ding_brew

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I am a beginner. I have brewed 7 batches so far but I have noticed something in my batches that I can't figure out. My beer is really good but there are like 2 or 3 bottles in each batch that are amazing. Somewhere in the middle of the batch they show up. Perfect head and lacing. Awesomely blended taste. Just perfect. Why can't all my bottles be just as good. Don't get me wrong, I love my beer but I wish it all tasted like those few bottles in the middle of every batch that I make. WHY?

BTW Its supposed to read inconsistencies not insistencies. doh! Too much homebrew.

Revvy

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At what point do you begin drinking them? If you start drinking them too early then you will be missing out on the majority of the bottles being properly carbed and conditioned. If you start drinking them BEFORE a minimum of 3 weeks when at 70 degrees has happened, then basicaally you're drinking green, undercarbed beer. And obviously at some point you tasting the few of them that have reached the conclusion of the process.

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g-love

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Oh the humamities!

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Up Next: A mild

motobrewer

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Screech49

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I had this same problem until I started stirring my beer. Once the beer is in the bottling bucket with the sugar in it, stir very slowly, making sure not to aerate it. This made my batches more consistent. Just be sure not to stir it too hard. Hope this helps you with your next batch.

ding_brew

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Thanks will give that a try next time.

Revvy

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This has nothing to do with the issue...what he is saying is, when he starts drinking the beer it doesn't taste as good as a few weeks later when he gets to the middle of the batch. This has NOTHING to do with the fact the the beer is improperly mixed with priming sugar. It has to do with him touching those beers LATER that the ones in the beginning.

It's like the old saying, the last beer of the batch is usually the best one. That's because the beer wasn't really ready to drink when he started to crack them, but by the time he hit the middle of the batch, the GREENESS was gone. That has nothing to do with sugar not being mixed, it has to do with impatience.

It's not hard to grasp this...If my beer will be ready on week 3, and I start drinking them on week 1, if I get to half the batch on week 3, SUDDENLY they're going to be better, NOT because the priming sugar was mixed improperly, but because the beer is finally ready.

In fact many of us believe that you don't need to stir. Because it AUTOMATICALLY mixes as you rack. You're flowing two nearly identical densities together, they're going to mix on their own.

What new brewers don't tend to notice, is that around the time that they begin to stir the sugar mixture they have also began to notice all the millions of threads on here repeating the mantra "Three weeks @ 70," and whether they are consciously waiting or not, at least their understanding that carbing and conditioning is a process that takes TIME to achieve. And they start waiting a little bit longer, and their beers are carbed when they get to them, but rather than it being simply that the beer is carbed because it's time to be carbed, they attribute it to stirring, which isn't really the reason.

I've never stirred and I've never had a beer not fully carb when the time was right. Stir if you want but more than likely that has no bearing on the rate or eveness of your carbing.

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Like my snazzy new avatar? Get Sons of Zymurgy swag, here, and brew with the best.

Revvy's one of the cool reverends. He has a Harley and a t-shirt that says on the back "If you can read this, the bitch was Raptured. - Madman

I gotta tell ya, just between us girls, that Revvy is HOT. Very tall, gorgeous grey hair and a terrific smile. He's very good looking in person, with a charismatic personality... he drives like a ****ing maniac! - YooperBrew

Stauffbier

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Regarding the "stir" debate...

I did a little experiment about a year ago. You can try this too.

Take a cup of water and add your favorite color of food coloring to it. Add a lot of food coloring so that the color is nice and dark. Dump it in a bucket. Rack 5 gallons of clear water from another bucket on top of the colored water with a siphon. This imitates racking beer onto priming sugar. You'll notice that the cup of colored water mixes in with the 5 gallons of clear water very nicely. Give it a try!

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homebrewdad

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May I add that my personal experience says that the beer is typically carbed and ready to drink after three weeks... but often is longer before it truly hits its stride.

My advice to the OP? Wait a couple weeks longer than you have been waiting before you drink any beer. See if you don't get improvement.

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Homebrew Dad - blogging about making my own beer and raising a lot of kids.
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Fermenting: Yorkshire square brown ale
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Hang Glider

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Since you're also dealing with dissolved sugars, just food coloring is not going to be a good "control" for your experiment. You would need some dissolved sugars in your bucket "wort" and some dissolved sugars in your "priming sugar" - THEN the food coloring would show a better correlation.