The good and the bad...?

I bottled some IPA a few weeks ago and after 2 weeks I cracked one open and it was awesome. I gathered a six pack and brought them to a friends house and he loved them. I got home and brought a couple to my neighbor and he liked them and his friend liked them. A few days later I opened one for myself, tasted funny, dumped half of it. The next day I had one, tasted pretty good. I had a party and split a 22oz with a friend and it was RANCID! and I'm not talking about a punk band. Why do some of the bottle taste aweful? I wanted to hand out a few to some friends at work but I'm afraid I'll give 'em a sour one. Maybe I need tips on proper storage after being bottled, I dunno, but I have a quite a few left and I'm afraid I'll be dumpnig some.

Any ideas?

Sounds like maybe some of the bottles weren't clean. Just a thought.

My thoughts too. I'd keep this batch for yourself, and clean bottles better next time.

IrregularPulse said:

My thoughts too. I'd keep this batch for yourself, and clean bottles better next time.

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Would too much sanitizer residue left in the bottle do this? After you mentioned cleaning the bottles better, I remembered that this particular 22oz bottle seemed to have a lot of bubbles in it after I poured the beer, the kind the sanitizer leaves when you sanitize....

Depends on what type of sanitizer you are referring to. If it was StarSan properly mixed, then that is not your problem.
I would say you had some biological matter still in the bottle that shielded the nasties from the sanitizer. After filling, they came out and played.

Thanks for the info... hopefully the rest of my beer is delicious. Cheers.

bull8042 said:

Depends on what type of sanitizer you are referring to. If it was StarSan properly mixed, then that is not your problem.
I would say you had some biological matter still in the bottle that shielded the nasties from the sanitizer. After filling, they came out and played.

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Because even if you sanitized, if there is physical gunk still in it the sanitizer won't penetrate it. It's just a wet contact surface sanitizer. Bottles need to be CLEAN first.

just a thought but alot of people i talk to forget to sanitize the caps. Make sure you give sanitizer enough time to work on whatever. For example starsan needs 1.5 minues of contact time to work. And yea, if theres gunk then the sanitizer wont penetrate it. If cleanings too much trouble then buy new bottles but personally i like the challenge of getting beer crud out of free bottles....