Beer left in primary fermenter for a while - is it worth bottling?

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kodak79

kodak79

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Before anyone says - I know I've been stupid, but any experience or thoughts would be much appreciated.

By being ridiculously busy with work and everything else I have managed to set a beer brewing and it has now been sat in my temp controlled fermentation chamber for about 10 weeks now. The beer is a brewferm Grand Cru which says to ferment for 2 weeks and then suggests racking off (or leaving in the primary if you don't have another bin) then leaving for a further 3 weeks before bottling.

Is it worth bothering to bottle and hope that there is still some live yeast in there that will prime the beer in the bottle? I am very busy at the moment and don't want to spend the 3-4 hours bottling if its not going to work.

Cheers,
Chris
 
I'll echo what Leon said, bottle it.

Also, how does it take you 3-4hrs bottling? I can easily bottle a 23 litre brew in just over an hour.
 
If it doesn't smell/taste like autolysis then it should be a mighty fine brew. You might have some yeast flavour there, but given that this kit is meant to have a bread like flavour it's no drama.

I tend to leave my beer in the primary for up to three weeks before bottling, I've never tried leaving it longer.
 
Leon103 said:
What temp was it?

I would bottle, don't see any reason not too.

Not sure why it takes so long to bottle either, isn't it a 9litre kit?
Click to expand...

I can relate to bottling time. Before I used no-rinse sanitiser, I would scrub every bottle, then sterilise and then rinse three times.

Though 3-4 hours seems a lot for 9 litres.Even with my old technique.

Now days I tend to give the bottles a good rinse/wash when I've consumed the contents, another rinse and check for soiling on bottling day and then just spray with no rinse sanitiser.
 
I do 2 or 3 of those 9l tins at once so its either 18 or 27 (i can't remember). I have no idea how you can bottle so fast though.

I have just gotten some star-san, i have a bottle washer and bottle tree, and the auto filler stick (that attaches to the bottom tap on the bin) and it still takes ages.
 
Grizzly299 said:
Now days I tend to give the bottles a good rinse/wash when I've consumed the contents, another rinse and check for soiling on bottling day and then just spray with no rinse sanitiser.
Click to expand...

That's my tactic too. All the washing is done when I drink the bottle.

On bottling day, I soak in Milton (we'll not go into any rinse/non rinse conversations just now) while I put the kids to bed. When I come down stairs I stack them in the bottle tree, prepare my caps, then start bottling. After finishing I rinse and wipe out my fermenter, soak in a weak thin bleach solution overnight then rinse 3 times in the morning.
 
I think last time i did it I was still rinsing the bottles and decided to do some with rinsing the star-san off and some without rinsing. I couldn't tell the difference so wont be rinsing anymore.
 
I rinse bottles after use but give them a wash on bottling day because they are kept in the garage.

I put all the bottles in a trug, good blast with jet hose pipe and a 15 minute soak in sodium procarbonate. Empty water away and another blast with hose to get rid of residue. Starsan in bottle jet thingy and fill with bottling stick. Bench capper is what really speeds things up.
 
Bottling day always seems like a bit of a chore, but the best thing I got was the bench capper, all the bottles grouped by height and capped quickly one after another

The prep either end though even with a no rinse sanitiser can seem to take an age, never actually timed a 40 bottle fill though from start to finish.
 
MickDundee said:
That's my tactic too. All the washing is done when I drink the bottle.

On bottling day, I soak in Milton (we'll not go into any rinse/non rinse conversations just now) while I put the kids to bed. When I come down stairs I stack them in the bottle tree, prepare my caps, then start bottling. After finishing I rinse and wipe out my fermenter, soak in a weak thin bleach solution overnight then rinse 3 times in the morning.
Click to expand...
If you think about it if you wash your bottles thoroughly after pouring the contents, they are virtually ready to go next time around
 
I always rinse out after drinking. I think I must be a bit more paranoid about washing and rinsing - and the wife says I'm just slow at things anyway. Total time usually comes in at 10 mins getting everything out, 20 mins to sterilise bucket to rack off (and paddle, hydro, syphon, etc), start setting up and rinsing bottles would be about 30 mins total, with a bit of interference from siphoning, check sg and add priming sugar, rinsing bottles 15 minutes, filling bottles 20 minutes, capping 15 minutes, and final clear away and washing everything 30 minutes.

Having written that out I can't see how it takes me 3 hours either, but 3 hours is the fastest I've done.
 
I bottled this (in record time) and have left it to condition and am happy to announce that it turned out great.
:-)
 

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