best of luck to you and your beer. Patiently awaiting the results. I hope for you and all of us the beer turns out great!

 

[Revvy]

Maybe so, but right now I'm completely puzzled by how it could stop at 1.020, it's not a high gravity beer to start with (OG 1.053) and is mostly malt extract with a small amount of steeped grain so there shouldn't be that much unfermentable sugars in it:

Because in the creating, and boiling (carmalizing) of the extract, non fermentable sugars are created to an extent. And then boiling extract again during brewing causes some more carmalization, and that is what lingers as unfermentables. That's why for example if you want a more pronounced honey or brown sugar taste in a beer, you use the darkest color possible, same with using candi sugars, the clearer the sugars, the higher the fermentabilty, but what lingers in terms of flavor is actually un or less fermentable than it's clear counterparts.

This seems more pronounced in using liquid extracts, especially darker ones.

We call it the 1.020 curse. It's one of the most common issues where extract brewers are concerned.

I've found it less an issue with using dry extract, and especially basing your recipes on extralight dme, and getting your color and flavors from steeping grains.

Additionally some malt "BLENDS" are made with some un or less fermentable grains in there, like carapils, which is meant to give you more body...more body is from the presence of unfermentable sugars.

 

[aidan]

Because in the creating, and boiling (carmalizing) of the extract, non fermentable sugars are created to an extent. And then boiling extract again during brewing causes some more carmalization, and that is what lingers as unfermentables. That's why for example if you want a more pronounced honey or brown sugar taste in a beer, you use the darkest color possible, same with using candi sugars, the clearer the sugars, the higher the fermentabilty, but what lingers in terms of flavor is actually un or less fermentable than it's clear counterparts.

This seems more pronounced in using liquid extracts, especially darker ones.

We call it the 1.020 curse. It's one of the most common issues where extract brewers are concerned.

I've found it less an issue with using dry extract, and especially basing your recipes on extralight dme, and getting your color and flavors from steeping grains.

Additionally some malt "BLENDS" are made with some un or less fermentable grains in there, like carapils, which is meant to give you more body...more body is from the presence of unfermentable sugars.

Until this time I haven't had any problem getting down to target FG brewing with light LME. I think the big difference factor here was the yeast, my first time using S04 instead of my usual US05. I've learned that S04 does not attenuate as well and is more suceptable to temp fluctuations. This was brewed an my second fermentor which does not have a temp strip so I was operation a bit blind on temp so it's possible temp could have swung a bit low and affected the performance of the yeast and then I may have cold crashed a bit too early (having assumed it was done instead of checking SG). Anyway the FG did drop down to 1.016 by bottling time so it does seem like there were still some fermentable sugars left. My question now is how long have I got before oxidation makes it undrinkable?

 

[ncbrewer]

I bottled it up last night after letting it sit for 6 extra days. The FG had dropped to 1.016 and it lost some of the excessive sweetness.

This beer had already been at 1.019 for three days. Then it dropped to 1.016 after another three days. If it had been bottled at 1.019, as is standard practice, this would have been badly overcarbonated (maybe even bottle bombs?). That makes me wonder about standard practice, although I don’t have any better ideas.

 

[Dynachrome]

I'm curious, did your beer end up tasting like it was oxidized when you finally finished fermenting and re-bottled? Did you try to drink them fast?

No, I did not notice any oxidized flavor in that batch. There is a link in the post above. Also, I drank it at a rather slow pace and it seemed like it improved with age as I normally seem to find.

It was light colored, dry and a tad on the fizzy side. I noted that it reminded me personally of Budweiser.

I currently have one fermentor that I just bottled which I think may have sat in my primitive 5 gallon buckets too long without CO2 production to keep the air out. It tasted oxidized maybe. It is a slightly darkened wheat.

I'm thinking about pouring it back into a bucket and seeing if re-fermenting might fix it. I'll let it condition first to see if that helps.

 

[aidan]

Update: I drank some of this batch this weekend and so far it's fine. Not the best batch I've brewed but still totally drinkable and nothing wierd or funky about it at this point (1 week after bottling). I had a sample of the stuff I bottled a week earlier and it was definately much sweeter. The beer I threw back in the fermenter is not as sweet and tastes better to me. So my conclusion is that the beer was not finished at 1.020. It may not even have been finished at the 1.016 that I bottled it at either but hopefully that's low enough so not to have any bottle bombs. I reckon why the gravity didn't budge much in the first few days after throwing it back in the fermenter is because the yeast was still recovering from the premature cold crash. In any case it will teach me to not get complacent about checking SG prior to cold crashing or bottling.

 

[aidan]

I've had a few more bottles, in fact I've been drinking some of this everyday and you know what, it's actually quite good. I've being expecting some bad flavours from oxidation but I can't find anything off about it. Did I just luck out or has the oxidation problem yet to kick in? and if so, how long have I got to finish it?

 

[Dynachrome]

In my humble opinion, if you don't have oxidation yet, you are not going to get it.

Mine are still "green". They need to bottle condition for about four weeks - longer for heavier beers. The one I tried ahd promise though.

 

[beerman0001]

I've had a few more bottles, in fact I've been drinking some of this everyday and you know what, it's actually quite good. I've being expecting some bad flavor's from oxidation but I can't find anything off about it. Did I just luck out or has the oxidation problem yet to kick in? and if so, how long have I got to finish it?

Most likely it is there and you cannot taste it yet, Over time it will be more prevalent.

 

[aidan]

Most likely it is there and you cannot taste it yet, Over time it will be more prevalent.

How long do you think I've I got to finish it? are we talking weeks or months?

 

[usfmikeb]

If you can't taste it yet, then finish drinking that batch quickly.

 

[Dynachrome]

Stash a couple bottles away and open them in six months if you can afford it.

 

[Shaneoco1981]

If you poured you beer back in the fermentor, you more than likely oxydized your beer..

Next time, maybe you want to solicit help or ideas from here, BEFORE you do something that more than likely is going to be worse than had you left it alone.

You misjudged the sweeteness. More than likely had you let the beer carb and condition, it would have been prfectly fine...you really can't just what a beer is supposed to taste like until it's actually done.

There's nothign wrong with bottling a beer at 1.019, or any gravity, if the beer was actually done. If a beer is finished fermenting, meaning all the unfermentable sugars have gone, then that's it, the beer is finished. Nothing will happen if you add more yeast, the beer is done.

Your beer was more than likely perfectly fine, despite your panic/knee jerk reaction, but now it might not be......Next time be less hasty to do something so drastic.

I definitely agree with Revvy. The beer will continue to age after it is bottled. Ask people what they think. Whenever I add priming sugar, it always tastes unusually sweet. It was fine. Don't rush without asking help. Pouring beer back into fermenter should be a LAST RESORT!!!!

 

[Dynachrome]

Stash a couple bottles away and open them in six months if you can afford it.

....two years later. Report?

 

[Dynachrome]

I poured a batch back into the fermenter. I had bottle bombs going on. I don't think it was finished.

I added more sugar and waited for the yeast to finish. Then I bottled a second time.

Active yeast withe added sugar will eat up the oxygen and make a new layer of carbon dioxide.

I think I picked a mild infection which imparted banana, but it was good beer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/what-was-i-thinking.165148/