Extreme Frustration; What am I doing wrong?!!
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goodgodilovebeer
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I'd be looking real close to these two. Especially the strainer, there's really no way to clean those things properly. Try siphoning into your fermenter the next time you brew.
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DanH
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goodgodilovebeer said:
I agree except I had bought them new on brew day. Still cleaned/sanitized. But I will be syphoning from now on anyway. I have a spout on my turkey fryer that I have used without problems but I don't imagine it would be the cleanest way to transfer to the fermentor.
goodgodilovebeer
Well-Known Member
If it's the spigot on your kettle, I wouldn't worry about it as long as you give it a good cleaning (so there's no dried up wort from the last batch). It's going to be at boiling temps for an hour. That's enough time at a high temp to sanitize it. I did it that way for years. After chilling in the kettle, let it pour into the fermenter, it'll aerate at the same time.
mvcorliss
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Lots of ideas, all over the place.
The first thing I would do is to take some of the beer, each of them if possible, to someone familiar with beer and beer problems. Maybe your LHBS or a brew club. What you are describing could be something different just because your palate or your vocabulary might be not "calibrated".
The first thing I would do is to take some of the beer, each of them if possible, to someone familiar with beer and beer problems. Maybe your LHBS or a brew club. What you are describing could be something different just because your palate or your vocabulary might be not "calibrated".
Aspenextreme
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I would use some campden tablets. My water is GA made my beer taste funny until i started using campden tablets. They are cheap too.
goodgodilovebeer
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mvcorliss said:
Good point. Is there a common ingredient to the batches you mentioned earlier? Since you could list the batch numbers, I'd bet you keep pretty decent records. Similar yeast, adjunct, specialty malt maybe?
dzlater
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You could try a Wort Stability Test to see if it's contaminantion or the water.
http://byo.com/american-amber-pale-ale/item/765-home-lab-tests-advanced-homebrewing
http://byo.com/american-amber-pale-ale/item/765-home-lab-tests-advanced-homebrewing
BreezyBrew
IPA is my spirit animal
Yeah not a bad idea. Just make sure you are using the right amount of Campden, or you can get sulfur aromas in your beer. Had that happen after reading the instructions wrong.
I had it pretty bad in a couple batches. LHBS tried one of the not-so-prominent ones, and said oxidation. The only thing I could think of was that my tubing from the auto-siphon wasn't extremely tight, and let little air bubbles into the stream of beer when racking to bottling bucket or keg. I tried a smaller diameter tubing, one that I really had to FORCE onto the racking cane, and it did not let any bubbles into the stream while racking. I haven't had it since (knock on wood).
Main thing that bugged me, was it was my darker, and less-hoppy beers that had it. All my IPA's and pale ales didn't have it. I noticed the styles you listed weren't heavily hopped, so it jarred my memory. Just a thought, but if you see little bubbles where the racking cane and tubing meet, and they're going downstream with the beer, it could be oxidation.
Main thing that bugged me, was it was my darker, and less-hoppy beers that had it. All my IPA's and pale ales didn't have it. I noticed the styles you listed weren't heavily hopped, so it jarred my memory. Just a thought, but if you see little bubbles where the racking cane and tubing meet, and they're going downstream with the beer, it could be oxidation.
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DanH
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naga77777 said:
Thank you, but this happens during fermentation, so before I use an autosyphon. I really think it's infection but I feel like everything gets very clean and then sanitized. But now I hear that I may want to mix up a full 5 gallons of StarSan, so I'll try that in a new betterbottle. It won't be very soon before I have a chance to brew again though.
Varmintman
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I never make more than a gallon of starsan and that lasts me forever. it is a contact sanitizer meaning you can put a couple of cups in your better bottle and swirl it around then dump it back into the gallon jug.
If your problems are coming from a infection try bleaching everything and then rinsing very well with hot water. Hoses are cheap but if you want you can boil those first as well.
If your problems are coming from a infection try bleaching everything and then rinsing very well with hot water. Hoses are cheap but if you want you can boil those first as well.
raymondim
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One thing no one has mentioned yet is the bungs/airlocks that are used on the better bottle. Are your bungs really tight? Are they old? Sanitized well? Maybe they aren't properly closing off the air and you are getting oxidization after the fermentation finishes before you open it to see what happened. It's a bit of a stretch but maybe??? All that also for air locks 
I'm kinda in the middle on starsan usage. I buy a gallon of distilled water, put 6mL of starsan in it, and shake for a bit. I fill up a large spray bottle from dollar store with that solution, and will fill s small tub with it that I can drop airlocks and bungs into. I rack into/out ta that tub to sanitize auto siphon and tubing on the inside. Buckets I will just spray the inside down and swirl and discard. Starsan never goes back into the gallon jug, because I Dont want the trouble of testing pH. One gallon jug will last me well over a month, even if I brew every weekend.
