Really annoyed... First batch has had 2 gushers and a bad finish

WTF!?!?! Did I get an infection? I've drank maybe a 12 pack so far and have already had 2 gushers. I also posted another thread this past weekend stating how the finish has a really bitter mineral taste. I was so careful about being sanitary I really don't know what could have went wrong. IS that even what the problem is you think? If it is, the only time I could think something might have gone bad is when I made my starter perhaps...? I did the intermittent shaking method where I shook it up every couple hours. Did that oxidize it? I started my second batch on Saturday and don't want this one to come out crappy. I am so annoyed and really want to know where I went wrong....

Brewing is a learning process. It is hard to say if sanitation is your problem without knowing your whole recipe and process, but other than sanitation, another area that can cause gushers is not completely stirring in all your priming sugar. This can cause some bottles to have more sugar than others and carbonate up much more.

If your carbonation was really high in those bottles be careful of bottle bombs. Bottles can explode if the pressure gets to high in them.

You had 2 beers out of 12 come out bad?

Gusher infections are a sanitation or wild yeast problem... If you said you were careful about sanitation, then wild yeast would be my guess.

Zen_Brew said:

Brewing is a learning process. It is hard to say if sanitation is your problem without knowing your whole recipe and process, but other than sanitation, another area that can cause gushers is not completely stirring in all your priming sugar. This can cause some bottles to have more sugar than others and carbonate up much more.

If your carbonation was really high in those bottles be careful of bottle bombs. Bottles can explode if the pressure gets to high in them.

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+1. I almost forgot... you may not have an infection at all, maybe just didn't prime evenly and that's why you are seeing some beers more carbed up than others...

2 out of 12 so far, but there is also a off flavor in the finish that is really bothering me. Are you saying that those 2 beers were affected by wild yeast and the whole batch is not infected? Keep in mind this was my first batch ever so I am still figuring everything out as best as I can.

I swirled my yeast starter before getting my stir plate, never shook, don't see that as a problem IMO. You have to keep sanitized foil over top, the yeast needs to grab oxygen but you don't want any wild yeast falling in.

2 gushers meaning bottles were close to exploding, or they oozed out after opening?

What type of brew did you do on the first one? Please be specific on ingredients.

Did you boil in an Aluminum pot?

All these questions will help the fine Home Brewers here (me not being one, I do try though).

Can you explain your brewing and sanitation processes?

What is your water source?

Did/do you see a ring in the neck of any of the bottles?

How warm did you condition the bottles?

I have been doing everything verbatim according to Palmer. My priming sugar was laid at the bottom of my bottling bucket(gently, without oxidizing it) and I siphoned it in gently(no oxidizing) and let it naturally mix itself up. The gushers are not exactly what I am so annoyed about. Someone this weekend told me the gushers were probably caused by infection. Say they weren't, then why is this bitter mineral after taste in the finish?

I know it is hard to help with out knowing my process, but like I said before, everything I did was done by the book as best as I could. I kept the fermenting temps down for a week or so but then let them stay at room temp(maybe around 74ish) for the rest of the time. I am thinking maybe the fermentation was not done when I stopped cooling it perhaps....?

RobbieRedBeard said:

2 out of 12 so far, but there is also a off flavor in the finish that is really bothering me. Are you saying that those 2 beers were affected by wild yeast and the whole batch is not infected? Keep in mind this was my first batch ever so I am still figuring everything out as best as I can.

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If only the two tasted bad, the 2 bottles might not have been clean.

If all bottles tasted bad then using an aluminum pot or anything from starter to old yeast might be the problem. They could become bottle bombs!

If you only had two gushers, and they were the only ones that had the off flavor, than that would point to sanitation of the bottles themselves. Again I am guessing without complete info on the process. It can be tricky properly cleaning re-used bottles. They quickly grow things in them if the old beer is allowed to sit in them after consumption.

When introducing the priming sugar, you want to easily stir the wort to mix. The main thing is not to splash. If you did not stir it in well, that explains why two gushed.


If that is the cause of the gushers:
I would get them in a safe place. Refrigeration will stop carbonation, but when you take them out of the frige they will start to carbonate again.

When I say gushers, I mean I opened the bottles and they basically shot out. The brew was a clone of Dead Guy Ale(extract). I did not use an aluminum pot, stainless steel. My water source was bought from the grocery store. I live in Florida and my water is disgusting. I bought filtered drinking water from the store. The bottles were conditioned for 2 weeks at around a temperature of 72 give or take. It is hard to keep everything on the cooler side when it is 100 degrees outside. My sanitation process was scrubbing all equipment with PBW before sanitizing with starsan. I poured 1oz of starsan in the primary and added a gallon of water(like it said). I took a brand new sponge and wiped down EVERYTHING that would come into contact with the brew. I even took the leftover starsan solution and put it in a a spray bottle to use for quick sanitations.

Did you stir the priming sugar in to make sure it mixed up well?

