Should I say bye bye to my beer

[hevar]

Hello guys
i am a total newbi here and this is my first batch , I cleaned and sanitized everything and decided to go with an extended primary ferm. For my pam teddy smith porter
And It has been in the carboy for 8 week and 4 days temp. Controlled 68-72 F , will bottle tomorrow or not it depends on your responses and expertise to diagnose my case , it has been a week I noticed this white bubbles and little patches in the top of the beer in the carboy I will attach pictures . Is this infection or its just the kroysen ( wrong spelling I know ) . Should I through it and not bottle of this is an infection !

Thanks in advance


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[ChefRex]

Bottle it, if that is an infection and it may be it is minor. Drink it quick, I guess you are not in the states but if you can once they are carbed put the entire batch in the fridge, this will slow the infection.

 

[GHBWNY]

How soon after fermentation started did you notice it? What was FG of wort? If it produced a decent amount of alcohol, I wouldn't worry about an infection, esp. with having taken all necessary precautions. If you can afford to leave it in primary another week (porters and stouts can easily tolerate a longer primary), pull off a bottle, prime it and cap it and let it carb at room temp for a week. Open it in a week and see how it smells/tastes. If it's OK, the rest of the batch should be OK, too, so you can prime and bottle the whole thing. You could also rack a small amount of the clearer liquid off to a secondary and see if the crud re-appears on the surface. Guessing, I don't think it's an infection, esp. considering the style and precautions you took. Unless you popped the stopper too often to check it or introduced something foreign during gravity readings.

Best of luck and don't give up on it yet. Keep us posted.

 

[mmlipps]

Looks alright. Bottle it, if you start noticing your bottles are gushers, or give excessive head! then it was an infection


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[RM-MN]

Hello guys
i am a total newbi here and this is my first batch , I cleaned and sanitized everything and decided to go with an extended primary ferm. For my pam teddy smith porter
And It has been in the carboy for 8 week and 4 days temp. Controlled 68-72 F , will bottle tomorrow or not it depends on your responses and expertise to diagnose my case , it has been a week I noticed this white bubbles and little patches in the top of the beer in the carboy I will attach pictures . Is this infection or its just the kroysen ( wrong spelling I know ) . Should I through it and not bottle of this is an infection !

Thanks in advance

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No, it is neither krausen nor infection but only yeast rafts carried to the surface by the CO2. Bottle that up and give it a few weeks to carbonate and mature and you should end up with some pretty good drinking.

 

[hevar]

Wow guys , guys , THANK YOU So much for all your infos and inputs on this , you are amazing and all the best , You would n't believe where I am , I am in Kurdistan right now , But its very safe and away from all the mess down south .
I will keep you updated
But one last question , after bottling how can I keep the temp. Around 68-70 as it very hot here ! I don't think I can use the swamp cooler or correct me if I am wrong .

Best of regards to all of you
Cheers


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[RM-MN]

After bottling the temperature isn't nearly as critical as during active fermentation. I'd try to keep it under 80F if I could but I don't think your beer will suffer if it goes above that.

 

[Bruinpilot]

I let my beer bottle condition/ferment in Texas at around 80 and have no ill effects. It seems that the temperature control is valuable during primary and secondary fermentation, but my experience has been that it is not a big deal once bottled. After a month at room temp in the high 70s I start transitioning the bottles to the fridge or spare room in the fermentation chamber, as I have read that long exposure to high temps can cause staling, but I will say that I have not had a problem with it.


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[hevar]

Pete

I didn't remove the stopper even once during this whole time fermenting , and I don't know the gravity at all . By priming you mean mix the priming sugar right ?
It came in a sealed paper thing with the kit so how can I know how much to use only for one bottle ?
And I have only this carboy at the moment so secondary is not an option for me


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[hevar]

Thanks RM & bruinpoint

For all your inputs , I may fly to texas next year as well
Will keep you guys updated


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[unionrdr]

Mix the weighed amount of priming sugar with 2C of boiled water. Stir in the sugar till the water goes clear again. Cool, then mix with beer in bottling bucket as you rack it from primary/secondary to the bottling bucket.

