What happens if...

[Grüner Brauer]

what happens if a beer is not done fermenting and it is primed and bottled?

 

[Reverend JC]

I imagine you will have a very sweet beer.

 

[Brewsmith]

You can get exploding bottles.

 

[todd_k]

Yeah, bottle bombs that will throw sweet beer everywhere.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

great... i was reluctant to bottle but i followed the direction of my homebrew supplier, who said "you will want to bottle After the third at most fourth day" he said this was a fast fermenting yeast. he also said 7-10 days then move to the fridge.

 

[Brewsmith]

Not to mention cause some pretty wicked lacerations that you can rinse off with the sweet beer.

 

[Brewsmith]

Always wait until the primaty fermentation is complete before doing anything with it, bottling or racking to a secondary. Also, after bottling, they can take longer than 2 weeks to carbonate.

In your case, I would open one after a week. If it foams up a bunch, then you're potentially in trouble. I'd just barely open each bottle to relieve the pressure and then re-cap them, and check again in a few days.

 

[todd_k]

great... i was reluctant to bottle but i followed the direction of my homebrew supplier, who said "you will want to bottle After the third at most fourth day" he said this was a fast fermenting yeast. he also said 7-10 days then move to the fridge.

He's right about the 7-10 days. I would definitely keep an eye on them, pop one open every day or so to see how it's carbonating. Putting it in the fridge will kill the yeast and prevent anymore unwanted carbonation.
I would think your beer would taste a little odd with all the extra yeast in it but hopefully I'm wrong, I've never had to deal with this sort of problem. Your LHBS must know something that I don't.

 

[Brewsmith]

great... i was reluctant to bottle but i followed the direction of my homebrew supplier, who said "you will want to bottle After the third at most fourth day" he said this was a fast fermenting yeast. he also said 7-10 days then move to the fridge.

Where is that guy at? That's not good advice at all. Fermentation times depend on the yeast, fermentation temp, starting orignal gravity, health of the yeast and a bunch of other stuff.

What yeast did you use?

 

[Grüner Brauer]

thanks for the help, can i potentially save the batch by doing that?

 

[Grüner Brauer]

please excuse my greeness, the yeast was in a blue pouch (dry) it was made in france, and it was an english ale yeast.

 

[Brewsmith]

Yeah. If you notice the pressure getting too high, the fridge will slow down the yeast activity, but not completely stop it. It will buy you more time, though. If they are way overcarbonated, do the vent and recap thing.

I don't want to completely scare you because there is a chance that everything is fine. It's not completely unheard of for the beer to be done fermenting after 3 days. My stout went in on last friday night and there was no airlock activity as of yesterday, basically 4 days, but I'm still letting it sit in the primary of at least a week.

 

[Brewsmith]

Sounds like Safale S-04.

I just used that one in the one gallon I have going that will be my malt vinegar.

 

[Brewsmith]

When you bottled was there still krausen floating on top of the beer, or was everything pretty still.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

there was activity in the airlock, and that made me think i should wait, I bottled anyway tuesday so i should check a bottle on next tuesday? the bottles are at 61 degrees now.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

the krausen was gone, just small brown blotches on surface.

 

[Brewsmith]

I'd check a little sooner than that, this weekend some time. If the krausen was gone, it was probably getting close to being done. At 61 they shouldn't carb up too fast, but that's good in this case. Check them this weekend.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

will do , thanks brewsmith i feel somewhat relieved now, is that a tuba or a euphonium in your pic?

 

[Brewsmith]

That is a pic of a tuba. One of the several instruments that I play. I've got orchestra rehearsal in about an hour...

 

[Beodude123]

Leave it in the fermenting bucket for a good two weeks. Seems to be the norm for people around here...

Then you will want to leave it in the bottle for at least two weeks. Longer won't really hurt it either way.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

thanks for the tips, i'll keep you posted

 

[Brewsmith]

And no problem on the help, that's why we're here. And we were all new once and had a ton of questions. If I had found this board when I was first starting a few years ago I would have had all kinds of beginner questions. My advice for all new brewers is to just be patient. The books and other literature out there can make you thing that time is against you and that you have to get your beer out of the primary as soon as it's done. The problem with that is that people over-react and give themselves a whole new set of problems. An extra few days or a week will not hurt, and in most cases will only make better beer.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

I must admit that this foul up was my mistake, my LHBS said to RACK to secondary fermenter on fourth day, not bottle. so i must apologize. anyway i opened a beer and it foamed a little but not that much. so i moved all of it to the fridge to let it finish, it also tasted good.

 

[the_bird]

See, that's even too soon, IMO, to rack to secondary. Give it a full week before racking, there is no reason to move it sooner and plenty of reasons to leave it along.

1-2-3 (1 week in primary, 2 in secondary, 3 in bottles) really is the best approach for most beers.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

lesson learned, im just glad i could salvage it (unless it blows up in the fridge)

 

[skou]

Bring a bottle back in, Saturday or Monday. We'll taste it, and see if it is going good.

It was nice meeting you today. (Oh, I'm Steve, from the LHBS.)

steve

 

[Grüner Brauer]

cool, ill stop by with a bottle,thanks for the support. my brew is actually drinkable this young, but i can tell it needs something, time most likely. im going to brew the dangerous belgian tomorrow.

 

[Orfy]

Hope, you get it sorted. TOP TIP: buy a hydrometer while you're there and you'll never make this mistake again.

 

[Grüner Brauer]

i just popped open another one, no foam at all, the beer is very carbonated however. the hydometer reading is around 1.015 @ 65 degrees. should i just age in the fridge (@38 degrees) for a few weeks?

 

[JohnnyK68]

You can place all the bottles in a big cooler and leave them where they are for a while. If they blow, at least they will be in a cooler and will be less of a mess to clean up.