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Author Topic: left it in the primary for 60 days  (Read 2895 times)

Offline Al Equihua

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left it in the primary for 60 days
« on: January 04, 2013, 01:27:24 pm »
For personal reasons, i could'nt have the time to bottle a Pumpkin Ale i made several weeks ago that was store in outdoors light hidden with a cool temperature, usually i dont use a secondary for any of my beers,so bottle it a month ago, and this was the results:
Super clear beer.- When i siphoned the beer to the bottled bucket it was no disturbance at all of the bottom, it was very stuck!
No off flavors, the pumpkin vegetable flavor and aroma with spices at end of boiling was the same at the begining and end of the process, maybe the extra bittering i add help with this in flavor.
at least the 60 percent of the bottles was not properly carbonated, just a little of CO2 but sweet,
i was confused about the possible reasons of this, so i figure out: didnt add enough corn sugar at bottle time, didn't put the caps properly,bottle cellaring temperature was too cool but at the end i figure that it was have the enough amount remaining of yeast to make the fermentation process in the bottle,. what do you think?
i follow my method of bottling for two years now i never have this kind of problem

by the way... happy Christmas and Happy New Year, and Feliz Dia de Reyes almost! :D
PD, next time (i hope not) i'll add some yeast
Al
« Last Edit: January 04, 2013, 01:31:19 pm by Al Equihua »
Al Equihua

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2013, 01:44:14 pm »
It sounds like you are correct. Just too much yeast had dropped out and there wasn't enough in the bottles to finish the job.

I say this because you say the undercarbed bottles tasted sweet. You might be able to salvage any that's left by opening each bottle and adding a tiny amount of yeast.

re-hydrate .5 packets of dry yeast and use a syringe to add a couple ml to each bottle then recap and wait.
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Offline amh0001

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2013, 01:47:31 pm »
Hello there!

I'm glad the beer tastes good. Did you add the same amount of sugar you always add? Also did you give the bottling bucket a little stir to distribute the sugar?

Instead of risking re opening the bottles and trying to add yeast, I would just let it age at room temps. I had beers that were under carbonated and approximately 6 months later they were a little better (still low though).

EDIT* I just saw morticai's post. I have never tried re adding yeast after bottling, but if he has done it with success you might want to try it!

Good luck to ya!
« Last Edit: January 04, 2013, 01:49:17 pm by amh0001 »

Offline Al Equihua

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2013, 01:54:36 pm »
thanks for responding,
good idea of adding yeast and recap again, i will tried that morticaixavier

and yes amh0001, while siphining i stir a little bit to make sure have the sugar is properly mix with the beer

i learned the lesson, thats for sure!
Al Equihua

Offline anje

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2013, 10:03:04 am »
Do check to see if you have any sediment on the bottom of your bottles. When I've had bottles that don't seem to want to carbonate well, I've had good luck with inverting each bottle once or twice and raising the room temperature a little bit. If you don't have the yeast there, it won't help of course, but I've had a couple incidents with a cool-ish room and lazy flocculant yeast that just need a wakeup stir.
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Offline Al Equihua

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2013, 10:32:15 am »
in fact there's a sediment in the bottles, i''ll save a bottle to do that, and i hope works fine... there's not much of the batch remaining anyway,

cheers and thanks
Al
Al Equihua

Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2013, 07:53:35 am »
If it was outdoors and there was some temperature swings between night and day it could have caused some CO2 to vent out of the beer so you ended up with less CO2 in solution than priming calculators tend to assume.
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Offline Al Equihua

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Re: left it in the primary for 60 days
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2013, 06:10:29 pm »
never thought of that, it might be!!
Al Equihua