Better Bottle may be ruining my beers?

govain said:

So I've had a batch of American Wheat in the primary for just over a month now. I went to keg it and took a sample for gravity and tasting. It started at a 1.040 and is now around 1.010ish. The fermenter has kind of a grassy/green smell to it and the beer tastes soapy. Not quite sure what to make of it. (Also, it's been fermenting at 60-65 degrees I believe.)

Should I:

A: go ahead and keg it.
B: rack it into a secondary.
C: give it a little more time in the primary.

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This batch I racked into a secondary (also BB) on about 5/20, just tested it for flavor tonight, there was no change, if anything it may have been worse.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I figured 3 months untouched in a secondary to condition would have helped, not hindered my brew. The honeyed cream ale that I brewed at about the same time turned out wonderfully. That one was kept in a glass primary for a couple months then racked over to a keg. Upon reflection, I'm not sure that any of my BB brews have turned out, whereas the glass ones are fantastic. This is disappointing because I can't get flat rate shipping on the glass carboys, and I currently own 4 or 5 Better Bottles.

Has anybody encountered anything similar? I like the convenience of my BBs and would hate to have to pay the higher cost, and extra shipping for glass carboys.

For the record, yeast used, soap residue (unlikely with well rinsed PBW) and other sanitation concerns were discussed in the previous thread. I'm not sure that these are the problem as this has occurred on a couple different occasions with different types of beer while beers brewed at the same time under the same conditions turned out fantastic.

Any thoughts, input, etc?

Soapy may indicate the breakdown of fatty acids in trub and may be the result of waiting too long. Wheat beers are usually simple and fast beers not requiring long rest periods.

In this case, my thought is that you have been too patient and let the beer pass it's prime before it ever saw packaging.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Soapy may indicate the breakdown of fatty acids in trub and may be the result of waiting too long. Wheat beers are usually simple and fast beers not requiring long rest periods.

In this case, my thought is that you have been too patient and let the beer pass it's prime before it ever saw packaging.

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This was also discussed in the previous thread. I ruled it out in this latest case as it was not in there an unreasonable amount of time.

govain said:

This was also discussed in the previous thread. I ruled it out in this latest case as it was not in there an unreasonable amount of time.

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A month in the primary really IS an inordinate amount of time. Especially if the beer had yeast that was under stress (underpitching) or if there was a high-ish temperature ferment, or a very low or very high OG. Of course, I"m not on the 'ONE MONTH IN THE PRIMARY!" committee and wouldn't go more than about two weeks or so. A 1.040 beer is certainly done in 5 days, and I see no benefit to keeping it in the primary longer than 10 days, 14 days at the most.

Conditioning can help a lot of things, but it can't fix a bad beer. It can't remove off-flavors, although some people have claimed to have a reduction in esters from long conditioning. I've personally never seen a bad beer get much improvement, though.

Well, if you are going going to blame the better bottle, then you have to explain why all the other brewers who use them are able to turn out fantastic beers that had been fermented in better bottles....

I don't think this is a suitable explanation for your problem.

According to Palmer, grassy smells can be caused by improperly stored grains. Perhaps you used some grains that weren't so fresh? Where did you purchase your ingredients from? If you used some sort of wheat grain/malt in this brew and that was bad, then that could explain why this beer is grassy but your cream ale isn't....

As for the soapy taste, if we assume you rinsed properly then it could have something to do with the fatty acid breakdown. We've ruled out that the beer wasn't on the trub for an extensive amount of time (at least to cause this problem) so maybe the fatty acids in the grains you used were breaking down to give a soapy aftertaste? Just a thought.

Sometimes a batch doesn't turn out, all the more reason to brew it again.

The fermenter has kind of a grassy/green smell to it and the beer tastes soapy.

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Based on this line, you make me think of your hops right away. What hops did you use? I taste soap in some hops, particularly whatever Dale's Pale Ale uses. If you put this in the secondary on 5/20, then like Gila said, you probably left it too long. The hop flavor has more than likely morphed into what you are tasting now.

I'm not trying to demonize Better Bottles. I've been one of the biggest proponents of them in fact. I was merely questioning it. (notice the ?, not a !) the ingredients were fresh. I'm aware of fatty acids, etc. I've done the research, and this was also discussed extensively in the previous thread (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/soapy-tasting-green-smelling-245945/).

I was merely wondering if anybody else had ever encountered a problem as well, wasn't looking to go over the same stuff again. Perhaps I approached it the wrong way.