One thing no one has mentioned yet is the bungs/airlocks that are used on the better bottle. Are your bungs really tight? Are they old? Sanitized well? Maybe they aren't properly closing off the air and you are getting oxidization after the fermentation finishes before you open it to see what happened. It's a bit of a stretch but maybe??? All that also for air locks
That seems like kind of a stretch. The reason airlocks bubble is because the CO2 is pushing the air out, even when active fermentation stops you will still have a neutral pressure differential, and since CO2 is heavier than air any air that managed to get in shouldn't be able to get to the wort. I'm with you on wanting to cover all the bases, but I don't think this is anything to worry about.
Hoppity
Just brew it!
Haven't talked about the chiller yet. You said your tap water sucks. Could it be leaking into the wort? How long is it taking to get to pitching temp? Is the whole chiller sanitized before 10 minute boil?
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DanH
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Hoppity said:
No. I give it a quick clean cuz I'm gonna boil it anyway. It doesn't leak tap water though. I'll be OCD cleaning everything for/during my next brew.
It takes probably a half hour to 40 minutes to get below 70.
Hoppity
Just brew it!
How long before you pitch the yeast?
Hoppity
Just brew it!
I would buy a new fermentation bucket and split your nextt batch between it and your BB. Compare results to begin problem isolation. Worst case you have another fermenter to help build pipeline.
iamperplexed
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Sorry if I missed this already but are you using bulk liquid extract by chance?
iamperplexed
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I doubt it's your problem but I switched to dme (from lme) because of a few batches with off flavors. I've been pleased with the outcome.
Brettanomyces is the wild yeast responsible for producing the " band aid" or "astringent" flavors. Even with proper sanitation, some Brett strains will become immune to just one sanitizer. This is why big breweries will use more than one sanitizer. Having said that, I recommend giving everything a good soak in PBW, then doing a paracetic acid sanitizer AND a star san rinse. Throw all the cheap plastic stuff away, this includes air locks, racking cane, bungs etc. Throw out that old bucket as well. Additionally, start using a yeast nutrient and oxygenate well with O2 if possible to get a good start to fermentation. 60 degrees F is a little cool for WLP 001, but if you really want to ferment at this temp, start fermentation at 70 F them bump it down several degrees a day when high krausen is reached. This should help, if not, get more anal than you have ever been and clean EVERYTHING Including the room you brew in. If its outside, cool rapidly with a lid on the pot and don't let any fans blow atmosphere into the wort. Finally, you may want to reconsider who you but your extract/ yeast from.
P. S.
If you are serious about brewing, invest in glass carboys or better.
P. S.
If you are serious about brewing, invest in glass carboys or better.
chumpsteak
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Bingo. Chlorophenols probably. My tap water is so full of chlorine if I don't let my water sit out overnight before a brew day I get plastic burps. If the chlorine content of your water is high enough even using it to mix up starsan can be bad.
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DanH
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chumpsteak said:
Yeah I'll probably brew tomorrow. I've been OCD cleaning everything with Oxiclean. Then I'll brew with RO water and mix starsan with distilled water. I'll read back through the thread and use some of the other tips as well.
This is the first I've heard of "resistant strains". Is it something the average home brewer should be concerned about, or more like something to address if there's a problem?
schmitt777
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I had a nasty "sour" issue. I switched from plastic to glass and replaced my auto siphon and tubes.
I did a lot of research and once an infection gets in any of the little crevices on the plastic it is virtually impossible to get them out.
I did a lot of research and once an infection gets in any of the little crevices on the plastic it is virtually impossible to get them out.
Randy_Bugger
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If you use filtered tap, distilled, spring or RO water AND use the right amount of Camden, the problem is not the water.
I don't mean to hijack this and beat a dead horse, but I just had a friend from Canada move to DC who got me into homebrewing and when he suggested we use tap water to brew I poured a glass and handed it to him. He told me it basically tasted like an indoor pool. Some areas chlorinate the hell out of the water (more heavily during spring-summer it seems).
I use spring water for everything. Better to drop a couple extra bucks than end up with something that you can't drink.
Brettanomyces is infamous for this. I was talking to a brewer at Cascade Brewing one day and he said they only made one beer with it, once. Because of how difficult it was to kill off, they decided to never use it again. He said what they had to go through to clean all their lines and tanks and hoses and everything after making it was insane. They even had to age the barrels with that beer in a different area because it'll breathe out of them and hop to other barrels, 'infecting' those beers as well. Russian River also has different issues with it. In their words: "Because we use 100% Brettanomyces yeast to ferment Sanctification, most winemakers will only smell the glass, and only a very few will venture to taste the beer. They think the Brettanomyces will attach to their clothing and end up in their winery." Basically, if it gets into their winery and into their equipment or barrels, literally tons and tons of wine will be completely ruined, dumped and it'll be very difficult and expensive for them to get rid of it.
