Beers have more flavor at the bottom of the bucket

Is there a trick to bottling evenly over the course of 5 gallons? Should I stir the beer (slowly) once in a while during the bottling session, to make sure the beer is more even at the end?

I'm bottling an English Pale Ale right now and noticed the hibscus, tea-like flavor is stronger over the last 1.5 gallons.

I'm actually looking at the order I bottled to mark the ones that are going to pack a little more flavor. In past I guess I never noticed if this was an issue. This is about my 6th extract batch that I've bottled since October, so the process is pretty routine. Still I think I'm missing something.

Any tips would be great.

Thanks,
J

That would probably be flavors from the sediment. Unless you're planning to stir the beer up before you drink it, those flavors won't make it into your glass anyway.

Did you siphon into a bottling bucket before adding your primer? I would think this would take care of the possible difference in the flavours throughout the bucket?

Yea, I siphoned into a bottling bucket.

If you racked into a bottling bucket I'm not sure how you could get any detectable flavor differences throughout the batch. The Transfer of the beer alone would mix everything up really good. I've bottled plenty of batches and never noticed a difference.

I suppose swirling the beer in the bottling bucket slowly would help, but it would be the first I've heard of that needing to be done.

I siphon my wort into a bottling bucket, add my priming sugar water mix, and have a long stir spoon to swirl it all up with. I usually re-swirl the mixture every 2 minutes during bottling just to be extra careful and make sure nothing settles out...probably just paranoia...but bottling can take me 30 minutes almost sometimes.

Swirling, stirring and mixing at bottling is generally not reccommended. There is a real risk of introducing too much oxygen at this point, producing an off flavor.

Add the priming solution to the bucket first, then siphon the beer into the bucket, keeping the tube submerged in the bottling bucket so as to not splash ( and oxygenate). This action will be sufficient to mixing the priming sugar solution into the beer, no stirring needed.

@Pappers, I agree. My process is the same.. priming solution into bottling bucket, rack on top with tube submerged. I could be imagining things, I'll check the 22oz vs. the 12 oz I racked first in about 3 weeks. I sampled the first pour from the bottling bucket and the last pour, (I ran out of bottles) and felt the flavor was stronger towards the end.

jlanier01 said:

@Pappers, I agree. My process is the same.. priming solution into bottling bucket, rack on top with tube submerged. I could be imagining things, I'll check the 22oz vs. the 12 oz I racked first in about 3 weeks. I sampled the first pour from the bottling bucket and the last pour, (I ran out of bottles) and felt the flavor was stronger towards the end.

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Well, I have a theory on why that might be. First, my life experiences tell me that it's the same from top to bottom, as it's a liquid that is homogenous. It's not separated, it's not striated. It's the same.

But olfactory senses play the biggest part in taste. If you've had it in a bucket in front of you, maybe your nose is what's making it taste better at the very end. You've been smelling it for 20 minutes, and then taste it again. I know that when I have a new beer, the first sip is just a hint of the fuller flavor I get in later sips. In your bottling bucket, as the liquid drops, the aroma is "stuck" inside the bucket, and so maybe that last sample seems more aromatic as well. That would translate to stronger flavor when your brain processes it.

I might be FOS, but that's the only explanation I can come up with!

Once again, Yooper, you are a fount of wisdom!

Yooper = Keen powers of observation, you have.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I actually think the overall aroma was trapped in the bucket, because I remember taking a big whiff and thinking "geez this smells a lot stronger at the end". The color from bottle to bottle was the same, so I know it wasn't sediment or anything transferred to the bottling bucket.

jlanier01 said:

Is there a trick to bottling evenly over the course of 5 gallons? Should I stir the beer (slowly) once in a while during the bottling session, to make sure the beer is more even at the end?

I'm bottling an English Pale Ale right now and noticed the hibscus, tea-like flavor is stronger over the last 1.5 gallons.

I'm actually looking at the order I bottled to mark the ones that are going to pack a little more flavor. In past I guess I never noticed if this was an issue. This is about my 6th extract batch that I've bottled since October, so the process is pretty routine. Still I think I'm missing something.

Any tips would be great.

Thanks,
J

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Hi there! I believe the answer to your question lies in the terminology you are using. You are saying "more flavour", and I think you mean to say "more colour and/or more suspended matter". Flavour implies that you tasted each and every beer before capping it.... not possible. I hope that sets it straight. If you are simply concerned about the colour of the bottles, and how it might imply the flavours differ... don't be. As another poster mentioned, it will just end up as sediment. By the time your beer clears after a few days/weeks, they all will look the same. Guaranteed :cross:

Also, if you arrange your beers to be drank according to when they were filled from the bucket, I am guessing aging will throw in a mix. But even with two side by side what with the way my tasting usually works, I cant side-by-side two beers very often, I think they all get better as the night goes on

lady_brewer said:

Also, if you arrange your beers to be drank according to when they were filled from the bucket, I am guessing aging will throw in a mix...

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Really? How much can your beer really age in a few hours?

joety said:

Really? How much can your beer really age in a few hours?

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She means the aging over the time it takes to drink the beers, not bottle them

And that aging time for bottle conditioning will definitely affect how the beer tastes.