 

[GHBWNY]

Pete

I didn't remove the stopper even once during this whole time fermenting , and I don't know the gravity at all . By priming you mean mix the priming sugar right ?
It came in a sealed paper thing with the kit so how can I know how much to use only for one bottle ?
And I have only this carboy at the moment so secondary is not an option for me

Sounds like you'll have good beer. And with the consensus here that it isn't infection, I agree with others --- bottle 'er up! And let us know how it tastes in a few weeks.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Those are yeast rafts. If it were infected the pellicle would cover the entire surface of the beer and be a lot more noticeable. I usually have more stuff on the top of my finished beers than that.

For priming, mix the priming sugar with the beer and then put in the bottles, priming by the bottle can be difficult unless using something like carbonation drops or the like. Use a priming calculator or the directions that came with the recipe (Most recipes call for from 4-5 oz of priming sugar to a 5 Gallon batch).

 

[Paradigm]

There is no infection that can harm you, never dump a batch until you've at least tried it. If you don't like it, then you can decide if you want to free up some space for another beer. I'm mulling over a similiar issue with a less-than-stellar american wheat that I have kegged. Drinking it is a chore, but I'm a little loathe to waste beer.

 

[hevar]

I am f ed , first one to cap this happened !



Is this savable

I don't have access to a capper until maybe 2 weeks cuz I have to order them from the Us
So frustrating


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[IslandLizard]

View attachment 208848
I am f ed , first one to cap this happened !

View attachment 208849

Is this savable

I don't have access to a capper until maybe 2 weeks cuz I have to order them from the Us
So frustrating

If the metal capper bell is still good, you can still cap the bottles by carefully tapping the bell with a wooden mallet to seal the crown caps.

You can fill the bottles and put sanitized plastic wrap or aluminum foil around the opening until you can cap them properly. They'll probably need a bit of extra prime.

Or carefully rack the batch back to one or more smaller fermenting vessels and hope for the best.

 

[TallDan]

If you can remove the metal bell shaped piece from the capper, you can use that CAREFULLY with a rubber mallet to cap the remaining bottles. I have not done it, but I've read here that others have.

 

[DrunkleJon]

View attachment 208848
I am f ed , first one to cap this happened !

View attachment 208849

Is this savable

I don't have access to a capper until maybe 2 weeks cuz I have to order them from the Us
So frustrating


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You didn't tell me you were going to kill it! Awww!

 

[IslandLizard]

Is it possible your bottles are not compatible with the capper? I've had some bottles where the capper could not grip the bottom rim right, and I didn't want to put more pressure on it in fear of what you just showed us.

Some cappers are just crappers. Bad design or manufacturing. I'd stay away from all plastic fabrication. My wing capper, for example, is all metal. The only plastic are the sleeves around the metal handles, and the lining of the 2 crescents that grab under the rim. Works like a charm. If you do a lot of bottling, get a bench capper instead. They can do any bottle, as long as it has the height.

 

[hevar]

Guys thank you for your support so here is what went down last night :

Room temp. Is around 35 C 95-98 F
And there is no AC , I am boiling the priming sugar put it in the freezer and then electricity went down and when it came back it was low voltage so it took more than an hour and some to cool the prime. All the while the beer is in the carboy . THen I try to rack it with an auto siphon as it turned out its not an auto because I have to stroke it each time and then there is little crack in the neck of the cane and beer is oozing out of it and the siphon tube is not submerged totally in the bucket so some splashes and I think O2 as well went in the beer in the bucket so I am all alone I didn't thought its a two man'a job or at lease your first time should be help there for you , any how i am getting to the lower half gallon tilting the carboy then the turp gets mixed up again with the beer so i stop siphoning and there still is about half gallon left . I leave that half gallon and cover the bucket with foil and the on first bottle you already know what happen then I get hopeless but I get the idea of checking what has broke in the capper and start to learn the mechanism of this capper and take out the piece that caps later I learn its called the bell , I get a hammer and start to bang on one bottle with the bell and capper it gets stuck with the bottle I can't get it out I am getting back to being hopeless then I get an Idea of gluing the screw plastic to the bell while stuck on the bottle and then I press on it and wow it comes off the bell comes off and the cap stays on the bottle , its 3:30 am and I sanitize the be and hammer start to fill ,place cap , put bell on top and BANG BANG its working I can't believe it caps stays put I am doing it .
But then I taste some of the beer , but since this is my first homebrew and I only have had hite , budwiser and heinekin ( the only three availabe here ) i get a little different taste and I am disappointed in the color I thought Pam teddy smith porter is black but as you see in the pic its not and its two layers one above is lighter ! And the taste is flat with more bitterness than I am use to and a little bit of fruitiness in it but no chocolate or coffee taste which I thought I would get
What do you think ? Is it going to be a good beer or heat , oxidation and infection got to it first 😥😥


