Saving potentially infected beer

[eigua]

I just screwed up my first HG brew (1.080) which has been fermenting for a month. I was checking for bubbling today when I noticed my blow off tube had water filling half-way up the tube. (Some kind of pressure/temperature change I'm guessing, but I haven't noticed any significant temp changes...)

In an attempt to let the liquid go back into the blow off bottle, I lifted the tube slowly to get it out of the water, but instead of the liquid running out, it got sucked back into the primary!

The liquid in the blow off bottle was tap water, but it's been sitting there for a month or so and has some junk in it, probably blow off from the fermentation plus who knows what else has grown in there the last month.

What are my options for saving this?

I've considered:
1. Do nothing and proceed as if nothing happened.
2. Bulk pasteurizing in a closed container (to prevent loss of alcohol to evaporation). (This is a 1G batch, so I'd have to split it into 2 batches and pasteurize them separately so I'd have enough airspace to allow for pressure I think).
3. Add potassium metabisulfite and repitch yeast when carbonating.

Are there any other options? Of my options, which do you think would be least likely to ruin the taste?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Build]

What's your current gravity and expected FG? I would think that most of the fermentation was over in the first week. I don't know your recipe but am guessing that you're going for something in the 9-10% range? If it has finished and you have that much alcohol you're probably ok.

 

[Lazer Wolf Brewing]

What Build said. Probably will have no effect whatsoever, depending on where you are in the fermentation. How many days since active fermentation started when this happened?

 

[eigua]

What's your current gravity and expected FG? I would think that most of the fermentation was over in the first week. I don't know your recipe but am guessing that you're going for something in the 9-10% range? If it has finished and you have that much alcohol you're probably ok.

I hadn't checked. Did now. Current: 1.030. Expected: 1.020. I calculate it's around 6.5% now. Looks like fermentation got stuck. Guess this beer's a total bust in more ways than one.

Thanks for the help!

 

[eigua]

What Build said. Probably will have no effect whatsoever, depending on where you are in the fermentation. How many days since active fermentation started when this happened?

It's near a month since I put it in the primary. It took only 1 day before fermentation started.

 

[Build]

If you'd like to try to save it, gently swirl the carboy to get the yeast back into suspension, raise the temperature to the upper end of the yeast's range, and see if it starts up again. Check gravity in 2-3 days and see where you are. Good luck with it.

 

[eigua]

If you'd like to try to save it, gently swirl the carboy to get the yeast back into suspension, raise the temperature to the upper end of the yeast's range, and see if it starts up again. Check gravity in 2-3 days and see where you are. Good luck with it.

Thanks!

I'm treating this as a lost batch, and there was an experiment I have been wanting to try out anyway. I've read about using amylase enzyme to help with stuck fermentations, but I haven't been able to get a small bottle of the enzyme from my LHBS (they only have a giant $15 bag). Instead of that, I added two capsules of Source Naturals Daily Essential Enzymes, which I have already. They each contain 630 FCC of alpha-amylase and 2 FCC of amyloglucosidase along with protease, lipase, cellulase, lactase, and more.

Along with the enzymes, I topped off with some water mixed with a few tsp of sucrose because my level was too low after massive blow off because of protein? globs that formed during the boil. I also mixed in about 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get the whole yeast cake back into suspension or just the top-most layer, so I did the latter.

This will be fun to watch...

 

[eigua]

24 hours later and there are no new bubbles or activity of any kind. Most of the yeast has settled out again. Now I added more enzymes and shook the heck out of the bottle to get all the yeast cake back in suspension...

 

[eigua]

Another 24 hours have passed with no activity. I swirled again and heated the fermenter up to a slightly warm temp. Nothing. I'm guessing the yeast is dead because I added sucrose a few days ago and there has been no activity. Even if the LME somehow left that much unfermentable sugars, the sucrose should have been consumed. Either that or my OG reading was not correct at 1.080 and the yeast hit its alc limit already. I don't have any other beer yeast, so the only thing I could do is toss in wine or champagne yeast. I suppose this brew is beyond FUBAR already so what do I have to lose?

 

[Build]

Have you smelled or tasted it? What kind of yeast did you use? There should be some activity even if you are in the upper abv range. If you're now at 1.030, you would have to had a true OG in the 1.120+ range for you to be out of most ale yeast range. That's a huge brew. What was your recipe?

 

[Yooper]

Check your hydrometer in plain water to make sure that it's reading correctly.

If you're using a refractometer, toss it aside for the FG reading and grab a hydrometer reading.

Depending on ingredients, say with a lot of dark grains and/or lactose, 1.030 may be as low as it will go so knowing the recipe is really important in trying to diagnose the problem.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I mentioned adding a wine yeast on another section of HBT and was swiftly reminded of how wine yeast are killer yeast that favor more simple sugars which are mostly depleted.

From what I understand If the wine yeast doesn't work you'll likely kill off your beer yeast and will be left with nothing to ferment out.

When you are adding enzymes be aware that the acceptable level of bacteria in some of those is beyond what some of us would prefer in our homebrew.

