Toss My First Batch?

I bottled my first batch on 12/19, an Irish stout. The night I bottled it, the beer tasted great (a little undeveloped, but just fine). A couple of weeks later, I tried another one, and it tasted not so great. Now, when I pour one of my beers, the glass will totally fill with head before I have even poured a quarter of a bottle, and the beer is undrinkable (it just seems to get worse and worse).

I called my local brew shop, and the guy asked what kind of bottles I used and how I cleaned them. I had recycled old 22's and 12's from commercial beers, plus a few from another homebrewer. I used soap and water right after drinking the beer from the bottles and ran them all through the dishwasher right before I bottled my own beer.

The brew shop guy said I should have used a cleaner (Oxiclean, e.g.) and sanitizer (One Step, e.g.) instead of soap/water and using the dishwasher. He thinks my beers got contaminated inside the bottles.

First, does his assessment seem right? I took great care to sanitize my equipment with sanitizer, but I think I just put too much faith in my dishwasher to sanitize the bottles.

Second, is this beer worth keeping? Am I sitting on a pile of bottle bombs?

Any help is appreciated. I have a second batch coming out of the fermenter next weekend, and I do NOT want to screw this one up. It's an IPA I am really excited about.

You may have bottle bombs in your future if you have contamination. I know some people have used the sanitize setting on their dishwasher, but I havent.
I do a soak with hot oxyclean, then they are sanitized with star san and filled.
If you were just overcarbed and the flavor wasn't getting worse, you may not have mixed the priming sugar enough.
It sounds to me that you have another issue. Put the bottles in a covered rubbermaid container so it minimizes the mess if they start popping. I would let them age for a few more months before dumping.

How long has your beer been in the bottles? What's your definition of "a couple weeks?" 1, 2, 3, 5, different times can have a bearing on the answer. What temp are you coniditioning them at? How long are you chilling them before opening them? Again all these questions have a bearing on whether or not anything's wrong with your beer, or that the co2 has balanced out yet.

I firmly believe you never consider dumping your beer until you've walked away from them for weeks or months....but don't even think about it until at least 8 weeks in the bottle.

Too many noobs pull the plug and dump something, when they don't even know if there's a problem yet.

Watch poindexter's video from my bottling blog. He shows a beer gushing at 1 week, not because it's infected, but because the co2 hasn't stabelized and gone full into solution yet.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlBlnTfZ2iw]time lapse carbonation - YouTube[/ame]

I think you're jumping the gun on thinking you should dump a beer.

Read the stories here, and you'll see how many times folks thought about dumping batches and instead gave it more time, and the beer turned out great.

One thing to do is to chill your bottles for a WEEK before opening them. That usually gives plenty of time for the co2 to be absorbed by the beer.

Did your dishwasher have a sanitize or heated dry cycle?

I think a 'sanitize' dishwasher cycle can sub for using a sanitizer, but a regular spin through a dishwasher probably isn't enough.

I wash my bottles right away like you and nearly always dunk each bottle in a bucket of oxyclean, let sit for 5 minutes, then pour out the oxy just before filling. When I say oxy I'm talking about easy clean cleanser.

I did one batch of bottles using sanitize dishwasher cycle with no soap, then heated dry. It worked w/o contaminated bottles, but took so much longer I just dunk in a 5 gal bucket of starsan or oxy now just before bottling.

I had this happen once when I realized I did not completely rinse the Oxiclean from my bottles. Just as you said, good at first and then the flavor went south and foamy fast.

I've never used the dishwasher for bottles so I can't comment on that (don't have one). But, from that batch on I've been very thorough with a good, hot water rinse after washing, and then Starsan. Keeping them is your call - I managed to drink most of mine to teach myself a lesson.

Revvy said:

How long has your beer been in the bottles? What's your definition of "a couple weeks?" 1, 2, 3, 5, different times can have a bearing on the answer. What temp are you coniditioning them at? How long are you chilling them before opening them? Again all these questions have a bearing on whether or not anything's wrong with your beer, or that the co2 has balanced out yet.
.

Click to expand...