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[unionrdr]

I'd guess high ferment temps for one. Then look at how you brewed the recipe as to the color & flavor. Maybe you left something out? And beer that's just been primed & bottled will taste different in a few weeks.

 

[KepowOb]

And I thought my first time bottling was a mess! What a shame you had so much trouble.

I had a lot of trouble with my auto siphon as well, and don't use it anymore, as it never works properly for me. Maybe I'm just too dense to get it to work though, heh.

The color does look a bit light for a porter, but the to half is different just because more light is going through.

The sample you tried will give you a rough idea of the finished product, but you'll be amazed at the difference once it's hard some time in the bottles, and a chance to carb up and cool down.

I got a decent amount of air into my beer the first time (as I said, my first time bottling was a mess too), but I drank them all within a few weeks, once they were ready, and they were okay. I had one bottle I let age about 1.5 - 2 months though, and people aren't kidding about wet cardboard, it was horrible... So you might nit want to agree them!

I'm sure they are going to be fine, even if they aren't exactly what you had hoped for.

 

[unionrdr]

I learned something about my auto siphon recently. 3/8" tubing doesn't work worth a hoot in hell! I went to Lowe's & got 5' of 5/16" tubing to replace the other with. It was hard to get on,so I sprayed the end of the hook on the racking cane part to get it to slide on easier. With the 5/16" tubing, it no longer sucks air,etc.

 

[hevar]

Well i followed recipe to the T , and kept it in swamp cooler so during fermentation it had 68-70 but even when I first poured the wort into the carboy it was not dark black so
This is the first few minutes in the carboy . As you can see its not black .


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[hevar]

Dear kepow thanks for your words

But what is wet cardboard ?


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[KepowOb]

Hah, sorry I should've been more specific. When a beer is oxidised, the off flavour tends to be that of wet cardboard. Luckily it takes time to develop, so as long as you drink them young they should be okay.


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[unionrdr]

Just for comparison's sake, here's a shot of my Snowbound vanilla porter;

Porters should be dark brown or more. Like a chestnut brown. To be exact, this one's a robust porter.

 

[mmlipps]

When you were using the auto siphon did you have the bottling bucket lower than the carboy? Might be a silly question, but have to ask. Otherwise the crack you mentioned is the reason it wouldn't siphon.


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[hevar]

😭 Your ls a porter indeed , that was the color I was hoping for but I don't know what happened !!

Yes the bucket was lower and its not a silly question at all don't say that it was the crack but I just don't like to stroke the siphon without giving attention to the bucket and the hose so submerge it completely although the was was long too around 8 inches so I will cut it this time


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[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

This has got to be one of the most epic bottling days (nights....mornings) I've ever heard of. Sounds like you salvaged it. Some of the bottles may not carb if the seal wasn't perfect but you made the best of a bad situation. And just think, everything else will be a breeze after this. As for tbe color, don't sweat it - porter shmorter, it will still be beer. Enjoy! And now you have a great story for the next "My First Brew" thread.

 

[andy6026]

I suspect that this won't be the best batch that was ever brewed, but I think you sure will enjoy it, given the troubleshooting you had to do along the way.

3 weeks in the bottles at whatever room temp you have and the into the fridge!

 

[hevar]

Hey brothers

Yesterday I opened a bottle and here is some pics . After tasting it , its a some what more bitter than what I lhoped for , but I don't know I am not a pro beer taster or judge , so could you tell me what should I look for when tasting a beer , key points I mean to judge a beer ?
y


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[Beergnomes]

Next time you're worried, just taste before you bottle. I taste every time I do a gravity check. Bad beer frankly tastes bad.