One dumped beer after another

I have brewed 50 plus beers prior to this year, lots of highs and lows but getting much more consistent and the overall product getting much better. Until this summer:

Porter - mashed the dark grains too long and got a puckeringly astringent beer. Undrinkable, can't even mix it with anything.

Imperial Stout - stuck fermentation at 1.035, first time this has ever happened. Dropped in beano and it dropped to 1.020, I'll be heating it to 135 for 15 minutes today in order to render the enzymes inert. It currently has little flavor, I think due to the continued fermentation, so if it is at all passable I am pumping it through a hop rocket with coffee beans and cocoa nibs. I am not too hopeful of this turning-out well.

Saison - tastes sour and yeasty, possibly infected or possibly too much exposure to oxygen. I am letting set in the keg another couple of weeks before committing to dumping it.

Ballantine IPA clone - from pp 240 of Mitch Steele's IPA Book. Where it instructs the reader to add .2 oz of gypsum per gallon ... Don't do it. My $35 of ingredients brewed a bitter beer that causes diarrhea. I'll share the responsibility with Mr. Steele for this one, he should have proofread his book and I should have looked at what others have done with gypsum in their recipes.

Argh!

Wait, one more! I brewed a Belgian Wit Ipa with Galaxy hops two weeks ago, damn it smelled good. Walked away from the wort transferring into the carboy so I could clean something outside. Walked back in to see 2 gallons of wort streaming down my kitchen floor at me.

Oh, that sucks! I've had some "not great" things happen recently, but haven't had a dumper since the band-aid beer of about a year ago.

I need to get brewing, though, as I"m down to only two taps and 10 gallons in fermenters and that will go quick!

thats a bummer. It sounds like each beer has a different issue. Are you making sure your process is the same everytime? I know when I brew EVERYTHING is the same...it has gotten to the point that I am almost on auto-pilot through the entire process.

Agree with Phunhog here, the process has to be the same no matter what beer you are making. Only thing that changes is the ingredients. usually make beers that are about the same gravity.

Phunhog said:

thats a bummer. It sounds like each beer has a different issue. Are you making sure your process is the same everytime? I know when I brew EVERYTHING is the same...it has gotten to the point that I am almost on auto-pilot through the entire process.

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It is the same every time but I started using dry yeast in my last two batches to avoid having to do a starter and aerate my wort. Am hoping that clears up some off flavors that I associate with recent batches. At some point my LHBS switched to white labs from wyeast and my attenuation tanked even hough I do a starter for both.

Gelatin works great for removing astringency. You can use multiple doses.

Wish you were closer (I live in Charlotte). It always helps to have a second set of eyes watch and maybe identify any issues. I've made some dumpers in the distant past and have had some off flavors. But seem to be well beyond that point now.

To get rid of off flavors EVERYTHING was disassembled and immaculately cleaned.
Turned out there was some rotten grain stuck in a pump.

Yeah, I just disassembled the CO2 lines and distributor for my keg and cleaned everything. Washed out my freezers with clorox. Am trying to limit my exposure to risk.

maltoftheearth said:

It is the same every time but I started using dry yeast in my last two batches to avoid having to do a starter and aerate my wort.

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You still need to aerate with dry yeast.

bleme said:

You still need to aerate with dry yeast.

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Just getting ready to post this. The yeast still need a good environment to reproduce in, you just don't need to make a starter. Also, if you are building high gravity beers, you might want to check that you are adding enough yeast. From what I've read on here, one 11.5g packet of yeast is only good for average gravity 5 gallon brews. So, you still have to look at your pitching rates.

maltoftheearth said:

Yeah, I just disassembled the CO2 lines and distributor for my keg and cleaned everything. Washed out my freezers with clorox. Am trying to limit my exposure to risk.

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How do you clean the kegs?
Also does the non-carbonated beer taste OK when you go from secondary to keg? It's good to taste thru the whole process to determine when a "bad" taste occurred.
FWIW I clean mine with a keg washer using PBW. I just let is wash for a good day or so. Then I follow up with Saniclean. Before I keg I'll dump some Starsan in the keg, splash around for awhile and then blow it out with CO2 to sanitize.
Hope this helps you out.
When I blow a keg I immediately rinse out with water as it is a PITA to get old beer out.

bleme said:

You still need to aerate with dry yeast.

