ruined brew......or is it, urgent advise please needed

[hare1975]

Hi I am a newbie homebrewer, I started my first brew, a coopers lager a month before xmas, let it ferment for 7-10 days, siphoned to keg, primed for secondary fermentation for a week , and then been conditioned since, cold in garage.

My boo-boo is should have put 85 grams of sugar in keg when priming, only now realised I have put 850grams in.

drew a pint last week, some bubbles and head when pouring but ends up flat as a dab.

Can I save this brew, it not taste awful, but then not great either, is there anything I can do to improve, or have i just ballsed my first attempt up and no chance of recovery.

your advise would be appreciated people.

 

[31bb3]

You could try adding some spray malt up instead of more sugar howver you will need to bring it into the warm and see an idea if the secondary ferment kicks in again i may be wrong just

 

[ChemPaul]

Hi I am a newbie homebrewer, I started my first brew, a coopers lager a month before xmas, let it ferment for 7-10 days, siphoned to keg, primed for secondary fermentation for a week , and then been conditioned since, cold in garage.

My boo-boo is should have put 85 grams of sugar in keg when priming, only now realised I have put 850grams in.

drew a pint last week, some bubbles and head when pouring but ends up flat as a dab.

Can I save this brew, it not taste awful, but then not great either, is there anything I can do to improve, or have i just ballsed my first attempt up and no chance of recovery.

your advise would be appreciated people.

You should be able to save it. Adding too much sugar isnt necessarily a bad thing, it just turns your average bitter into jet fuel :thumb: :lol: :

As for conditioning, I suspect that your keg is leaking if 850g of sugar didnt condition it properly (not unlikely. My plastic king keg did all the time b4 i replaced it with a corny). Did you apply a decent amount of vaseline to the rubber seals? Are there any cracks around the pressure release valve (fairly likely lol)?

If neither are the problem, then maybe the temperature is. It was bloody cold here (in Birmingham, UK) over christmas and my garage varied between -5 to 1 oC for quite a long time. If your beer was in this sort of temperature range too, then its quite likely that a poor old ale yeast was too chilly to chew through the sugary feast. Warming it to 18ish will fix this. Check the gravity and make sure its near what your target is (now, and after you warm it). If it isnt, either warm it and wait, repitch yeast and wait more, then reprime and re-fine it and wait another 3 days more (in that order). You will eventually end up with a properly conditioned (and clear) beer just bear in mind that the yeast will take a while to settle back down after each time it gets busy doing a secondary (or even tertiary) fermentation. Cold and time are ultimatley the fixes for this kind of problem

 

[abeyptfc]

yeah if its still as flat as a witches tit after putting 10 times the amount of sugar in for carbonation then c02 must be leaking from somewhere!

 

[hare1975]

Hi,

Thanks for your help, keg is carbing, when pouring into jug, significant head and bubbles, but these die very quickly.

The house was pretty cold before xmas when I started secondary fermentation, and wonder if this is the issue.

I put vaseline on rubber seal on top, and around outside of taps to seal, and confident keg is sound.

I now have a thermostat, so think i will warm the brew, and if need be repitch yeast, and reprime.

thanks all who commented, appreciate it :

 

[Moley]

Please keep a close eye on it and vent pressure if it looks like it's turning spherical. Does it have a safety valve in the lid?

It takes a while to build up little bubbles which release slowly.

 

[hare1975]

Moley,
its a king keg with safety valve, so will keep an eye

thanks for advise