Hot answers tagged bottle-conditioning
12
I recently had my first bottle bomb (actually 2 side-by-side) after over 10 years of brewing. The fact that they were in a cardboard box helped.
But if I were you I'd immediately:
refrigerate all bottles, and
carefully open and re-cap each one.
Never mind about planning for it to be easier to clean up. Imagine one of those shards of glass finding its ...
10
With a beer that strong, you probably should have repitched at bottling. There are several factors that the yeast must fight in this situation, including:
high alcohol strength - almost 10% ABV
cool temperature - the bottom two degrees of the yeast's fermentation range
long settling time - six weeks
There's good news, though. That strain should be able ...
10
It depends on the beer and the storage conditions. To start, the stronger and hoppier the beer, the longer it will keep. For instance, a hefeweizen won't keep as long as a barleywine. The temperature is also important. Generally, cooler is better. The main thing is to avoid excessively high (85+) temps. Avoiding temp swings helps, but it's mainly high ...
10
The caps are not perfectly smooth - they contain nucleation points, imperfections or dirt along the surface, where a bubble could form (similar to how boils are formed at nucleation points when heating water). As the cold water heats up, dissolved gasses are forced out of solution. Some of this gas dissipates, but some of it will attach to the nucleation ...
9
Green apple flavor is called Acetaldehyde. It's one of the off-flavors that can dissipate over time, though it can be caused from a bacteria that won't go away.
I would certainly wait awhile to see if the flavor dissipates.
(Sources here)
9
I think the biggest problem with one person drinking from a growler of beer (even if you want to drink the three pints yourself) is the pour and repour. Your surface area issues and estimations in releation to a normal 12 or 22oz bottle are good. However, if you poured three 4oz samples from a 12 oz bottle you'd be stirring up the yeast just as often.
To ...
8
There is only one real answer, absent any off smells or flavors and that's too many fermentables. Infections can cause gushers too, but there would be other signs.
You are either adding too much priming sugar (corn sugar, DME, what have you) or you are not letting your beers reach terminal gravity, which is the point when they go dormant due to lack of ...
8
On my first batch I had the following issue: knowing very little about brewing and even more about what "fermentable sugars" are, I primed used raw cane sugar I had first burned into caramel, for some extra taste. The result, of course, was a beer with almost no alcohol. I discussed this with more experienced home brewers and what they advised me was the ...
8
If you are sure your primed the bottles then they should most definitely carbonate. It could be a temperature issue creating sluggish yeast. What temperature are your bottles at? Get them to 70F or better and they'll start carbonating.
Put one on top of your water heater for a few days and see what happens.
EDIT: You know another great place to warm ...
8
Yeast work better at warmer temps, and at this point you want the yeast to ferment the priming and carb your beer. That means you should keep the beer around 70-75°F (21-24°C) while you're trying to carb it. Once it's carbed, putting it in the fridge will not only aid the dissolution of CO2 into the beer, but will also retard staling. At this point, your ...
7
This is one of the reasons I'm glad I keg my beer now. I had this happen a bunch of times when I used to bottle.
From what I've always heard, it is most likely due to either a.) Too much priming sugar, or b.) Too many fermentable sugars left--in other words, fermentation wasn't complete.
Another cause could be bacterial infection, but my sanitation was ...
7
Where to get the yeast is answered in your other question.
The strain doesn't much matter unless its a huge beer and is exceeding the alcohol tolerance of a neutral strain like S-05. Generally I like to use the yeast I fermented with, by keeping some from the starter or some from the trub in the primary for bottling.
I add it to the bottom of the bottling ...
7
The only beers I ever add yeast to for bottle conditioning are those big beers that sit for more than two months in secondary.
The reasons are as you stated, tired yeast and the issue of not having enough yeast in suspension. I have crash-cooled a couple of younger ales, and not had any issues in bottle carbonation. I would be interested if anyone else had ...
6
I have done the same, resulting in a couple of cracked bottles from the pressure a couple of weeks after bottling.
I loosened the caps (just barely enough to release the pressure), let them sit for a few minutes and then resealed the caps. I did this twice over a couple of weeks.
This is possibly a bit dodgy in terms of sanitisation, but I had no issues ...
6
Here are some things I've learned over the two or three years of bottling:
Use a checklist for the whole day, (clean, sanitize bottles, sanitize caps, prime, etc...)
Double check the amount of sugar you're using to prime
If available, use a workbench so you can stand comfortably
Ensure your beer is high enough above your workspace so it siphons nicely
Have ...