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No, you don't. Go to the mfr website. Oxygen only needed if you want to propagate yeast. Dry yeast packets should have enough for innoculation without needing to make more of themselves.

As for keg cleaning, that's pretty much the sAme process I use.

Where are you pitching and fermenting? I just lost 30ish gallons of beer to find out it was something in my basement, I also was making my starters on a stir plate down there so I was making a infected starter and pitching that. Once I cleaned everything with bleach and started fermenting upstairs all has been well. Sometimes it's not in your process and out of your control.

maltoftheearth said:

No, you don't. Go to the mfr website. Oxygen only needed if you want to propagate yeast. Dry yeast packets should have enough for innoculation without needing to make more of themselves.

As for keg cleaning, that's pretty much the sAme process I use.

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The manufacturers also don't say anything on the packet about rehydrating dry east but around here it's almost gospel. I do oxygenate my wort regardless, but I don't rehydrate. EDIT: Danstar's website says adding O2 is necessary for beers over 5% ABV.

Transamguy77 said:

Where are you pitching and fermenting? I just lost 30ish gallons of beer to find out it was something in my basement, I also was making my starters on a stir plate down there so I was making a infected starter and pitching that. Once I cleaned everything with bleach and started fermenting upstairs all has been well. Sometimes it's not in your process and out of your control.

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Yeah, THIS is what scares me most. I had a friend make ribs with a vinegar based sauce once when I was brewin and that batch had some issues. Never will let that happen again. Live n an older home and also never know what luks n these walls.

maltoftheearth said:

Yeah, THIS is what scares me most. I had a friend make ribs with a vinegar based sauce once when I was brewin and that batch had some issues. Never will let that happen again. Live n an older home and also never know what luks n these walls.

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Did he make it in your brew pot?? Can't imagine how on earth making BBQ while brewing would screw up your beer..... I do it all the time.

What do you use for cleaning/sanitizing???

Water???

What are you cooling your wort down to before pitching? What emperature are you are fermenting at?

Also - the recipes/beers you listed are all fairly substantial/unique beers. Do you don any "regular " beers? Brown ale, APA, etc? I have had some dumpers over the past few years - almost all of them were batches that were sort of more extreme/unusual styles. Often, just a lot harder to turn out a quality representation of those beers.

Braufessor said:

Did he make it in your brew pot?? Can't imagine how on earth making BBQ while brewing would screw up your beer..... I do it all the time.

What do you use for cleaning/sanitizing???

Water???

What are you cooling your wort down to before pitching? What emperature are you are fermenting at?

Also - the recipes/beers you listed are all fairly substantial/unique beers. Do you don any "regular " beers? Brown ale, APA, etc? I have had some dumpers over the past few years - almost all of them were batches that were sort of more extreme/unusual styles. Often, just a lot harder to turn out a quality representation of those beers.

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I was confused at this statement as well. Seems more witchcraft or folktale than something to actually associate with problems in the brewing process.

maltoftheearth said:

mashed the dark grains too long and got a puckeringly astringent beer.

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What? Mashing too long doesn't cause astringency. Astringency comes from mashing too hot.

Please don't take offense, but you need to do a little more research about brewing in general. Listen to some podcasts on the Brewing Network and read How to Brew. You ALWAYS need to add oxygen somehow. Pitching rates assume you will have yeast growth, which without O2 won't happen very much.

maltoftheearth said:

Yeah, THIS is what scares me most. I had a friend make ribs with a vinegar based sauce once when I was brewin and that batch had some issues. Never will let that happen again. Live n an older home and also never know what luks n these walls.

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Sounds like you are in an older house too, yes you really don't know what's lurking in it.

What I would do is clean everything really well and make a cheap batch of something and ferment in a different place and maybe keg half and bottle half then you can see if its something in your kegging system or not. And again I'd keg and bottle in a different place, maybe your kitchen? That way maybe you can rule out some variables. Oh and take very detailed notes, where you fermented, where you bottled and kegged and anything else that you don't normally do.

uatuba said:

I was confused at this statement as well. Seems more witchcraft or folktale than something to actually associate with problems in the brewing process.

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Concern here is about acetobacter which I belive is present in vinegar. And I am not sure of the transmission vector but am pretty sure it is airborne

The comment about needing to read about beer brewing is not helpful. If you want to remain ignorant on the differences between liquid yeasts like Wyeast/White Labs and dried yeasts like Brewtek and Safale then that's on you.

