Catastrophe - Heating failure

FXRS

Bottled my lager last Saturday and, per the kits instructins, the bottles should be left in a warm place for 2 days. I set up my room heater at 20 degrees but the heater failed. Its been rather cold here and the temp in my storage room has been around 12-15 degrees in the 2 days. I notice the brewing sugar in each bottle is lying at the bottom of the bottle. I have now replaced the room heater and the room is now at 20 degrees. Will retain that temp for the 2 days and hope all is ok.

What effect will the 12-15 degrees have had on my beer? Did I do the right thing by installing a new room heater for a couple of days? What about the priming sugar lying at the bottom of the bottle, is this normal? If not, can I do anything?

Hugely disappointed that this mishap has happened now after taking such care with each stage of the process.

Help!

HBO_Staff

Firstly - don't panic! It is very unlikely the lower temperature will have done any harm, as it is not the yeast that is doing it's job at this stage, it is the sugar used to prime the bottles. Yeast can be killed off by extremes of temperature, but not the sugar - the warmer temperature just allows it to dissolve easier and and to carbonate the brew, the bottles are now sealed so there is not too much that can go wrong. Also it's possible that it could be a bit of sediment in there, not just sugar, depending on how much you managed to leave behind when syphoning over into the bottles. What you may have done is just delayed the dissolving of the sugar, in which case as it warms up it should simply resume once warm enough. Finer sugar such as brewing sugar or spraymalt obviously dissolves more easily than coarse household sugar, so if using a coarser grained sugar it would be more obvious that it hadn't disolved. If it doesn't dissolve very quickly, you could give them a little 'swirl' around to encourage it to dissolve.

Sit back and relax with the beer at a warmer temperature for a few days, it will then disolve and can be moved back to the cooler room conditions. Any variation on the recommended temperature storage at this stage where the beer is now sealed will only affect the timescales for secondary fermentation and conditioning, doing any kind of harm to the beer is unlikely, just don't let it freeze!

FXRS

Thanks for the reassurance and the guidance.

I have "swirlled" to move the brewing sugar off the bottom of the bottles and will now leave them for a couple of days with the heater on before switching the heat off and then I'll wait..................tick.........tock............tick..............

Thanks again, your help is very much appreciated.

FXRS

I have been looking back thru the discussions here and its suddenly dawned on me that it may not be brewing sugar in the bottom of my bottles. Could it. Be sediment? Maybe its yeast? Is this possible?

HBO_Staff

Yes it could be sediment, often when transferring from the fermenting vessel into bottles, in an effort to get as much brew over into the bottles leaving as little as possible of the brew behind, sometimes people take too much and disturb the sediment. Sediment can be stirred up when syphoning too, especialy if it stops and starts a lot, as when the syphoning stops the brew can flow back into the fermenting vessel and stir it up. Any sediment that has got into the bottles will settle to the bottom whilst conditioning, and if when you open and pour them you take a little care to pour carefully and slowly, you will be able to leave most of it behind in the bottle when drinking, worst case it may just look a little cloudy, but will not spoil the beer

MattP

Hmm...
Just read through the comments on this thread from HBO_Staff, and I'm a bit puzzled by the assertion that "it's not the yeast doing it's job at this stage, it's the sugar" ?
As far as I'm aware this is not quite correct. Adding sugar to the brew, either at bottling, or transfer to a barrel, does not in itself produce any CO2.
When a brew finishes it's first fermentation, even if you're very careful to syphon the beer off without sucking up any sediment, it will always contain small traces of yeast. It is this yeast acting on the 'secondary fermentation sugar' which produces the CO2 in the brew, and as the bottle or barrel is tightly closed, this is forced into solution by the build up of pressure. Without the yeast present, the sugar will not produce any CO2.
I would agree that the short period at the slightly lower temp stated is unlikely to have killed the yeast, so if it hasn't already, the secondary fermentation should proceed normally when the temperature reaches the required level.

HBO_Staff

Thanks for your comment, whilst it is true that a process is taking place to carbonate the brew, our response was intended to offer accurate assurance that the brew was unlikely to be ruined by the temperature being down to between 12 to 15 degrees for a couple of days, and that it was likely that the brew would continue it's normal process once the temperature was increased again, with no detrimental effect.