6
I'm having a hard time seeing how overfilling would cause a bottle bomb. Usually you're talking maybe a half-oz or an oz of difference between under- and over- filled. And over-filling wouldn't cause that much extra pressure. If you have one bottle bomb, you should expect the whole batch to be at risk.
Moreover, just waiting for the "remaining week" of ...
6
74-78F is on the warm side, so you'll want to reduce time spent at that temperature to a minimum to reduce the chance of staling reactions from affecting the beer. On the plus side, the high temperature means the yeast won't need more than 3 days to ferment the priming sugars and clean up, after which you can then chill the bottles for a few days to allow ...
5
The answer is similar to the one in this post, but the short answer is that your safest bet is force-carbonating.
The problem with bottle conditioning is that you've already killed most of your yeast, and even if you were to successfully repitch, there's really no good way to "turn off" fermentation when you reach your target carbonation.
There are also ...
5
The beer is too cold right now especially with the higher than normal alcohol of a Tripel. The high OG also suggests the yeast might just be totally worn out, and they might not me up to the task. More yeast at bottling would have been appropriate.
Just get them up to room temp for a week or so and see what happens. 70F-ish would be a good place to start.
...
5
Depending on the temperature at which you're storing it, it should be fully carbonated in 0 to 10 days. The best way to determine this is to open one up and try it and see if it's carbonated yet. If it's not yet, then give it a couple more days. Most wheat beers are not really meant for aging, so it should be pleasant/drinkable as soon as it is ...
5
You can pop one open now, and it's a good learning experience to keep drinking your beer regularly so that you can see how it develops. I know, tough life! And you'll probably find like I do that the beer is at it's peak when there's one or two bottles left.
8 days may not be enough time for all the CO2 in the headspace to dissolve back into the beer, so ...
5
The yeast settling out of the beer over time is a big help in clarifying the beer. If you leave them sitting on their side the yeast will settle there such that when you upright them in your fridge the some of the yeast will re-suspend and the beer will be cloudy. This adds a yeasty taste and also acts like a laxative.
If you must store horizontally it ...
5
One of three things:
Incomplete fermentation prior to bottling... If the beer wasn't completely done before bottling residual sugar (plus priming sugar) is over carbonating the beer.
Too much priming sugar. Re-examine how much you used. Consider that if the beer was significantly cool prior to bottling that a fair amount of CO2 would have been already ...
4
Carbonate the bottles at 60-70F like ales is fine. There is so little fermentation going on you have very little "non-lager" character contributions from the yeast carbonating at that temp.
When worrying about the temperature remember that many brewers routinely ramp up the temp for a couple days to perform a diacetyl rest and that temp bump doesn't harm ...
4
I think trying to reseal caps results in leaky seals. If you drink them fast enough maybe you don't notice that over time they lose their carbonation to an extent.
I'd plan on carefully monitoring the carb level by sampling the beers each day. Then just store them in a cold fridge to stop the process. Seeing how it seems like a small batch fridge space ...
4
I believe Little Creatures filter and re-inoculate with a lager strain - keeping the total yeast count very low will help in minimising the sediment. I'm not sure how easy it would be to do at home - assuming you can filter, you'd need to accurately measure an exact quantity of very healthy yeast. You'd probably need to use trial and error and be prepared ...
4
I haven't bottled for a while now, so this is just some thoughts. Others, I am sure, will have helpful advice.
My first thought is that you are under-priming. Make sure you are adding the right amount of priming sugar. Too much and you risk a blow-out, too little and low carbonation. I can't recall the best quantity at the moment but if you can add it to ...
4
The hop bitterness will decrease somewhat as the beer ages and will also smooth out to a degree. The dryer the beer is the more the bitterness is going to come through because there isn't much sweetness to balance the bitterness. There isn't much you can do with the beer at this point other than possibly blending it with a less hoppy or sweeter beer before ...
4
How would you describe the off flavor?
Most likely scenario is that the beer picked up an infection somewhere between primary and the keg. Maybe you've got something funky growing in your lagering fridge? In the jumper hose? The keg itself?
I'd suggest replacing all the beer line, and sanitizing anything you get bleach on.
4
One possibility is uneven blending of the beer and priming sugar solution. Did you mix the sugar/water solution yourself, or just let it mix naturally from the beer being racked on top? Depending upon how viscous it is, it can sit at the bottom of the fermenting bucket even though the beer is swirling. This means you end up with some bottles undercarbonated, ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