Thank you re the reminder of simpler is better ... That is a good reminder. I have some typical beers in my lineup that I play around with, these were all unusual/different styles I wanted to play around with.

maltoftheearth said:

Concern here is about acetobacter which I belive is present in vinegar. And I am not sure of the transmission vector but am pretty sure it is airborne

The comment about needing to read about beer brewing is not helpful. If you want to remain ignorant on the differences between liquid yeasts like Wyeast/White Labs and dried yeasts like Brewtek and Safale then that's on you.

Thank you re the reminder of simpler is better ... That is a good reminder. I have some typical beers in my lineup that I play around with, these were all unusual/different styles I wanted to play around with.

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I don't think there is any acetobacter in Vinegar as it as done its work to make acetic acid.

Acetobacter is everywhere. Proper cleaning will keep it in check.

maltoftheearth said:

The comment about needing to read about beer brewing is not helpful. If you want to remain ignorant on the differences between liquid yeasts like Wyeast/White Labs and dried yeasts like Brewtek and Safale then that's on

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You are the one saying your beer is astringent from mashing too long. Doesn't make sense.

You want to get in to a pissing contest, I'll go 12 rounds without a sweat. Don't ask for advice if you're too proud to take it.

From the Fermentis website:

Oxygen is required to assure a healthy cell multiplication. Oxygenation is
either made by top filling and splashing wort against the wall of the
fermenter, aeration or direct oxygen injection. It is usually recommended
to make the oxygenation on cooled wort. At this stage hygiene is essential
since bacteria may develop during the aeration. Oxygen should only be
added in the first twelve hours of fermentation (9 ppm). Adding oxygen
during late fermentation will increase aldehyde levels and amplify diacetyl
formation. High levels of oxygen will suppress ester production. It has been
noticed that oxygen can increase SO² concentrations in some worts.

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^^ Right. So there is no need to aerate unless your pitching into a higher than normal gravity? Otherwise, the yeast will do their job and not need to multiply, as stated in post #12.

No. I believe you are misunderstanding. One packet of yeast, liquid or dry, does not contain enough yeast cells to ferment even a low gravity wort. It may or may not contain enough cells to reproduce and start real fermentation in a timely manner.

A packet of yeast is like the starter motor on your car. It doesn’t move the car, but it starts the engine that moves the car. If your starter motor is small and underpowered it will whir along without effectively starting your car, and bad things might happen as a result. Your battery might get drained or your starter might burn out. Even if it eventually starts the engine, you might have done detectable damage. Yeast packs are the same. The yeast in the pack don’t accomplish the fermentation all on their own, they start the reproductive work that produces sufficient yeast to do a good fermentation. In higher gravity worts you need more yeast at the start so that they can produce enough other yeast, in the wort, to start a good fermentation.

This is why you need a bigger starter for larger beers. Not because the yeast in the starter are the only yeast working in the wort, but because otherwise the reproduction to true fermentation levels would take too long. Oxygen is crucial to this early work of reproduction. Boiled wort has very little oxygen. The idea that you don’t have to aerate just because you pitch dry yeast is simply wrong.

Here are some FAQs from Danstar. Note the portion that says aeration is not needed for dry yeast. Lots of good tips in there, but I'd still aerate. It won't hurt and can help as the cells produce a few generations of new cells. I also could not find any information from the other dry yeast manufacturers about not needing to aerate the wort.

http://www.danstaryeast.com/frequently-asked-questions

But enough about the aeration. What could be causing such a problem with the batches? Did you clean ALL parts of the brewery and sanitize? Is there ANYTHING that may not have been taken apart and cleaned? Change in water source? Temp controller working properly?

As for me, my brewing system changes between nearly every batch. I am still on process of upgrading my system and brew once a month or two. It's a struggle to get consistent that way, but it can't be helped. It sounds like your process is fairly constant and you have a good handle on brewing, so I suspect it's one of those things that's easy to overlook.

ahpsp said:

................... One packet of yeast, liquid or dry, does not contain enough yeast cells to ferment even a low gravity wort. It may or may not contain enough cells to reproduce and start real fermentation in a timely manner.

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That is incorrect. Most quality dry yeast packages are 11 grams. They have sufficient cells for most 5 gallon batches of beer. Liquid yeast have a maximum of 100 billion- which is not enough. Dry yeast has approximately 20 billion cells/gram- so there are 220 billion (more or less) cells in a package- more than enough for all but the biggest OG batches. Sean Terrill's experiments showed 22.9 billion/gram.

