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Racking from bottles back into carboy?
Hi Everyone,
Hey, here's an interesting experiment... I brewed a nut brown ale cause its "forgiving." Its an extract kit, but not NB's. Anyway, up here in VT the temp will drop at night, even in the summer to 45f. It dropped, and the primary fermentation screeched to a halt. All the yeast settled, and the gravity read 1.020. I let it sit there for a few days, contemplating my next move. I know I could have roused it, warmed it, even racked it... but I figured since I'm brewing a "forgiving" brew why not experiment. So, I boiled up some light DME, 3 TBS Honey, 1 TBS Molasses (just to experiment) and made a new yeast starter (using a different strain of ale yeast). It reached high kraeusen in 24 hours and I pitched the whole thing. It sat for another week, and kraeusened up the whole batch. Finally it began to settle down a little and I decided to chill it to clear it up some. At the same time, a lager was getting ready to need racking and I needed the carboy the nut brown experiment was going on in. So I bottled. I added just a little (1/4 cup) of priming sugar, and again 1TBS honey. I figured that the stuff could use a much longer secondary than I could give it, and there was plenty of sugar still in the beer to carb it. After 2 weeks in bottles, it’s starting to carb up nicely and it tastes OK- it will be great in a month or two. But the beer is really cloudy and thick feeling in my mouth. There is also a good 1/4 inch of yeast in the bottom of each bottle. I know this is what I get for experimenting and not waiting longer to bottle. My question now is, to further clarify the beer, and to improve its mouthfeel, and to just make it nicer as I pour a bottle, could I transfer it back from the bottles to a carboy to settle out? I know about oxygenation- so is there a practical way around it here? Could I rack to new bottles and leave the trub, essentially treating each bottle as its own secondary fermentor? (It is all bottled in 1 liter bottles)...
quentin,
I'd leave them in the 2 liters. If you’re transferred now you would lose carbonation and gain oxidation. It will be fine, just leave them alone for a few weeks. Then when you pour a glass do it very carefully so you don't stir up the yeast cake on the bottom. Next time you get a stuck ferment just place the primary in a warmer (65F) place and very gently stir the yeast up from the bottom with a racking cane.
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