douhof

Recipes 

Just bottled my first batch (a weizen) last Sunday...and incidently forgot to sanitize my bottling bucket which I freaked out about but after posting my mistake, a few of you "elders" made me feel better about the batch turning out OK...

Anyway, checked some of my bottles last night and one of them has a couple of black "dots" in the sediment at the bottom of the bottle. What is that? Is it some form of contamination?

Just curious to know if it's normal to have black pinhead size dots in the sediment...or if this particular bottle may be contaminated...

DuckAssassin

Recipes 

I have noticed that some of the yeast, which are the normal tan color in the carboy, have become darker during their time in the bottle. Not sure what to attribute that to, but I haven't noticed any flavor issues from it. Are you bottling in clear bottles? If they are brown, it may just look darker than it is. Also, is it just the one bottle? If so, you might just take some extra care in the storage and handling of that one.

My guess though is that it is just some sediment from the brewing process that got through to the bottle (hops, grain, etc.). But the only thing you can do is wait it out now. If it were infected, you won't have any doubts when you go to take that first taste.

__________________
Primary 1) Empty
Secondary 1a-f) - 2 gallons Traditional Mead, 4 Gallons Melomel, 2) Wee Heavy Widgeon Ale, 3) Pintail Pale Ale
Bottled - Amber Ale, TheJadedDog's All Amarillo IPA x2, Apfelwine, Wit Bier, Stout, Pintail Pale Ale (V1-Cascade, V2-Amarillo), Graff

The Pol

Recipes 

Why did you have to bring race into this... after the recent election I thought we were past this!

douhof

Recipes 

I bottled with a mixture of brown bottles and Grolsch swingtops (they're green)...the black dots were in one of the Grolsch bottles.

SeamusMac

Recipes 

I've seen similar blobs of dark coloured sediment in beer my dad has given me. I'm still on my first brew so I can't offer any first-hand advice as to why they appear but it still tastes great!

davesrose

Recipes 

Could be parts of the sediment or hops....the one time I had contaminated beer, the beer was really cloudy and just plain awful to drink. Don't poor your sediment in your glass and it should taste great!

arcto

Recipes 

Hey i bottled 4 330ml bottles after primary as a test to see the difference between Primary and secondary clarity. After 1 week in the bottle there is allready quiet an amount of mouldy/dusty looking sediment at the base. This is normal isnt it?

VTBrewer

Recipes 

yes. it takes 3 weeks or so for the yeast to clean up and drop everything out. I usually don't take a reading until week 4, though I have 5 primaries now so i am more patient. when i started i was a little quicker to the bottle.

__________________

• Fermenting: Cherry Stout
• On Tap: Town Hall Hope & King Scotch Ale, Red Hook ESB

Recipes And Blogs: ClubHomeBrew

arcto

Recipes 

Lucky is the man with 5 primaries

When i was in primary origionally should i have left it longer than 10 days then?
There was 4 liters waste in the bottom when switching fermentors!

Thanks

Barc

Recipes 

You'll find that a lot of folks on the board don't do secondaries. 10 days in the primary isn't bad, 2 weeks is probably better, and, IMO, leaving it for the duration of the ferment isn't a bad thing. On most lower SG beers, I will leave it in primary for 4 weeks or so to give the yeast time to clean up. On higher SG beers, that time can drastically increase as can time in the bottle conditioning... Hope that helps!