No, all of them taste "off". It just so happened that two of them gushed. I did not stir at all and let the siphoning beer do the mixing. I thought that would be efficient enough(as per Palmer's advice).

I have always heard , and practiced stirring the priming sugar in, only after specific gravity is at bottling point. Just don't splash! Now we know why the two gushed....


You will have some undercarbed and some potentially dangerously overcarbed. I would refrigerate the whole lot of them and never let them sit at room temp unopened. It is not fun when they go off (sounds like people are shooting at you).

The Dead Guy clone I have never had so I don't know what it is supposed to taste like.

Did you stir with an aluminum spoon, maybe?

RobbieRedBeard said:

I have been doing everything verbatim according to Palmer. My priming sugar was laid at the bottom of my bottling bucket(gently, without oxidizing it) and I siphoned it in gently(no oxidizing) and let it naturally mix itself up. The gushers are not exactly what I am so annoyed about. Someone this weekend told me the gushers were probably caused by infection. Say they weren't, then why is this bitter mineral after taste in the finish?

I know it is hard to help with out knowing my process, but like I said before, everything I did was done by the book as best as I could. I kept the fermenting temps down for a week or so but then let them stay at room temp(maybe around 74ish) for the rest of the time. I am thinking maybe the fermentation was not done when I stopped cooling it perhaps....?

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I don't think oxidation is your problem. Oxidation gives you a flat, bland cardboard taste.

If you had a full on infection, you would have a lot more than two bottles with an infection. However, you could have had a couple of bottles that weren't fully sanitized. It's possible that the priming sugar didn't get fully mixed and some bottles got more sugar -- so more carbonation -- than others.

The two problems may be unrelated.

Your flavor issue could be driven by any number of things. If the beer is still green it can have a crappy taste. My guess is that you fermented at a temperature beyond the limits of the yeast, so they produced a lot of crap that resulted in off-flavors.

If the extract was in a can, maybe it was out of date. The after taste....it is mineral, or metal?

No aluminum spoon. It was a plastic spoon that I bought from a home brew shop. I got myself a stainless steel spoon that I used for my newest batch.

So now that we figured out why I have these random gushers, what is this taste coming from? I know I say "mineral" but I don't think it has anything to do with metals. Maybe I am explaining this off flavor wrong but it is the best I Can describe it as. It is this lingering bitterness that stays at the back of your tongue and on the way back roof of your mouth.

I have to go to bed but will check back here in the morning. Thank you all some much for your help. I greatly appreciate it.

The extract was not in a can and came from Northern Brewer which I have found (and heard) to be very trusted. From what we are narrowing it down to right now, I feel like high fermentation temps may be the cause for the off flavors. If that is so, I have fixed that problem and have kept this new batch at a steady 67-68 and will keep it at this for the next few weeks.

The after taste is really hard to describe. I think the best way is a mineral bitterness. I wouldn't call it metal...

I'm reading the other thread, and will post something in a while.

Nighty Night,

I wonder if you tasting the famous "extract twang". Read through some of these threads and see if your taste fits the description. Twang Search

Here's a couple resources you might be able to use to better describe the off flavors you have:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue5.6/flavorwheel.html
http://www.kroc.org/Links/TroubleshootingGuide.htm

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The above was from 'bret00l' post I found in search.

Also I just recently encountered a batch where the priming sugar hadn't mixed in and I had 10 gushers and 30 fairly flat beers and a couple just right. I had also always relied on the siphon to do the stirring; and after a dozen+ batches bottled, I encountered why a gentle stirring is now done regardless of whether I think it mixed or not.

Also make sure, if you are not using the star-san mixture immediately, that you are using distilled water, not drinking water. Starsan will become ineffective quickly with any impure water. From what I remember reading the solution will take on a cloudy appearance and it is not longer useful.

RobbieRedBeard said:

........ I poured 1oz of starsan in the primary and added a gallon of water(like it said). I took a brand new sponge and wiped down EVERYTHING that would come into contact with the brew. I even took the leftover starsan solution and put it in a a spray bottle to use for quick sanitations.

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I'm pretty sure Starsan is mixed at a rate of 1 ounce per 5 gallons.

OK, just my opinion comming at you:

I read this on a thread, from a guy that has a lot of sense about brewing, giving tips, all around good dude...I'm talking about Revvy.

He stated to the effect of, don't overwelm a new brewer. That other thread had so much information in it. You can't come out of the gates being Samuel Adams, he worked at it (not saying that he is the best, he is making a living at doing something very interesting to a lot of people).

My recomendation is, slow down. Smack that pack and pitch. No starters, no worrying about fermenting temps. Do simple ales that don't require low temps for the first few. Watch your hydrometer so that there are no bombs though. Get the mechanics down first. I didn't have this site when I started, went almost 5 years, at least a batch a month with no knowledge of starters.

This way you can make it easy, so you can:

RDWHAHB = Relax, Don't Worry, Have A Homebrew

Happy Home Brewing

Blender said:

I'm pretty sure Starsan is mixed at a rate of 1 ounce per 5 gallons.

