Internationally fermenting in bottles?

[Apt31]

Alright guys, I feel pretty dumb on this one but it has to be asked.

I believe my fermentation stopped short due to letting my temp drop too low for a day. Regardless, I racked to secondary & bottled.

Now, obviously, I have a bunch of bottled Oatmeal Stouts coming in at a whopping 2% and tasting like some sugary garbage water.

In an effort to reactivate the yeast within the bottles(I figure only for a couple days or so) I have left them at about 70-75° for a few days now. Haven't seen any change in FG when checking again, after waiting a bit to let the co2 escape the beer.



Before you say it:

-I know I'm an idiot.

-I known there's risk of bottle bombs, don't worry...they're in a vacant apartment next to me, so I'm not too concerned.



Any suggestions? Or am I calling this batch a total loss?

 

[tooldudetool]

Man that's a tough one... The problem is you left the bulk of the yeast behind, and the remaining yeast will probably not be up to the job. You didn't give any details about gravity or yeast strain, but you will most certainly have exploding bottles if there really is that much residual sugar and the remaining yeast do consume it. I'm assuming it was supposed to be in the 5-6% abv range? That's alot of fermentation that still needs to happen! Keeping that bottled up would be crazy... IMO you may just need to call this one a loss... I can't really see a situation where they could be fermented in the bottles, and still end up tasting good. Just learn from it, and brew the same recipe again!

 

[JLeuck64]

I know some guys swear by NOT tasting their beer throughout the process but I am ALL for it! If for nothing else what you are experiencing could have been prevented when tasting a hydrometer sample. Hmmmm.... still tastes sweet to me I think I'll leave it be for a while longer. That's what I started saying after I had my first bottle bomb experience ( ;
HTH

 

[Apt31]

Man that's a tough one...

This is basically the response I feared/expected. You're right, 5-6%. OG: 1.04, FG: 1.03 haha. Blah! Fifty bucks down the drain

I know some guys swear by NOT tasting their beer...

tasting wasn't even necessary (I did, tho), I could just tell by the grav reading how it was gonna taste. question: if I left it in the carboy for additional time, would it have continued to ferment? as I had mentioned, it seemed to have stopped after about a day. I bottled after 3 weeks (2 primary, 1 secondary).

 

[Apt31]

Bottles have been dumped, and a small piece of my soul died. Thank you guys for the help. Currently brewing a small batch Pale Ale to take the pain away.

 

[JLeuck64]

This is basically the response I feared/expected. You're right, 5-6%. OG: 1.04, FG: 1.03 haha. Blah! Fifty bucks down the drain





tasting wasn't even necessary (I did, tho), I could just tell by the grav reading how it was gonna taste. question: if I left it in the carboy for additional time, would it have continued to ferment? as I had mentioned, it seemed to have stopped after about a day. I bottled after 3 weeks (2 primary, 1 secondary).

Maybe?

Hard to tell now. From my own personal experience I can say that if it doesn't taste right or if the gravity seems high it never hurts to just leave it be for a while longer. Where I live, above the 45th parallel it's pretty cold and it does take considerably longer for my batches to ferment. Wish we could have let it sit a bit longer...