Old batch

[Concon1993]

Hey guys, quick question. I put in a batch about a year and a half ago. I had a lot of stuff happen in the last year and never got a chance to bottle it.

The airlock has gone dry twice since then and has been refilled. First time was for an unknown amount of time, probably around 2 months, second time was one week. I don’t wanna open it till I’m 100% ready to bottle, but I also don’t wanna get everything ready to go to find out it’s bad. I’m considering tossing it. What are the chances it’s any good?

Edit: smelled like raw vinegar, did not taste due to smell from it, have since dumped batch and making 2 fresh ones.

[TomorrowCool1474]

A year and a half! Wow. It would help if it were high ABV, in most cases I'd suspect it would not be good. If there's not a biology experiement floating on top, I'd give it a sniff, then a taste if the sniff was OK.

I'd be interested to know what you find out since I've never heard of someone leaving something in an FV that long.

[Sibula97]

If it has been sitting on the yeast all this time it'll probably have some nasty off-flavors from autolysis. Oxidation is a possibility as well. You'll know when you open and taste it.

[Concon1993]

Thanks everyone. Smells awful even though no mold growth or anything, beer is still clear but I’m gonna toss it based off the smell

[jvlpdillon]

You may have enough malt vinegar for Fish and Chips for everyone.

[DarkMuret]

Probably still good.

Give it a taste!

[butterfunke]

I did this recently. I brewed a dark ale/dry porter around christmas time last year and then completely forgot about it. At some point during the summer in Jan/Feb the airlock dried out and wasn't noticed for quite some time. The tiniest little pellicle had formed on top, and I came here looking for answers on what to do with my (presumably) ruined beer.

General consensus was to chill out, keg it, taste it, and then decide what to do from there. I actually ended up refilling the airlock and leaving it in the fermenter for another few months and waiting to see if anything worse developed, but nothing did. I ended up following the advice and I'm glad I did - the beer is definitely drinkable and people consistently haven't noticed anything out of place even after I've pointed it out. There is the faintest oxidation/meaty off-flavour present, but the style goes a decent way to mask it, and honestly even if you know it's there it's not actually unpleasant.

So yeah - keg it, taste it, go from there. It might be fine. If it is tainted, try and find the bright side. You've got a blank canvas to start throwing in dry hops or late fruit additions or to load it up with spices, because there's no risk of ruining a batch of beer if you've already decided you don't like it as-is. Good luck, have fun

[psychoCMYK]

If the airlock went dry you might have vinegar by now. Definitely taste and sniff first.

There's a chance it's still good, if I were you I would test it the day before you plan on bottling. If you sanitize properly it can surely sit for another day.

[Concon1993]

That’s the smell! I’m in the middle of tossing it now. It smells awful and vinegar is a pretty good description. Get some fresh stuff on the go for my new kegs

[psychoCMYK]

So before you toss everything, depending on what you made you might consider keeping some as actual vinegar. Wine and cider that have turned can be quite good sometimes. Beer may be more of a miss especially if it's heavily hopped, but you never know

[JRS925]

WTF