I'm relatively new to homebrewing (8 batches). The first 3 I did at my parent's house completely, brew day to bottling and they all turned out great. I did the remaining 5 in my apartment. The problem is that every batch I've done at my apartment tastes sour and over-carbs in the bottle, which leads me to believe they are contaminated. The first 3 I did at my apartment were with the same batch of Star San. Thinking that the Star San was no longer effective, I made a new batch for my last 2 brews. I tasted a bottle of the first of the last 2 most recent batches I did (an all centennial pale ale) after 2 weeks of carbonating in the bottle and it had the same sour and over-carbed taste as my other brews. Where I live has very hard water so I did this batch with all store bought spring water too.
Lastly, when ever I taste the beer as I rack from my secondary to the bottling bucket it tastes like a good brew, just without carbonation. Therefore, it seems the contamination occurs in the bottle. I use my dishwasher's "heat dry" setting to sanitize the bottles, could it be that the dishwasher doesn't get hot enough?
I don't know why it took me 4 contaminated batches to finally post but I got a batch in the secondary now I'm bottling on Sunday that I like to save.
Basically my question is have you ever heard of beer getting contaminated in the bottle and how do you normally sanitize your bottles? Or can you think of something that causes new brewers to have contaminated batches? I like to think I'm very careful when it comes to sanitizing.
Lastly, when ever I taste the beer as I rack from my secondary to the bottling bucket it tastes like a good brew, just without carbonation. Therefore, it seems the contamination occurs in the bottle. I use my dishwasher's "heat dry" setting to sanitize the bottles, could it be that the dishwasher doesn't get hot enough?
I don't know why it took me 4 contaminated batches to finally post but I got a batch in the secondary now I'm bottling on Sunday that I like to save.
Basically my question is have you ever heard of beer getting contaminated in the bottle and how do you normally sanitize your bottles? Or can you think of something that causes new brewers to have contaminated batches? I like to think I'm very careful when it comes to sanitizing.