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That was my first thought too. Other possibilites are the PBW wasn't rinsed thoroughly enough, or old extract (especially if it was LME), fermentation temps, or it might just be green beer.

Stuntmantoo said:

If all bottles tasted bad then using an aluminum pot or anything from starter to old yeast might be the problem. They could become bottle bombs!

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I don't believe the aluminium pot theory would be true, given the Aluminum Pot FAQ on this very forum:

FlyGuy's Aluminum Pot FAQ said:

- Boiling your wort in an aluminum pot will cause off-flavours in your beer. FALSE. Simply boiling a batch of wort will not remove enough metal from your aluminum pot to get into your beer and cause metallic off flavours, particularly if you build up a passive oxide layer inside the pot first. For new pots, this is easily achieved by either boiling the pot full of water for 30 mins to one hour, or by putting it in your oven for 10 mins at 350 F.

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Thanks for all the help guys. I am just going to see if this one works out better. I tweeked the way I did some things so hopefully that changes the taste of my brew.

Don't overlook your water. Water has a large impact on how the finished product turns out. Certain beers styles are more appropriate with acidic or alkaline water. I'd taste the water that you brewed with to see if you see a similarity.

I'd look up the water profile of your city water and try brewing a beer that best fits your water profile. I matched my last brew to my water profile, and my swmbo was overwhelmed by how much better it tastes.

I made this mistake the other day, drinking the beer too cold or too warm. Serving temp can draw out or mask certain flavors. Also, CO2 dissolves into liquid much better at cooler temps. Were gushers colder or warmer than the appropriately carbed beers?

Robbie, I'm not sure what the problem is with your first batch, but fermentation temps are important. It is hard right now in Jax to keep your fermentation temps down.
BTW, where in Jax are you? I live down off 210.

I live in Mandarin. I got keeping the temps down now. I have it under an airconditioner vent and figured out exactly when and how much ice I need to add to the bath to keep it at a steady 67.

RobbieRedBeard said:

My priming sugar was laid at the bottom of my bottling bucket(gently, without oxidizing it) and I siphoned it in gently(no oxidizing) and let it naturally mix itself up.

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This sounds problematic to me. The dry priming sugar will not dissolve well in your beer and won't dissipate normally either. That results in some bottles being over carbonated, which you're seeing in your gushers. What I, and many others on here, do is to boil a cup of water, dissolve the priming sugar in that to form a simple syrup, cool the simple syrup and then add that a little at a time to your bottling bucket as you rack in your beer. You can stir the beer in the bottling bucket gently to blend it in, just try and avoid any dort of sloshing.

crombie said:

I don't believe the aluminium pot theory would be true, given the Aluminum Pot FAQ on this very forum:

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Same thread states....

Cons:
- oxidizes easily, meaning that oxygen-based cleaners (e.g., Oxyclean, One-step) cannot be used (Note: caustic or other similar clean-in-place solutions can definitely not be used, which is why the brewing industry generally does not use aluminum.)
- passive oxide layer must be built up before brewing (**see note below) with a new aluminum kettle, although it is very easy to maintain



OP states that this is his first brew, which is why I was trying to figure out if he did use aluminum. I have several aluminums, some old, some given to me. if he had an old pot that strong cleaner was used on, or had a new one that was not properly treated, it may have been the culprit.



The Thread you are refering to, definitely says that aluminum is as good or better in some ways.

Edited few minutes after original post:

Looking around on internet even going back to 2006 people are saying that aluminum is OK. More care in the way you have to handle/clean aluminum pots, but no off flavors, noone died, so I tend to agree,

Aluminum is safe if:

1) You know what the Pot has been through.
2) You do the proper treatment to ensure that no off flavors occur

Bottom line, thanks for the post Crombie, it did make me research this and I did learn.

fatmoose said:

This sounds problematic to me. The dry priming sugar will not dissolve well in your beer and won't dissipate normally either. That results in some bottles being over carbonated, which you're seeing in your gushers. What I, and many others on here, do is to boil a cup of water, dissolve the priming sugar in that to form a simple syrup, cool the simple syrup and then add that a little at a time to your bottling bucket as you rack in your beer. You can stir the beer in the bottling bucket gently to blend it in, just try and avoid any dort of sloshing.

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+1

I've been kegging for so long, I forgot about boiling the cup of water, then adding priming sugar, then into the bottling bucket, gently stir well to evenly distribute.

I had a few gushers on my first batch as well. I think my problem was not chilling my bottles long enough before drinking. Make sure you're chilling for at least 1-2 days before drinking.

Stuntmantoo said:

Aluminum is safe if:

1) You know what the Pot has been through.
2) You do the proper treatment to ensure that no off flavors occur[/COLOR]

Bottom line, thanks for the post Crombie, it did make me research this and I did learn.

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Cool man thanks. I just bought an aluminum pot for my bigger partial boils, and did the oxidizing layer, but haven't used it yet for anything other than filling my swamp cooler with a lot of water...

...But based on that post I'm expecting (and hoping) it works great.