It seems the effort put into arguing if yeast needs to be aerated or not is more trouble than actually aerating...ipe:

That is incorrect. Most quality dry yeast packages are 11 grams. They have sufficient cells for most 5 gallon batches of beer.

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Either you are misunderstanding me, or my understanding is off. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between the number of yeast cells you should pitch, and the number needed for good fermentation. Yeast reproduce in the wort. This reproduction takes oxygen, and is crucial to many aspects of beer flavor formation. The number of cells in a good starter are determined by the sweet spot between over-stressing and under-stressing the yeast during this reproduction. I know that a packet of dry yeast has enough cells to hit this sweet spot (hence my use of the phrase "may or may not" in the phrase you quoted: dry yeast do, liquid packets do not), but it's the sweet spot for propagation, not for actual fermentation.

This is why trub contains billions more cells than the number that were pitched, and why pitching onto a full yeast cake is frowned on my many people.

ahpsp said:

.................. or my understanding is off.

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Yes.

Say you need 190 billion cells as an optimum pitch rate based on your OG and batch size. (You can find that out on mrmalty.com or on yeastcalc.com for a good guestimate of the optimum pitch rate).

If you have a dry yeast package with 220 billion cells, you don't even need the entire package, let alone a starter.

If you have a liquid yeast package with 75 billion cells, you need a starter. A good guestimate would be a 1.5 liter starter for the optimum cell count.

Yeast reproduce, yes. And part of the reproduction phase creates flavors in the beer so you don't want to overpitch. But gross underpitching is a much more common cause of off-flavors, and it's much easier to underpitch than overpitch.

Ok. I understand all about the pitch rate, per se. I must be misunderstanding how yeast work in beer. Thanks.

Someone should do an experiment. 5gal simple beer. Split into 2, be very gentle with one to limit oxygen. Then put a ton of oxygen in the other half. Split a pack of dry yeast. Then see what happens.

lifesjoys said:

Someone should do an experiment. 5gal simple beer. Split into 2, be very gentle with one to limit oxygen. Then put a ton of oxygen in the other half. Split a pack of dry yeast. Then see what happens.

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You also need a batch with the right amount of oxygen in it. It's easy to over aerate with pure O2 and a stone in a small batch.

lifesjoys said:

Someone should do an experiment. 5gal simple beer. Split into 2, be very gentle with one to limit oxygen. Then put a ton of oxygen in the other half. Split a pack of dry yeast. Then see what happens.

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Basic Brewing radio did a great podcast on this. It's from July 13th. They had all kinds of variables, shaking, stirring, powered stirring, no aeration, pure O2, lots of pure O2. The shaking and limited pure O2 gave the best results. Look into that podcast, had a ton of good information in it. Although I can't remember the yeast they used. so obviously that wouldn't do you any good if it wasn't dry yeast.

lifesjoys said:

Someone should do an experiment. 5gal simple beer. Split into 2, be very gentle with one to limit oxygen. Then put a ton of oxygen in the other half. Split a pack of dry yeast. Then see what happens.

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I brewed numerous beers with no O2 or shaking. They took slightly longer to start but still fermented.

In my humble experience, the yeast websites overall suggest a pitching rate that is less than optimal. I've used dry and liquid under all the manufacturers recommendations, and my beers didn't meet the quality I was happy with until I pitched the rates recommended by Jamil (Mr. Malty) with pure O2 in the starter (stir plate) and wort. Huge shift in quality when I started this, like mind blowing huge. Like I said, IMHO, individual results may vary...

smizak said:

You are the one saying your beer is astringent from mashing too long. Doesn't make sense.

You want to get in to a pissing contest, I'll go 12 rounds without a sweat. Don't ask for advice if you're too proud to take it.

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To be fair, he never asked for advice.

A variety of beers going bad in the OP seems to indicate (IMHO, and in order of likelihood):

1. A sanitation problem, but it appears that this is being addressed.

2. A yeast underpitching problem. Personally, I've brewed for six years, and have made exactly one (1) starter. I use both Wyeast smack-packs and dry yeast, and I've never dumped a batch yet.

3. An æration problem. Two years ago I got the William's Brewing æration kit, and this was the single best move I have made toward uniform quality since I started homebrewing. I just stick that wand in the fermenter and give it about 30 seconds of O2, and I'm good.