First possible infection

I have been brewing for over a decade, and have never had an infection due to the fact I am almost fanatical about sanitation. However, I brewed a batch of Williams Holiday Ale and bottled about two weeks ago and I am seeing white spots on the inside of the bottle where the water level is - and on the sides of the glass just under the water level. This particular recipe had 2 lbs. of honey in it - and I have never brewed with honey before. I did not notice anything out of the ordinary in the fermenter, but all the bottles have this ring on the inside.

Is it possible this is from the honey or the spices? The sediment at the bottom of each bottle seems a bit more than normal. I fermented in a primary only for three weeks, org gravity was 1.060 and final was 1.016 so I feel it fermented fine at 72 degrees. It has been in the bottle about two weeks - so I threw a bottle in the fridge to see if it has overcarbonation or gusher properties to prevent possible bottle bombs with the rest.

You won't know what it is unless you taste it...since you say your bottle trub is bigger than normal, I would say that it is simply spice particles lifted to the surface of the beer by CO2...

Unless you post some good pictures, all any of us can do is speculate...

Revvy said:

You won't know what it is unless you taste it...since you say your bottle trub is bigger than normal, I would say that it is simply spice particles lifted to the surface of the beer by CO2...

Unless you post some good pictures, all any of us can do is speculate...

Click to expand...

ALLLLLRIGHTY - let's see if this works:





They were taken through the brown and green flip top bottles, so the color may be off - but they "appear" to be whitish in color. I am holding the green bottle at an angle to show the ring.

Dan

hmmm great pictures....Man, that could be any number of things, bottle krauzen rings with flakes of spices? (the bottom one could be bits of ground cinamon for that matt, the grolsh bottle I thought might have been hop flakes...) Or an infection....sigh...I wish I could give you a definitive answer.

DId this recipe have ground spices in it?


I think it's one of those situations where you have to wait and then open them to see....I'd like to see pictures of it in a clear glass...

Yes - it had a small package of ground spices you put in the boil with 30 minutes left.

Dan

Well - I opened the first bottle last night - no overcarbonation, no gushing. No off smells or funny tastes - yet. It tasted like green beer as I expected for two weeks conditioning on a 1.060 beer - but nothing "funky" is showing up yet. The ring around the inside bottle neck stayed and did not rinse out, and did appear whittish colored. I soaked the bottle in bleach water last night and the ring is now gone. On a side note - honey sure kicks up the alcohol content - wow that beer was hot.

I guess I will keep my fingers crossed - but it sure looks like an infection to me.

Dan

Well whatever it is it's odd....

Actually it looks like two different "things" in the bottles....I would swear the one in the grolsch was hop particles....while the other one looks like maybe granules of something, that's why I was thinking ground spices...

Hey when you open them, if that stuff is still in a ring after you pour it, take a q-tip and try to pull a sample out of it, so you can get a closer look with a mgnifying glass....

Well - I fermented the brew for three weeks, and the beer was very clear when I siphoned it out. Also - I bottle and keg (so I can sample the brew and know when it is right to put the keg in the 'fridge) and I bottle first with the racking cane sitting in the middle of the carboy - very little hop particles possible. This is why my bottled stuff usually has very little sediment after aging - this has about 3 or 4 times more than I normally see, so something got into siphoned in for sure. I will agree that spice praticles are very possible. Also, as I posted earlier - this is my first time brewing with honey - any thing unusual like this happen using honey?

My finishing gravity was 1.016 on this brew - I usually get 1.010 - 1.012 but I did not worry as it was a big beer. But - doesn't that mean there are more unfermentables in the beer? May be the reason for the extra sediment(?) The only other odd thing on this beer - I reused the trub from my Austin HBS Holiday Ale as it came with the White Labs liquid yeast and I really liked that. On the re-used version though, active fermentation took a little longer than originally (28 hours as opposed to 14 hours or so) and fermentation seemed "slower". By that I mean heavy fermentation wasn't as heavy, and bubbles still going a little after two weeks in the primary.

Thanks bud,
Dan