Has my beer gone bad?

[Michael]

Hi

Sunday afternoon I put on a batch of Coopers Dark Brown Ale. I added brewing adjunct, and some more hops. (In the tea bag.) I did not check the OG.

By Monday morning, the brew was bubbling wildly! Every second another burst of beautiful smelling beer burped its way out. However, by Tuesday, there was no more bubbling, and I think I know why.

I had the fermenter wrapped up in a sleeping bag, and on a heating pad. I did this because I saw the weather said it was going to be around 0 pretty much early in the week, and I did not want my batch to die. Evidently, I may have killed it the other way. The fermenter was easily around 30 degrees.

So, today (Thursday), I decided what the heck, go ahead and bottle it and see what happened. The SG if I am reading it correctly is 1020.

Do you think it finished brewing completely? There is a nice cake of yeast on the bottom of the fermenter. Do you think it is going to taste like a bad nightmare, and cause awful hangovers?

Cheers!

[JoKing]

Here is some Science for you...

So long as the beer is in a state positive pressure (i.e. producing gas) it is impossible for any air to get into the fermenter and oxidise the beer. I use a glass carboy, but when I have ambient ferments, I can see into the glass and se the bubbles rise - even after 4 weeks... the beer is still positively pressured.

It at lower temps (like when you are cold conditioning) when the gas dissolves into the beer and becomes neutral pressure when air can makes its way through the pores in the plastic.

So... here are some more facts - a beer that is fermented at 20 degrees will have .9 volumes of CO2 dissolved in it. That is, including the beer, the fermenter can almost be filled again by the amount of CO2 in the beer. A beer fermented at 10 degrees has 1.2 volumes already in it. So long as you can see fizzing in the beer, the CO2 is still escaping. There has to be zero CO2 in the beer before oxidation is even start to occur.

Oh... and after all this... the beer has to be pretty cold in order to absorb oxygen in the first place.

So.. I reckon you'll be fine!

[RopenutS]

How do you know the beer has enough yeast in it to carbonate when you put it in the bottle? My beer came out really clear and i read that it may mean theres not enough yeast, is that true? And how long do you guys typically leave it in the bottle for before drinking? I was going to leave it for two weeks at room temp ( 17-20 C ) then put it in the fridge for a couple more weeks before i crack one.

Cheers

[JackoNZ]

My understanding is there is always enough yeast in the bottle to carbonate, however clear your beer looks on bottling. Mine have always come good, longer in these colder temps but usually try one at 3 weeks and see how there going. At 17-20 I reckon it should only take 2-3 weeks to carbonate. I've had some take 6 weeks to get there due to my flat being so bloody cold!

[RopenutS]

Haha true that. So i dont have to worry about carbonation...thats good . I will carry on with my original plan then. Cheers. By the way, im starting out using kit beers. Where abouts can i find out where to make a real good one? Can you even make a real good one?

[Ally Mcg]

Check the library thread on here for heaps of info about making a good beer with kit, partial grain or all grain

I think that you'd struggle to make a great beer with kits. First step would be to add a few extra hops at the end of the boil for a bit of aroma (depending on what yr brewing) and sub the kit yeast for a decent dried yeast (US-05 and S-04 are readily available). From there you might want to move to steeping/mashing grains and moving to PG then taking the big step to AG.

Theres loads of useful stuff on this forum covering pretty much everything you've asked and there's even more stuff online - the library (as mentioned earlier) has some good links.
Happy Brewing!

[denimglen]

Agreed, I'd look at brewing with unhopped extract, some steeping grains and hops and a small stovetop boil - it's a great way to kick off.

John Palmer on howtobrew.com gives a really good step-by-step instruction.

[RopenutS]

Cheers dude. Yeah one day i'll get into the all grain brewing. I thought i would ease my way into this stuff though otherwse i would probly mess it up haha. I just checked out the library, what a wicked source of info!. My first beer i just bottled i added some hallertau hops and used a saflager S- 23 yeast. It was with a Munich Lager kit.