I've taken to removing a litre from each gallon batch, before pitching, and putting it aside, so's to leave space in the demijohn for foam when aerating. Today, I went to add back in the litre I'd removed from a cyser/braggot hybrid, and noticed the bottle it was in was very firm. Upon opening, it sprayed everywhere. Presumably this was caused by some wild yeast that was in the apple juice I'd used, but I had added some sulphites which should have killed off everything. The gravity had dropped from 1.084 to 1.073.
A few of questions:
- Does wild yeast seem like the most likely culprit here, or are there other things that might have caused this?
- Assuming it is wild yeast, would it still be safe to add this back into the rest of the batch? I'm guessing I should just play it safe and top up with more apple juice and honey instead, but the rest of the batch tastes quite nice, and I don't really want to upset the balance.
- More of an observation: By my calculations, that change in gravity equates to over 7 volumes of CO2. I'm surprised the (plastic) bottle it was in didn't explode.
Recipe:
1.25lb Wildflower honey
0.25kg Wheat DME
4oz Special B
2L Apple juice
Water to 1gal
Yeast: 71B
A few of questions:
- Does wild yeast seem like the most likely culprit here, or are there other things that might have caused this?
- Assuming it is wild yeast, would it still be safe to add this back into the rest of the batch? I'm guessing I should just play it safe and top up with more apple juice and honey instead, but the rest of the batch tastes quite nice, and I don't really want to upset the balance.
- More of an observation: By my calculations, that change in gravity equates to over 7 volumes of CO2. I'm surprised the (plastic) bottle it was in didn't explode.
Recipe:
1.25lb Wildflower honey
0.25kg Wheat DME
4oz Special B
2L Apple juice
Water to 1gal
Yeast: 71B