So I had my Imperial Brown in the primary for 3 weeks and was all done fermenting, or so it seemed, so I transferred into secondary and added my coffee muslin bags. It started going again but I had to bottle or the coffee would have been too strong. It has been 5 days now and I cracked a bottle open and it is way too carbonated now. Was wondering if you thought I should just crack the bottles and pour into a keg?? I like the bottles better though but afraid they may blow or just give a real foamy beer.
i thinl thats your only good option. other than cracking the, open and resealing but thats a crapshoot. in the future, let it finish and dnt worry about the coffee intensity, it will fade given time but the carbonation will hold.
Don't pour them into the keg unless you are going to drink it all soon or have some ability to greatly minimize the contact with oxygen in the process. It you just dump it straight into the keg you are going to have some oxidized notes develop rather quickly. I'd suggest you cool it down asap to kill off the further fermentation occuring.
I should have racked into another fermentor, the bags don't come out without breaking them open and coffee grounds going everywhere. I didn't have another carboy as I racked an IPA on the yeast cake in primary. I should have just kegged. I poured into keg and gassed it a few times removing any air, I will repeat every day for the next few days to get all oxygen. I took a couple beer showers too in the process, glad I got them out of the bottles. The flavors of this beer will outweigh the Oxygen flavors.....I hope. Rookie mistake.....
I find it odd that coffee would ferment. What was "starting again" was likely CO2 finding nucleation points on the coffee grounds. How much priming sugar did you use, and how much volume was your batch when you bottled?
Is it a good foam with tight bubbles or more frothy? If it's frothy it could be tiny particles of coffee. They should fall out of suspension, but this is only part of the question. As jokeahoma noted, you might of over primed.
5oz priming sugar, what I always do for the most part with 5 gallons of beer. I think when I racked it kicked off a bit more fermentation and roused the yeast so it "started again" or the beer started fermenting a bit more. FG at bottling was 1.016. I ended up opening with many overflowing with tight foam and had a couple beer showers while pouring into a keg after I purged it and then purged a few times. been a day now and in keg and tasting perfect!! Thanks.
