Started graduate school last September and forgot all about home brewing! Now that summer’s almost here I’m ready to start brewing again and I found I’d left 2 batches sitting in their primary fermentors this whole time (about 8 months)!
Are these ruined, or should I rack to secondary and enjoy the extra-long fermentation? What kind of impact will letting a beer sit on its own yeast cake for so long have?
The two beers are the Barley Wine and Winter Warmer extract kits if that matters…
Don’t know about your beers, but someone I work with left a Vanilla Stout in primary for 2 or 3 months, and ended up dumping the beer, after bottling it and letting it carbonate. It wasn’t good. You’ll have to take a sample and see if it still tastes drinkable. If not, dump it. I’m guessing the barley wine should be fine, but the winter warmer, probably not.
Just my 2 cents.
no need to rack it to a secondary. especially after it’s been in the primary for so long.
give it a taste. if it taste good - then bottle it up!
I’ve heard of people leaving it in the primary for a year and it still being good. I’ve also heard of it going bad… so you never know until you try it!
Agree with the above, no need for secondary at this point. When you bottle just make sure to add a little yeast. After 8 months there probably isn’t much viable yeast left to carb with.
+1
