What is happening to my beer?

So I started my first beer back in August and bottled on September 9. After the weeks in bottles the beer tasted pretty good. Body and head retention weren't the greatest but I'm okay with that on this one. For a first try I was really happy and my friends seem to like it. The beer proceeded to get better for the next few weeks.

So last week I have one and the flavor seemed a little off. I thought it might be a fluke and thought nothing of it. Last night I had another and this one was off as well...almost like a cider vinegar flavor. I had one tonight and again the flavor was off, but I can't put my finger on how, just not the same as the earlier bottles. So what is going on?

The bottles are stored in my garage where the temp has stayed between 65 and 70 for the past few weeks. The questionable bottles were all in the fridge for at least three days before drinking. I've got seven bombers and a couple of 12 oz bottles left and I hope they all aren't going to be like this.

You can get a little variation in a full batch, but it's pretty atypical to get major variations. I don't think this is aging related, but it could be. Only time will tell. Your temps seem good, so it's not likely that. I'm assuming you're not putting the beer in direct sunlight.

How were your sanitation practices during bottling? Did you thoroughly clean and sanitize all the bottles prior to use? And the bottling bucket, hoses, siphon, etc? Any possible chance of contamination at bottling? Bottling sanitation is probably more important than sanitation at fermentation because you don't have the yeast numbers to fight down and eliminate other competing organisms.

That's what's in my head...others may have more ideas.

I'm thinking oxidation. Did the beer splash around at all after fermentation? When fill the bottles did it splash going in or did you use a bottling wand?

revco said:

You can get a little variation in a full batch, but it's pretty atypical to get major variations. I don't think this is aging related, but it could be. Only time will tell. Your temps seem good, so it's not likely that. I'm assuming you're not putting the beer in direct sunlight.

How were your sanitation practices during bottling? Did you thoroughly clean and sanitize all the bottles prior to use? And the bottling bucket, hoses, siphon, etc? Any possible chance of contamination at bottling? Bottling sanitation is probably more important than sanitation at fermentation because you don't have the yeast numbers to fight down and eliminate other competing organisms.

That's what's in my head...others may have more ideas.

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My beer isn't being stored in direct sunlight. If I recall what I've read that leads to a skunky flavor, right?

I feel like my sanitation procedures were good during bottling. My LHBS gave me B-brite in my kit, which I learned on my first brew day, a Sunday, that B-brite is widely accepted as just a cleaner. Some said that a 30 minute soak would work, so that's what I did. The next day I went out and got some StarSan so that's what I used for bottling.

Bottles were soaked in OxyClean and sterilized with StarSan and a vinator. I used one case of new bottles from the LHBS and 10 bombers that I had saved. After drinking the bombers I would rinse well with our 140 degree hot water. There was nothing visible in any of the bottles to indicate they weren't clean. Buckets and hoses were also cleaned and sanitized, and siphon was primed with StarSan.

Being my first batch I was hyper anal about sanitation, and my wife, who helped is even more anal than I am. If she saw something that had been sanitized touch something that had not, she would make me stick it in the StarSan again.

bbrim said:

I'm thinking oxidation. Did the beer splash around at all after fermentation? When fill the bottles did it splash going in or did you use a bottling wand?

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I thought oxidation led to a wet cardboard taste.

My siphon was curled about halfway around the bottom of the bottling bucket and we used a bottling wand so there wasn't any splashing. We did have a small leak in the siphon so we stopped, tightened the hose clamp and re-started the siphon with no leaks. We probably didn't even siphon a bottle while we had the leak.

I'm at a loss here. A far as procedure goes I feel like we were on top of things.

MTate37 said:

I feel like my sanitation procedures were good during bottling. My LHBS gave me B-brite in my kit, which I learned on my first brew day, a Sunday, that B-brite is widely accepted as just a cleaner. Some said that a 30 minute soak would work, so that's what I did. The next day I went out and got some StarSan so that's what I used for bottling.

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After the 30 minute soak in B-brite, on brew day, did you thoroughly rinse and then sanitize your fermenter?? I'm wondering if leaving traces of the cleaner in there might have something to do with the off flavour. Different flavour/smell, I know, but the plasticy smell/taste from chlorophenols resulting from chlorine/chloramine in beer gets gradually worse as time goes by, doesn't it?

Your hops crapped out, no joke. It's normal. This is true for APA types, as an example if you've ever had an old seasonal beer like October fest something, in January it will tast off.

Sounds like a lacto bacteria, over time it turns residual sugars into lactic acid, the first bottle will taste fine, but after 4-5 days start tasting sour.
It actually lives on humans, so I use anti-bacterial hand gel.

mikescooling said:

Your hops crapped out, no joke. It's normal. This is true for APA types, as an example if you've ever had an old seasonal beer like October fest something, in January it will tast off.

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This makes sense. There is a certain brightness to the flavor that appears to be gone from the bottles I described.

BeerAlchemist said:

Sounds like a lacto bacteria, over time it turns residual sugars into lactic acid, the first bottle will taste fine, but after 4-5 days start tasting sour.
It actually lives on humans, so I use anti-bacterial hand gel.

