jpzep4

Recipes 

For anyone who can take time to read my saga below, it's more a post about my renewed excitement about brewing but it does eventually lead to a question.

As i've posted before, i had a great first run at homebrewing then it went to hell in a handbasket. My next 4 batches tasted like total crap. two were dumped. Since then I have replaced bucket fermenter with 6 gal better bottle and replaced my tubing. I recently crossed my fingers and got busy brewing a porter kit from Midwest with a liquid yeast vs. Munton's dry which I was using. I studied every aspect of my process and found two MAJOR potential culprits that i can't believe i didn't see:

1. In my old bucket fermenter, I had a Better Bottle pail adapter and simple-flo valve. When I cleaned and sanitized the bucket I never took any of that stuff apart. I soaked in PBW and Star-San'd. Turns out when I really looked in the inside the pail adapter/valve there was some caked-on trub or something that very likely was contributing to the nastiness of my beer. Don't know how long it had been there.

2. When I hooked up my wort chiller i found a very subtle leak that was flowing down the input side and making it's way down to the bottom of the coil. You really couldn't see it unless you held the chiller up. My tubing obviously was not tightly fitted to the chiller and I don't know when it got loose like that. Obvious problem being that I had water from outside running through a garden hose through a copper tubing into my chilled wort! Probably not a great thing for my beer. (I didn't use this chiller with my first batch, the only one that turned out good. I think that says something)

All that said, I'm hoping I've gotten back on track with this Porter. I took a sample after 4 days just to see how things were progressing and it was awesome. I'm going to take regular samples during fermentation to see if something goes awry with this beer. I'd like to know when and possibly pin down why. I don't want to wait 2-3 weeks excited about another beer and finally sample it and have it taste terrible. My other bad batches tasted bad right out of the fermenter and as I said they got worse with time in bottles. So far so good with this one.

Any experienced suggestions about things to look for visually or note in terms of changing taste (negative changes that is) as I observe this beer over the next couple weeks? Signs that something is going bad and why? (Yes I'm paranoid something gonna turn on me). Thanks for the help.

KevinW

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Sounds like you are on track so far. Careful about sampling your beer too often. Each time you are exposing the beer to a potential contamination.

If it tastes good now and doesn't start growing green mold all over it I personally would let it go and feel comfortable about making a good batch!

Did you throw out your bucket? Now that it is cleaned it should be good as a second fermentor ie.. more beer production capabilities!

Good luck and keep us informed!

__________________
“I don't drink beer all the time but I can drink (a) beer anytime" - Me

mr_bell

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Having that many bad batches would SUCK! It sounds like you;re on it though. I agree w/ KW on the potential for contamination with excessive sampling. You've (hopefully) isolated your problems and this batch should turn out well. Send a few my way once they're done and I'll be glad to critique them for ya.

jpzep4

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I should have mentioned on the sampling thing that I have a simple-flo adapter on this better bottle so I'm not opening a bucket or exposing the beer to any oxygen. It makes my hydro reading and taste samples pretty easy.

I did not throw the bucket away but I was concerned that if I happened to have something else going on i.e. a scratch harboring infectious little critters or anything that I might end up in the same spot. So i wasn't gonna use it again.

mr_bell

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I think you're good to go. Does the valve on the better bottle work well then? Is it worth the investment?

jpzep4

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It is expensive but it does work well and I think it is worth it, keeping in mind of course that I'm a total noob with a poor brewing record to date. Don't know what my opinion counts for! It makes hydrometer samples and racking to secondary or bottling bucket really easy and seemingly much less susceptible to infection/contamination. Just my $0.02

JiveTurkey

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It sounds like you fixed the problem, so why waste it? Can you feel any problem scratches on the inside?

__________________
Aging for 1 Year: #1 LHBS Standard (Dry) Stout
In bottles: #2 Honing Wit (Belgian Wit Bier w/honey); #3 Be Hoppy, Not Bitter ("Oregon" Pale Ale: APA using Oregon-inspired ingredients and lots of late-addition/dry-hops); #4 American Red-Head (Irish Red made from American ingredients); #5 Student Power Orange Ale (Orange-hued amber ale for a wedding)
Primary: [n/a]
On deck: [Thinking about it]

jpzep4

Recipes 

There are scratches, mostly light surface but one scratch on the bottom is pretty obvious. Probably not the culprit as discussed above but I've spent too much time anxiously waiting on beer that ended up turning out bad. I'm a bit hesitant to lose a batch in the interest of keeping a $12 bucket working.

DoctorHops

Recipes 

Soak the bucket in OxiClean and hot tap water for several hours. Scrub with a soft sponge or bristle brush. If you have a bottling valve at the bottom, open that and let the OxiClean solution clean that. Rinse well with hot water, again open the valve if you have one to ensure that is rinsed. Sanitize with Iodophor or Star-San. Store upside down until the next time you use it. Then sanitize before use. You should be OK.

kaiser423

Recipes 

During active fermentation, there really is not very much that could go wrong. From my experience, you'll probably not see an infection likely take hold until later when it's not having to compete as much with the yeast. Afterwards there's more chance for oxidation, etc. I also never tasted my chloramine problems until the beer had sat for a bit after fermentation.