Hi,
I've been brewing and bottling for a couple of years now and have had pretty good success. But lately, maybe half of the last 6 batches have gone bad soon after bottling--within a week, before they were even carbonated.
Basically I've taken fully fermented beer (light, highly hopped IPA, 6-7%ABV) that tasted wonderful and after a week or so have yuck. At bottling time I'm sanitizing bottles in the kitchen sink with Star San. For priming, I add 4 oz dextrose to about 24oz water and boil (covered) for 10 mins then cool (covered.) This is added to the bottom of an empty 5G better bottle sanitized with Star San. I then rack from my fermenter into the bottle with the sugar solution and bottle using a racking cane and bottle filler valve (all gravity, no CO2.) Caps sit in Star San before capping; I cap the bottles as they are filled. Beer temp at bottling was about 55-60 degrees each time.
I usually open one bottle 1wk after bottling to get an idea of when they will be ready. This last time the beer was almost flat, REALLY brown (maybe 6-7 SRM at bottling and came out looking like a brown at 1wk!) The taste is yucky but I can't really tell what's going on--it's not sour and does not smell dank.
I'd really like to know what this is if anyone can identify it. I'm going to put more effort into cleaning my kitchen sink and beer lines just in case that's a factor. But at present I'm thinking that the most likely explanation might be "dead" krausen pulled back into the beer when I chilled it (with the blow off tube still attached.) But wouldn't that be tastable when bottling? Or does the addition of a little oxygen at the time of bottling set off some kind of latent/potential reaction?
Anyone else seen this and definitively fixed it?
Thanks,
Tom
I've been brewing and bottling for a couple of years now and have had pretty good success. But lately, maybe half of the last 6 batches have gone bad soon after bottling--within a week, before they were even carbonated.
Basically I've taken fully fermented beer (light, highly hopped IPA, 6-7%ABV) that tasted wonderful and after a week or so have yuck. At bottling time I'm sanitizing bottles in the kitchen sink with Star San. For priming, I add 4 oz dextrose to about 24oz water and boil (covered) for 10 mins then cool (covered.) This is added to the bottom of an empty 5G better bottle sanitized with Star San. I then rack from my fermenter into the bottle with the sugar solution and bottle using a racking cane and bottle filler valve (all gravity, no CO2.) Caps sit in Star San before capping; I cap the bottles as they are filled. Beer temp at bottling was about 55-60 degrees each time.
I usually open one bottle 1wk after bottling to get an idea of when they will be ready. This last time the beer was almost flat, REALLY brown (maybe 6-7 SRM at bottling and came out looking like a brown at 1wk!) The taste is yucky but I can't really tell what's going on--it's not sour and does not smell dank.
I'd really like to know what this is if anyone can identify it. I'm going to put more effort into cleaning my kitchen sink and beer lines just in case that's a factor. But at present I'm thinking that the most likely explanation might be "dead" krausen pulled back into the beer when I chilled it (with the blow off tube still attached.) But wouldn't that be tastable when bottling? Or does the addition of a little oxygen at the time of bottling set off some kind of latent/potential reaction?
Anyone else seen this and definitively fixed it?
Thanks,
Tom