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I bottled six weeks ago and they just started tasting off in the last week. If lacto starts to affect flavor after 4-5 days that doesn't line up.

"I bottled six weeks ago and they just started tasting off in the last week. If lacto starts to affect flavor after 4-5 days that doesn't line up."

Infections build. A few bacteria grow and grow until they start to impact the flavor.

Sour, vinegar like tastes definitely sound like bacteria. My mother makes kombucha and that stuff is good for a few weeks then it turns to nasty vinegar because it is actually made with a combination of yeast and bacteria. It takes time for bacteria to turn something that is high in alcohol and/or sugar because it's not an ideal environment.

How are you chilling down your wort after boiling? That is the most common stage in brewing for contamination.

Jayhem said:

How are you chilling down your wort after boiling? That is the most common stage in brewing for contamination.

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Funny you ask. Keep In mind this was my first batch. My LHBS told me to buy two bags of ice. Put one bag in my primary, pour the wort on top of that ice, and then top of with some of the second bag. I've seen mixed reviews on this technique but have already decided that I won't do it again.

This just came to mine. When I was cleaning the bucket after bottling I noticed a rather large gash in the side of it. I think this probably came from a stainless spoon I used to stir the wort. I didn't think to check the bucket out before brewing so I don't know if it was already there or not. I have since bought another bucket.

Maybe lose the metal spoon too. I would advise plastic or wood to stir with, less likely to scratch. Run your bottles through the dishwasher too (no soap) just to give them that extra help. Do you have a bottle brush or bottle jet cleaner?

MTate37 said:

Funny you ask. Keep In mind this was my first batch. My LHBS told me to buy two bags of ice. Put one bag in my primary, pour the wort on top of that ice, and then top of with some of the second bag. I've seen mixed reviews on this technique but have already decided that I won't do it again.

This just came to mine. When I was cleaning the bucket after bottling I noticed a rather large gash in the side of it. I think this probably came from a stainless spoon I used to stir the wort. I didn't think to check the bucket out before brewing so I don't know if it was already there or not. I have since bought another bucket.

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Both of these are interesting developments in the mystery, but I think we've either nailed it or have gotten close. We can't help with what we don't know.

I'd agree to ditch anything metal in a plastic fermenter. You want to keep those buckets as pristine as possible for the long term...even the smallest scratches can harbor baddies. Even a scour pad is too rough for those buckets...I preferred a 12-24 hour PBW soak for cleaning and only if absolutely necessary, a scrub with a bucket brush.

I would also second your decision to not use that method for cooling. It's difficult to say, but you've added water of an unknown source that wasn't boiled, and therefore could have introduced something small that grew with time. The ice could have also hit something unsanitized as you added it...the bag, the outside of the fermenter, etc...who knows? It's best to either use an immersion chiller or an ice bath of your kettle...and if you use an IC, keep it in the boil for 10-15 minutes of the final boil so it gets properly sanitized. Also, while chilling, it's important to keep the wort as isolated from floating things as possible...no fans, well covered, clean as can be. I see some brewers leave their starters an/ord wort exposed and nearly cringe every time...even though it's probably safe 95% of the time. It's that 5% that sucks and costs a lot of money in wasted beer.

lgilmore said:

Maybe lose the metal spoon too. I would advise plastic or wood to stir with, less likely to scratch. Run your bottles through the dishwasher too (no soap) just to give them that extra help. Do you have a bottle brush or bottle jet cleaner?

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i would stick with the plastic, and not use wood at all after youve boiled the wort. there is no good way to tell if you sanitized a wooden spoon.

I second that dumping ice in the primary probably isnt doing you any favors

I also think the store bought ice is to blame. One trick you can use though to help chill your wort down if you are using top off water to bring your wort up to the 5 gal mark is to prechill 3 gallons of sealed drinking water in the fridge overnight before you brew...then use those to top off your wort.

In general if you add 2.5 gallons of 100 degree wort to 2.5 gallons of 36 degree refrigerated water the final temp will be almost exactly in the middle at 68F which is ideal pitching temp. You can easily get your wort down to 100F by submerging your brew pot in a sink filled with ice water for about 20 minutes and checking temp and lightly stirring every 5 minutes with sanitized utensils.

I second what others have said. Bacteria can live in ice, you don't know what conditions the ice was prepared, bagged, or transported. If you've got a carefully sanitized set of equipment and you introduce ice into it, you're no longer sanitized IMO. There are lots of other was to chill, including no chill, you can research them here.

Oddly enough I drank another bottle tonight and it was fine. No vinegar/sour flavor at all. I'll continue to drink it throughout the weekend and we'll see what happens.

My thoughts are that if contamination happened at cooling and infection flavors were starting to show up now, shouldn't it be happening in all of the remaining bottles? But if this is something that happened at bottling the odds of picking three bad bottles in a row seem pretty slim. Please correct me if my logic is faulty.

I've already ditched the stainless spoon and started using a plastic mash paddle. I'm still trying to decide how many gallons I want to brew so I'll probably settle on a cooling method once I have my batch size worked out.

I appreciate everyone taking the time to work through this with me. Hopefully I haven't done to the other three beers I have working what it appears I've done to my first beer.