Oh crap, What did I do...

Well, I may have screwed this batch up. I made a light ale with 6# LME and 1 - 1/2 Lbs grains and fermented it for 21 days. I wanted to make a strawberry blonde, so I put a can of strawberry wine starter (Whole and cut strawberries in juice) on the bottom of the secondary and racked the beer onto them. Now, I was told that the berries will have sugars, so I needed to continue the ferment in the secondary. The advice I got was to aerate the beer as it went in, so I used a funnel and let the beer swirl down the funnel and drop onto the berries. Of course this added air. The second spot of advice I got was that to help "clear" the beer, I needed to be careful not to pull the sediment from the bottom of the primary when I racked. So, as I racked the beer to the secondary, I limited the particulates from hops from transferring by keeping my transfer tube off the bottom 2 - 3 inches of the primary. I have let this sit for 1 week in the secondary so far.

Now, I begin reading here on HBT, that I may have oxidized the beer, and not transferred any of the dormant yeast. I have what looks like foam on the top of the secondary, but it is also a lot of berries and "pulp" so I am not sure of the fermentation. My goal was 2 weeks in the secondary and bottle. If I didn't get enough yeast, will it carbonate at all?

Anyone have any thoughts on this? If I did oxidize the beer, what will that do?

Kurt

you will be fine on the priming...I had beer sit an entire year...and primed fine with out needing any extra yeast....I personall believe its really hard to oxidize your beer especially in the early stages...I think you will be fine

There is a chance you oxidized your beer. Don't dump it though, beer is very forgiving. There is still yeast in suspension, don't worry about it carbing. Also, prior to bottling make sure you have a consistent gravity reading for 3 days in a row. You don't want your beer to continue fermenting in the bottle!

Weizer said:

There is a chance you oxidized your beer. Don't dump it though, beer is very forgiving. There is still yeast in suspension, don't worry about it carbing. Also, prior to bottling make sure you have a consistent gravity reading for 3 days in a row. You don't want your beer to continue fermenting in the bottle!

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This ^^^^^^ And see the Succulent Strawberry Blonde recipe or if you did all grain, see the Wild Strawberry Blonde recipe.

Yeah you oxidized it. You should never introduce oxygen after primary fermentation has started up. But I have a feeling that if it gets consumed within 2 months of the bottle carb'd date, you should be okay.

As to the second part, you should have plenty of yeast in what was transferred. I have never needed to take yeast from the bottom of the primary into secondary for bottle conditioning purposes.

Thanks for the quick responses. I wrote this thread and then began reading the thread from WildGinger on his strawberry all grain and Blueline's extract version. Or was it Bluelines extract that WildGinger modified to all grain that Blueline then re-modified??? LOL. Tons of great stuff there. Thank you all for the great advice. I guess I am still too new. But ya gotta experiment to learn, right?

Kurt

You will be fine. With the yeast waking up again to eat the berries sugar, they will also use of most of the oxygen you introduced.

Dont do it again though!

northernltz said:

Thanks for the quick responses. I wrote this thread and then began reading the thread from WildGinger on his strawberry all grain and Blueline's extract version. Or was it Bluelines extract that WildGinger modified to all grain that Blueline then re-modified??? LOL. Tons of great stuff there. Thank you all for the great advice. I guess I am still too new. But ya gotta experiment to learn, right?

Kurt

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Close enough. Now go brew it!

Well, thank goodness, the beer has turned out great. It is only 2 1/2 weeks old (since bottling) and the one I tried was real nice. It has a great strawberry aroma and just a slight berry taste. Real great beer. Damn, if I only knew I would have taken better notes how I did it. Oh yeah, I did it wrong, thats why I started this forum. Thank you to all who calmed my nerves and kept me from pouring it all out. What a waste that would have been.

Kurt

northernltz said:

Well, thank goodness, the beer has turned out great. It is only 2 1/2 weeks old (since bottling) and the one I tried was real nice. It has a great strawberry aroma and just a slight berry taste. Real great beer. Damn, if I only knew I would have taken better notes how I did it. Oh yeah, I did it wrong, thats why I started this forum. Thank you to all who calmed my nerves and kept me from pouring it all out. What a waste that would have been.

Kurt

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Never, ever dump a beer.

Drink it quickly, before any oxidation has a chance to affect it. Good beer for summer, anyhow.

Glad it tastes good!