Damn, Damn and double Damn!

Beer number 9, a nut brown ale, tastes of sour green apples and has a ring around the beer level in each bottle neck. I've no real clue as to why. I'm going to get a new fermenting bucket, and I plan to use frozen distilled water this time to cool the wort. All my old plastic water jugs and their contents are going to the golf cart shed to refill the batteries when needed. My question is can I reuse the same beer bottles after a clorox soak now and a dip in starsan at bottling? I've really enjoyed this hobby till now. Another disappointment like this may be the last straw. Can't stand to pour too many five gal. batches down the drain.

How many batches have you had to dump? Everyone has a bad batch from time to time, can't let it get you down.

I would say sure, you can reuse the bottles, assuming they're glass, they won't hold on to bacteria with a clorox soak and all.

Watch your sanitation, and don't do the whole cooling using frozen water bottles, it my be a time saver, but you risk oxidizing your beer before you get it below pitching temperature. Next time buy 2-3 bags of ice, or a wort chiller and give it 20-30 minutes (either sitting in an ice bath or running water through the WC). Let it sit while you're cleaning up, and after cooling, then oxidize by your preferred method.

I quit for several years because of exactly what you describe. Check your hard plastic pieces, racking cane, bottle filler, etc. for small fissures or cracks from bending can house bacteria. If you can see little white lines of fogging toss them. Also could be a bucket washed with the scrubby side of a sponge. Those tiny scratches are a haven for the bad guys.
And you can reuse the bottles but getting them clean is really important. That infection can live on with even the tiniest of scum or hardend ring, etc. A good hot PBW or at least OxyClean soak should do it. Then sanitize.
Good luck. Dont give up.
Cheers.

Thanks, I will do as you advise. This last batch, I froze a gal. jug. Perhaps when I cut the jug off the ice, I polluted it. I wonder if RO water can come out of the dispenser infected?

Only time I have had a ring around the bottle was with flip off tops, if you are using those you may need some new gaskets.

I should have said that I will do as both of you advise, and I thank you both. One more beer as good as the Irish red that was batch number 8 and my enthusiasm will return in spades. The discouraging part is not knowing for certain what to do different next time. I'll just have to fall back and punt.

alepale101 said:

Thanks, I will do as you advise. This last batch, I froze a gal. jug. Perhaps when I cut the jug off the ice, I polluted it. I wonder if RO water can come out of the dispenser infected?

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All water is suspect if you didn't boil it yourself. I wouldn't trust store bought RO or distilled water to be clean of any nasties - boil it and sanitize the jug to be sure. There was some discussion on this point a while back and the conclusion was that water handling plants are not the best at handling their water cleanly :cross:. I wish I had the link handy, but I don't. Do a search on RO water in the forums and you may find it.

alepale101 said:

Thanks, I will do as you advise. This last batch, I froze a gal. jug. Perhaps when I cut the jug off the ice, I polluted it. I wonder if RO water can come out of the dispenser infected?

Click to expand...

For my last batch, I boiled a gallon of water, put it into a bowl sanitized with starsan, and froze it. I then used it to cool my wort. It works. The least you could do is freeze the water you purchase in a sanitized container.

alepale101 said:

Thanks, I will do as you advise. This last batch, I froze a gal. jug. Perhaps when I cut the jug off the ice, I polluted it. I wonder if RO water can come out of the dispenser infected?

Click to expand...

For my last batch, I boiled a gallon of water, put it into a bowl sanitized with starsan, and froze it. I then used it to cool my wort. It works. The least you could do is freeze the water you purchase in a sanitized container.

alepale101 said:

Beer number 9, a nut brown ale, tastes of sour green apples and has a ring around the beer level in each bottle neck.

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What was the O.G. ?

How long and at what Temperature did you keep the Beer in bottles ?

Hector

WAIT! Don't go dumping anything just yet. If it's just the sour green apple taste let'em sit a while longer and give another one a try. According to http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html and your description, my money is on acetaldehyde which might be fixed by letting it sit some more. How long was your fermentation and what temp was it at?

I think you should post up your entire process, in order to get all the help you can.

your water source, doing anything to treat water, recipe, OG & FG, amount of yeast pitched, how long are they fermenting, what temperatures fermented at, how long in bottles before trying.

also google John Palmer & "green apples" to help with the issue.
oh here it is-- and someone else cited to it above---
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html
good luck.

The original gravity was 1.044. Three weeks in the bucket at tempts. in the low sixties and three weeks in bottles at about 72*

Hentai said:

I quit for several years because of exactly what you describe. Check your hard plastic pieces, racking cane, bottle filler, etc. for small fissures or cracks from bending can house bacteria. If you can see little white lines of fogging toss them. Also could be a bucket washed with the scrubby side of a sponge. Those tiny scratches are a haven for the bad guys.
And you can reuse the bottles but getting them clean is really important. That infection can live on with even the tiniest of scum or hardend ring, etc. A good hot PBW or at least OxyClean soak should do it. Then sanitize.
Good luck. Dont give up.
Cheers.

Click to expand...

Right on. I buy new tubes before each brew, or a huge roll of it. I aint abouts to try and get those 100% clean!

One gal. of tap water boiled which has been no problem in the past. The rest was RO. I'm going to remember "All water is suspect unless boiled yourself." It can't hurt. The fermentation went great and the beer tasted okay after three weeks in the bucket. It has got worse this last week. going the wrong way for sure. Is their anything I can use to treat the water so that I won't have to cool five gal. of boiling hot water? I would like to get the yeast pitched and the lid on as fast a possible.

I've recently switched to making smaller batches. It let's me diversify my beer portfolio and if I have a bad batch, it won't be as big of a loss. That and I recently moved far from my HBC and my schedule doesn't allow me to attend as often, so I have a harder time effectively managing my pipeline w/ 5gallon batches.