help diagnosing a problem.

I bottled a northern brewer extract kit 2 weeks ago, caribou slobber. I've had 2 so far and they were perfect. Carbed good tasted good looked good. The 3rd bottle I poured looked like fresh apple cider. It was cloudy and had zero carbonation. Didn't taste bad and didn't have any foul odor. Is it possible the bottle cap wasnt sealed or something? Also, My helper on bottling day tipped a full bottle, spilling half. I simply refilled it and kept going. Is it possible that spilled bottle got shaken up and oxidized? I'm still rather new to brewing and this is my first bottle so far that had a problem. Any thoughts?

Try another bottle? I'm going to go with bad bottle cap seal. But if they are all like that, who knows??? My Caribou Slobber got better with age, at about 6 weeks in the bottle the flavor was great. I bottled on 5-4-12. Just popped one now, sip, good!

If your priming sugar was mixed at all, it sounds like that particular bottle just didn't get sealed.

How did you add your priming sugar?

I primed same way as other batches that were fine. Measured table sugar per the recipe. Boiled it and the dumped half in bottling bucket. Started racking and added other half of sugar. I think that all went fine. 2 of 3 were perfect. I have another 1 in fridge now. Ill drink it tomorrow. If that one is ok I'll assume it was just a bad seal on one bottle.

woody34 said:

I primed same way as other batches that were fine. Measured table sugar per the recipe. Boiled it and the dumped half in bottling bucket. Started racking and added other half of sugar. I think that all went fine. 2 of 3 were perfect. I have another 1 in fridge now. Ill drink it tomorrow. If that one is ok I'll assume it was just a bad seal on one bottle.

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Your process sounds fine to me. It was probably just the one bad one. Enjoy the rest of them!

Agreed probably just a bad seal on that one bottle. On another note, if you haven't found this through your research or been told by any brewer friends, screw top bottles are not ok to bottle homebrew in. Only because it is much harder to get a good seal on those types of bottles.

Don't worry, I had a batch of stout, about 4 of them did not carb up. It is not a perfect system.

Thanks fellas. They were not twist off caps. My first few 5 gallon batches came out fine so I'm pretty confident in my process. I'll know a lot more when I crack another bottle tomorrow. I was more surprised at the cloudiness than the lack of carb. Oh well. Time will tell.

woody34 said:

Thanks fellas. They were not twist off caps. My first few 5 gallon batches came out fine so I'm pretty confident in my process. I'll know a lot more when I crack another bottle tomorrow. I was more surprised at the cloudiness than the lack of carb. Oh well. Time will tell.

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It sounds like that one bottle has an infection, probably lactobacillus. If might just be one bottle that wasn't properly sanitized, so I wouldn't worry unless more than one has the same issue.

Yooper said:

It sounds like that one bottle has an infection, probably lactobacillus. If might just be one bottle that wasn't properly sanitized, so I wouldn't worry unless more than one has the same issue.

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How would the lacto infection fit the failure to carb up? I'm going with a capping failure on this one.

Pilgarlic said:

How would the lacto infection fit the failure to carb up? I'm going with a capping failure on this one.

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Lacto "eats" sugar, while causing cloudiness. If the lacto takes care of the sugar, instead of the brewer's yeast, then carbonation won't result (no co2 is produced by lacto).

It's not just the carbing failure that makes me think of lacto- it's the cloudiness and the "cider" look. But the carbing failure is another clue.

I was feeling better until you used that big scary lacto word. What the heck is that? And I'm stubborn so I drank that cloudy, flat beer. Am I gonna die?

woody34 said:

I was feeling better until you used that big scary lacto word. What the heck is that? And I'm stubborn so I drank that cloudy, flat beer. Am I gonna die?

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Yes. I'm going to miss you.












No, it's fine. And there are many times you've ingested lactobacillus- on purpose! Pickles, sauerkraut, cheese. It won't hurt you a bit, and is often tasty!

However, in beer it is considered a spoilage organism, a bacteria that causes sourness over time. Sometimes a beer is purposely a sour- like Berliner Weiss, which is fermented with lactobacillus on purpose.

In this case, I'm betting that one bottle wasn't cleaned the same as the others, or sanitized the same, or you had a bit of a leaky cap and some lacto got it. It's everywhere- on grain especially. It's in your kitchen, on your sponge, and your hands, and it won't hurt you. It just might not make your beer taste good if it's infected with it. Even if more bottles are infected, the beer will taste good for quite a while before they start to sour, especially if the beer is in the fridge. So I wouldn't worry too much, especially if this is an isolated bottle.

woody34 said:

I was feeling better until you used that big scary lacto word. What the heck is that? And I'm stubborn so I drank that cloudy, flat beer. Am I gonna die?

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Lactobacillus is in yogurt. I think you'll be ok.

But seriously, the great thing about beer is that even when its infected, its safe to drink. May not taste good, but it won't kill you. There are theoretical ways that one thing or another could might maybe possibly survive under just the right circumstances... but back before widespread sanitation, beer was safer to drink than water.

I know that pediococcus doesn't produce carbon dioxide. I'm quite sure that lacto does, however.

Edit: I see. "homofermentative" lactobacillus produces no carbon dioxide: "Lactic acid bacteria use lactose as their main source of carbon to produce energy. Lactic acid bacteria use energy to transfer lactose (main sugar of milk) through their cell membrane. The lactose is metabolized to lactic acid and in some species also acetic acid, ethanol and carbon dioxide. Lactic acid bacteria that only produce lactic acid as an end product are called homofermentative; those that also produce acetic acid, ethanol and carbon dioxide are termed heterofermentive. The by-product of this reaction is energy that the bacteria use for growth. The end products of fermentation ultimately change taste and texture of food."

Update- my 4th bottle was fine. 3 outta 4 were fine so far. Looks like an isolated bottle. Thank goodness because it's tastey beer. So do u folks think it was a bad seal or an infection, or a bad seal that led to an infection? Just trying to make sure this never happens again.

Probably just a bad seal. Keep an eye on your other bottles for cloudiness though. You may want to toss the one that didn't carb up, because if it is a lacto infection, then it'll be pretty hard to properly sanitize that bottle for future batches.