At any rate, I've got 60# of honey, 3 batches of Am. Wheat, Surly Furious, and Surly Bender that I'm nervous to brew now in my favorite equipment because of my previous experiences. I guess I'll just go for broke, brew it all, and hope for the best. Screw the 'extended primary' technique, I'm racking everything into a secondary the moment it's done.

Thank you all for the replies. I think I'm just running with the method I just mentioned.

govain said:

I'm not trying to demonize Better Bottles. I've been one of the biggest proponents of them in fact. I was merely questioning it. (notice the ?, not a !)

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...and I was just telling you that based on everything we know about BBs, that I didn't think you had any grounds to suspect them as the cause of the problem.

govain said:

the ingredients were fresh.

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Here is my take on this: How does any of us really know this for sure? My strategy is to order to high volume shops (AHS, BMW, etc)....I figure that they do so much business, their turnover is high. Maybe your LHBS is the same way, but I'm guessing that its not. Mine LHBS sure isn't. How long has that bag of grain been sitting there? Who knows. Did it sit in a warehouse for 8 months before coming here? Who knows. Has it been properly taken care of (no temperature swings, low moisture conditions, etc)? Who knows.

My point is that ingredients are the biggest variable in the equation, and its where you should be looking first with troubleshooting.

Here is what I know, without even reading the other thread: Your process is good since you were able to make a cream ale without this problem. Your equipment is good because you use the same equipment the rest of us do. What's left? Ingredients....

govain said:

At any rate, I've got 60# of honey, 3 batches of Am. Wheat, Surly Furious, and Surly Bender that I'm nervous to brew now in my favorite equipment because of my previous experiences.

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If I had to bet, if those Am. Wheats are the same recipe (and the ingredients are from the same source), I bet you have the same problem in those. If you really wanted to convince yourself that the BB isn't to blame, ferment one in glass and one in BB. I bet the problem will still be there, and in both batches.

The good news is that the other ones should be OK!

govain said:

I guess I'll just go for broke, brew it all, and hope for the best. Screw the 'extended primary' technique, I'm racking everything into a secondary the moment it's done.

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I think you mistook what Yooper does in her process....she is 10-14 days and she kegs, she doesn not bother with secondary. I hope she will correct me if I'm wrong...

Why in the world would you primary a wheat for a month?

I'm generally DRINKING wheats in a month. That includes fermentation, kegging, carbonation and conditioning (aging).

I'll age a Dunkelweiss a little longer, but not lighter wheats.

My rule of thumb is 2x the length of time that it takes the Krausen to fall. Then rack to leg. A wheat beer usually falls in 3-4 days. I keep it in primary for one week, then keg it.

Eric

Yeah. . . I've got to say, one of my complaints about the advice that we (me included) give here is that everyone is always pushing for "longer" time in a fermenting vessel - but we often don't give an IDEAL amount of time. This knee-jerk advice isn't always right: IPAs will lose a lot of their hop-character if they're over-conditioned, and wheats will go stale quickly if they aren't packaged and chilled.

When I got started, no one ever told me that there were upper-limits on how long you could or should condition beers. Instead, they just told me "longer is better, longer is always better." I have a busy schedule, and I'm a patient guy, so I left a brown ale in the primary fermenter for 14 months. I promise you: longer is NOT always better, and there ARE limits on how long you can leave a beer in the fermenter.

So in this case, I agree with a lot of the advice above: could be the hops, heck, it could be the vessel - maybe you're cleaning it with something that's reacting badly with your sanitizing fluid? But trying to fix the problem by aging a wheat just isn't the right solution.

pericles said:

Yeah. . . I've got to say, one of my complaints about the advice that we (me included) give here is that everyone is always pushing for "longer" time in a fermenting vessel - but we often don't give an IDEAL amount of time.

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I totally agree. I tend to be on the side of the longer primary, no secondary people, but I'm starting to realize that my idea of a long primary (3 weeks, 4 max), is not what the long primary crowd is usually referring to. I would never leave a beer in the primary for over a month. Anything that requires aging for longer than that will be moved to another vessel.

pericles said:

Instead, they just told me "longer is better, longer is always better."

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One of my pet peeves in this hobby, in regards to any topic, is when people use words like "always". I find that there are rarely definitive, blanket answers to any question. Short of, "Do I really need yeast?", I always )) avoid making definitive statements. My best brew buddy and I have completely different views on most brewing tecniques, but both produce great beer. That alone is enough to convince me that the answer is usually )), "Whatever works best for you."