Bottle Conditioning Questions
Posted for Cheryl Mayfield:
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I got a recipe off Tastybrew for a "not-a-lager" ale which was supposed to be a light summer blonde ale. I followed directions, everything brewed up fine, put in first fermenter and it proceeded to blow the top off the airlock for about 4 days! I left it in there for 7 days then transferred it to a glass carboy for another 10 days (still bubbling away up until the end). OG and FG were within specs off the recipe site. Added the corn sugar; bottled it and I put it in my beer refrigerator. And that's where I'm wondering if I went wrong. After another 2 weeks couldn't wait and the first 4 bottles I opened had NO carbonation, really flat and the color was darker than what it was supposed to be. Tossed them down the drain - bottle #5 popped nicely, nice head and it will knock your socks off! It's about as far from a light beer as you can get. So I've just kinda left it in the refrigerator for another week. Should I just toss the whole batch? Did putting it in the refrigerator after bottling slow everything down too much?
Thanks for your help and advise
Cheryl Mayfield
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Posted for Tom
Posted for Tom Gilles:
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This is a great question and a common problem. When beer is bottled it needs to remain at room temp. for at least 2 weeks before put in the fridge. This will give the yeast time to consume the newly added corn sugar and carbonate the beer. wouldn't toss a batch until I give it plenty of time to correct itself. You never know, and it hurts to dump your hard work down the drain!!!
As for the color of the beer, what was the recipe? A blonde ale is a tricky one if using an extract recipe.
Tom
Yeah, pull all that beer out
Yeah, pull all that beer out of your fridge and move it to a cool dark closet inside your house. You don't want it to get up to 90° in your garage either. About 60-70 degrees is ideal for bottle conditioning. If it's still cloudy, just forget about it for a month or so. If it's already started to clear, the yeast has settled out and may not go active unless you *gently* shake it loose from the bottom of the bottle.
Most of my bottle conditioned beers are not drinkable until they have been in the bottle for about a month. Don't be too hasty to judge a green beer.
Once it's carbonated and the yeast has settled out, you can make up your mind on the flavor.
As far as the color goes, my best guess is that you used an electric burner in your kitchen and it carmelized/scorched the sugars. Did you have brown stuff stuck to the bottom of your kettle after the boil? I had this problem with lighter colored beers until I moved out into my garage with a propane burner. About the only thing you can do is boil "softer" so the bottom of the kettle doesn't get as hot durring heating cycles. The drawback to this is that it will be nearly impossible to get rid of chill-haze.
-R
Posted for
Posted for Cheryl:
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Thanks for your help!
Do you think I should take the beer out of the frige and store it back in my dark pantry? I did use a light malt extract along with partial mash of Flaked corn/Crystal 10/2-row.
I've been using a turkey cooker on a propane burner for brewing up my batches. I have only been boiling a 4-1/2 gal batch because my cooker isn't that large and adding chilled boiled water to make 5 gallons in my primary
(plastic) fermenter. Would this make it a more concentrated batch? This was the first lighter colored beer I tried to make, everything else has been ambers or browns so I really didn't notice any color problem before. This batch did seem to get a REALLY rolling boil going - maybe too much?!? Oh well, guess I'll just have to try again - oh darn (Hah).
Cheryl Mayfield
bottle condition, color,
cheryl, the beer is bad. send it it me...........i have a dump sit here at my place that all bad beer can go. ;)
ok, yes take it out of the fridge. gentle shake ( kind of a turn the bottle over type deal) and put away in your pantry for 2 -3 weeks. as they warm up to room temp, keep them below 70* they should start to balance and carb up nicely. if they dont, could be other reasons that we can address later.
as for the extract you used, about when did you add it? to brew to standards and get the color correct wait till the last 15 mins of boil to add you extracts. speacily if you are doing short boils( adding water to wort ) for the batch size. the sugars willl have a less of a chance to discolor / darken by the heat. also keep you wort "just" boiling, you dont want it to aggresive, ie more heat = more color. make sense?
stache