Bottling before hitting FG

[branCHEs]

I brewed an 6 gal Oatmeal Stout on 1/19/13

11 English Maris otter
1.85 lbs flaked oats
1 Belgian special b
.85Franco-belges kiln coffee malt
1 English chocolate malt
.5 English black malt

Boil time and additions

60 min 1 oz nugget pellet hops
30 min .5 oz willamette pellet hops
0 min .5 oz willamette pellet hops

Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.019

I went too bottle yesterday and the first thing I did was sanitize the bottles then I checked the gravity (rookie mistake) It was at 1.029 - 10 points higher then the recipe calculator. I was impatient and bottled anyway. I only used 2.5 oz of priming sugar instead of 5 oz.

What are the chances I'm looking at exploding bottles?

 

[Double_D]

What was the final gravity when you bottled? How do you know it wasn't done? Did you check it with a hydrometer?

 

[branCHEs]

I didn't get any takers the first time around so I'm replying in hopes of getting it back in the rotation.

 

[krenshaw]

it could happen, though if they are already bottled just put them somewhere that you won't mind any explosions for the next couple weeks

 

[GrogNerd]

I brewed an 6 gal Oatmeal Stout on 1/19/13

11 English Maris otter
1.85 lbs flaked oats
1 Belgian special b
.85Franco-belges kiln coffee malt
1 English chocolate malt
.5 English black malt

Boil time and additions

60 min 1 oz nugget pellet hops
30 min .5 oz willamette pellet hops
0 min .5 oz willamette pellet hops

Estimated OG: 1.069
Estimated FG: 1.019

I went too bottle yesterday and the first thing I did was sanitize the bottles then I checked the gravity (rookie mistake) It was at 1.029 - 10 points higher then the recipe calculator. I was impatient and bottled anyway. I only used 2.5 oz of priming sugar instead of 5 oz.

What are the chances I'm looking at exploding bottles?

43 days in primary? little chance of bottle bombs. keep them in a bathtub, or rubbermaid container or cover them with a blanket, just in case

 

[sweetcell]

did you hit your OG? maybe your numbers are high all around...

it's pretty much impossible to tell if you'll have bombs or not. maybe your beer was truly finished at 1.029, maybe it wasn't. after 6 weeks you would think that FG has been reached, however it's possible that the rousing & oxygenation that occurred during bottling, along with the priming sugar, could have kick-started the yeast again. cutting back on the sugar was a safe move. stout typically don't have much carbonation anyways.

your best strategy at this point it to store the bottles in a container that will limit bomb impact: cardboard box lined with garbage bag, plastic tote, etc. monitor the carb levels by testing (opening) one every now and then. if the carb levels start getting too high, store the beers cold - fridge, unheated garage, etc. that will cause the yeast to settle down and stop the production of CO2.

did you calculate 5 oz of priming sugar, or were you adding that because the recipe said so or that is your habit? if the latter, i would suggest that you use an online priming calculator like http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/ to figure out how much sugar to use and then weigh it.

 

[sweetcell]

<dubbel post>

 

[slarkin712]

If all the units for your grains on the recipe are pounds, then you have 3.35 lbs of crystal/roasted malts. That is a lot of malt with mostly unfermentable sugars. So, an FG 1.029 could be expected. As a back of envelope calculation:
gravity from crystal/roasted malts = 3.35*35/6 ~= 20 gravity points. Those points are nearly all unfermentable, so if your yeast attenuation was 100% of fermentables the lowest FG you could get would be 1.020. Being more realistic, let's say your yeast gets 80% attenuation. Then the remaining fermentable gravity points (1.069-1.020 = 49 points) would be fermented down by 39 points. This would leave you with 10 points from the fermentables and 20 points for the non-fermentables, which would give you an FG of 1.030. Basically you got a reasonable FG considering your grain bill. No need to worry about bottle bombs.

 

[branCHEs]

I think I am going to bag everything just to be safe.


sweetcell - I did use a carbonation calculator found here http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html. I went on the light side of carbonation for the stout style to be safe.

slarkin - I thought that I read somewhere a month or two ago about having too much crystal malt and how it affects fermentation. I think it was someone who was replying to my post on recipe help for this particular oatmeal stout. I think I originally had almost 5 lbs of crystal in the original recipe (first recipe I built my self - big noob here), so I toned it back a bit. Obviously not enough.

Tanks for the help guys.

Considering all the crystal malt, what will that do in terms of taste? Make it too sweet? Will there just be an over powering roast taste?

I as going for a super roasty stout with lots of chocolate and coffee flavor.

 

[Double_D]

read the OP

Yeah, The formatting gets weird on his ipad and he has to submit the thread before it's done. When I asked those questions the info wasn't there.