 

[ncbrewer]

Either that or my OG reading was not correct at 1.080

If you're not sure about the OG reading, you can calculate OG pretty accurately by knowing the amount of LME and the volume. Most LME is in the range of 34 - 37 ppg (points per pound per gallon) - you can normally find the value for your particular extract. If you steeped specialty grains, you would have to add in the approximate points, but this is relatively small, so the final calculation is pretty accurate.

 

[eigua]

If you're not sure about the OG reading, you can calculate OG pretty accurately by knowing the amount of LME and the volume. Most LME is in the range of 34 - 37 ppg (points per pound per gallon) - you can normally find the value for your particular extract. If you steeped specialty grains, you would have to add in the approximate points, but this is relatively small, so the final calculation is pretty accurate.

Thanks for the tip!

I know my OG reading of 1.080 was correct, but it was taken before boiling. I did a full 1-hour boil with the extract for hop bittering, but during the boil a huge amount of globules formed in the boil (I'm assuming protein coagulation). Essentially the brew was glob stew at that point. When I took a reading after boiling, it read 1.100, but I chalked that up to the crazy amount of solids in the liquid. I suppose boiling could have reduced the liquid amount enough to cause an increase in SG (I believe I boiled with lid on), but I didn't trust the 1.100 reading because of all the solid globs. If I were to recalculate my brew using the 1.100 figure, I would be at 9.2% which might exceeded the alcohol tolerance of S04.

I don't know the exact amount of LME I used -- I bought close to 3 lbs, but I used some for an experiment I did trying to make an unfermented malt drink. I'd estimate I used just under 2.5 lbs, which when using this calculator comes out about 1.080 (1G batch). I didn't use any grain or adjuncts.

So yeah. This brew was too off-the-cuff and not carefully measured to really analyze what went wrong at this point. After trying so hard to get fermentation going again and failing, I don't think it's going to happen with S04 alone which means no carbonation.

Also, I knew the "recipe" would be bland and/or boring, but I basically just wanted to get a feel for what pure LME would taste like. I guess it's sort of like doing a SMASH brew.

 

[eigua]

Check your hydrometer in plain water to make sure that it's reading correctly.

If you're using a refractometer, toss it aside for the FG reading and grab a hydrometer reading.

Depending on ingredients, say with a lot of dark grains and/or lactose, 1.030 may be as low as it will go so knowing the recipe is really important in trying to diagnose the problem.

I've calibrated my hydrometer before and it's accurate... But I just broke it last night!

My recipe was nothing but pure LME (amber I'm guessing), so there shouldn't be too many non-fermentables. I did boil it, which may have darkened it some though. Still, I would think the yeast would wake up to eat the sucrose and water I added, which leads me to believe this is an ABV issue.

 

[eigua]

I mentioned adding a wine yeast on another section of HBT and was swiftly reminded of how wine yeast are killer yeast that favor more simple sugars which are mostly depleted.

From what I understand If the wine yeast doesn't work you'll likely kill off your beer yeast and will be left with nothing to ferment out.

When you are adding enzymes be aware that the acceptable level of bacteria in some of those is beyond what some of us would prefer in our homebrew.

Good to know about bacteria in enzymes! Thanks. I wonder if this would apply to yeast nutrient, pectic enzymes, and other additives as well.

I suppose at this point as long as the wine yeast eats the sucrose and carbonates I'll be happy. I ruined this batch a long time ago, but I still want to bottle it and try it at some point. I'm not sure if wine yeast will survive pitching now with the possible ABV level, but I'll give it a shot. I'll let it ferment out to whatever level they can get it to (assuming it works), then add a sucrose again at bottling.

Thanks everyone for the help and ideas!

 

[eigua]

Well it took several days but the Cote des Blancs did take and is happily bubbling away now. This is going to be one... er... interesting brew I think.

Edit: It's now June 6th and it's still bubbling...

 

[eigua]

September 19th and it's STILL bubbling (very slowly)

 

[KepowOb]

Bubbling at this stage might be anything from pressure changes to some off gassing. Take a hydrometer reading.

 

[eigua]

Bubbling at this stage might be anything from pressure changes to some off gassing. Take a hydrometer reading.

It's a consistent but slow bubbling from the bottom. This kind of absurdly long fermentation is nothing unusual for this yeast I'm using (2nd or 3rd generation). I had a batch of ginger beer bubbling for 5 months before it finally stopped. In addition, I added quite a bit of amylase enzyme and some digestive enzyme pills to it a while back which may still be converting more complex sugars for the yeast.

 

[eigua]

It finally finished and I bottled today, almost exactly 6 months from start to finish. FG was 1.010, so the Cote des Blancs did work afterall. Taste was interesting. I'll have to wait until it's all carbed for a final verdict, but I think it turned out better than I expected.

 

[eigua]

Update: Tried it for the first time just now just over 4 months after bottling and just over 10 months after it was started.

As I take a sip I think of... beef broth. Mmm... Er. From what I've read, this is the flavor of autolysis. Marmite, vegemite, beef bouillon, umami, etc. I don't hate it, but it's not beer. Seems like it would make a darn good stock for stew.

As with my 5 or 6 other things I bottle carbed last year, there's barely any carbonation.

Ahh well. 4 of 4 failed beers in the last 6-7 years. Simple fruit wine/mead is a whole (whole!) lot easier.