Re: Basic brewing instructions
Posted: Thursday Apr 21, 2011 3:32 pmwarra48 wrote:Bubble wrote:When doing a brew, and you reach the bottling stage and you do find it to be bad smelling or just 'off', do you still bottle and hope or what? Also is it still drinkable, what i mean is whats the worst that could happen - the shits maybe?
Depends what the smell is like. Different yeasts can give off rather unpleasant aromas during fermentation, such as sulphur (think of a thick fart) etc, so I wouldn't be put off by that. I normally give my brews at least 2 weeks in primary, and up to 4 weeks, before bottling. Time gives the yeast an opportunity to clean up fermentation by-products, and will also often remove objectionable aromas, such as a sulphur smell. Even when bottled, it often still cleans up.
I'd go for bottling it. Why chuck a brew when it may turn out well after sufficient time in primary and bottle?
The beer will not kill you, even if it is infected. Remember there are some styles of beer which deliberately use what are effectively infections (such as Lambics, Berliner Weisse etc)), and people survive very nicely after consuming those. An infection shouldn't give you "shite" symptoms.
Totally agree...Just be careful where you put them if you think they are "off"
Reason I say this is when I first started I had a few that went "off" and I put them in bottles. They did not explode but when I opened them, it was like champagne so I can only imagine the pressure on the bottle walls.
Cheers
Boonie