I bottled on 12/19, so it has been a little over a month. The bottles are conditioning at between 68 and 70*F. When I chill a beer to drink, I will just put it in the fridge for a couple of hours, just long enough to get it cold.

Should I let them chill longer?

JimTheHick said:

Did your dishwasher have a sanitize or heated dry cycle?

I think a 'sanitize' dishwasher cycle can sub for using a sanitizer, but a regular spin through a dishwasher probably isn't enough.

I wash my bottles right away like you and nearly always dunk each bottle in a bucket of oxyclean, let sit for 5 minutes, then pour out the oxy just before filling. When I say oxy I'm talking about easy clean cleanser.

I did one batch of bottles using sanitize dishwasher cycle with no soap, then heated dry. It worked w/o contaminated bottles, but took so much longer I just dunk in a 5 gal bucket of starsan or oxy now just before bottling.

Click to expand...

I used a normal wash with heated dry cycle with no detergent or soap. I think I will go the cleaner/sanitizer route next time because it takes about two hours to run that cycle. Also, I know the bottles will get all their surfaces in contact with the sanitizing solution if I dunk them.

Wow, you guys are super helpful.

Good posts.. dishwashers are good at cleaning the outside and sanitizing if used with that cycle.. but, won't clean the inside. I use oxyclean.. I've had NO trouble with the kind that has some smell.. but, I triple rinse my bottles after the oxyclean bath.

Wondering what your carbing process was. How did you carb the bottles? With a priming bucket or carb drops? How much sugar?

If they are over carbed.. Revvy is right.. let it go for a while at room temperature for a few more weeks, at least. If still over carbed but taste good.. open the bottle and let it sit for ten minutes before pouring. Also, try pouring into a cold, CLEAN glass.

Gambit255 said:

I bottled on 12/19, so it has been a little over a month. The bottles are conditioning at between 68 and 70*F. When I chill a beer to drink, I will just put it in the fridge for a couple of hours, just long enough to get it cold.

Should I let them chill longer?

Click to expand...

Union Covered it.

unionrdr said:

The bottles need more than just a couple hours in the fridge to absorb the co2 & let any chill haze settle. 1 to 2 weeks,depending on darkness & gravity,ime. Thicker head & longet lasting carbonation. And those beercanos will go dormant.

Click to expand...

Put a couple in the fridge, maybe 4- check a couple in a week, and another couple in 2...if the two week batch is still gushing, you're probably infected. You could consider dumping then....

I used the priming sugar that came with the kit. I used the amount they gave me, which I assumed would be as much as I needed. I boiled it in water for a bit, let it cool, then poured it into the bottling bucket and siphoned the beer in the bottling bucket. I have been told that method would mix the beer and sugar solution sufficiently.

I put a bottle in the fridge yesterday because I was going to try the beer last night. I will let it rest a week in there, then try it and report back.

ETA: Per Revvy's advice, I just put a sixer in the fridge to see if they improve over the next few weeks.

FYI, in the future, when posting a question be as specific as possible, you don't have to write a novel, just when giving info, don't say "a couple weeks" give the amount. If you look at the video you can see how a beer will typically change from week to week. So the difference between 1 week and 2 weeks or 2 weeks and 4 weeks can be quite dramatic. And can reflect how we answer your questions.

If you said I opened the bottle at 1 week, you'll probably get a "patience noob" answer, if you say 8 weeks, we'll go, "hmm, something is wrong."

So in helping us help you, give us more precise info in the future. You can save a lot of time by doing that, since we won't need to ask you before we can figure anyhting out.

Let us know how it goes!!!

UPDATE: I tried a bottle that I put in the fridge Friday morning. Here are my findings:

The carbonation is not nearly as bad, but it's still rather heady, even with a soft pour. The head kind of settles into two layers. The initial layer of head from the pour consists of your average suds, but the layer that forms as bubbles come out of the beer as it sits in the glass is denser, with tinier bubbles.

The flavor is not NEARLY as bad as the last one I had. My biggest complaint is that the flavor is unremarkable. It's very weak. I am almost positive it had more flavor coming out of the fermenter and going into the bottles than today. Does that mean I need to age it more (again, bottled on 12/19)?

ETA: The clarity improved significantly as well.