Bottling problem?

[chucknorris101]

Made my first IPA - ZD clone with vermont ale, and it tasted fantastic up until dry hopping, with a great aroma. After dry hopping (7 days) and crashing, etc, I didnt really taste it again but the aroma was still there and fantastic. I bottled about 12 days ago. i couldnt resist trying one 'early' from when I planned to crack them - excited about the fruity goodness. I pop it open and the head retention and lacing is amazing, almost -too-carbonated from such an early bottle- aaaand the aroma is gone- uhoh - then I taste it, and its just bad! I think if i had to place it - medicinal/bandaid-y. The beer also seemed a bit darker than anticipated but i dont know exactly

Im guessing some kind of infection at bottling but I couldnt really pinpoint where I would have missed since im OCD with sanitation (maybe bottle caps in handling them). Maybe its the one bottle - maybe its not infection at all.

What could cause the flavor? If its not infected will it ever mellow out? Heres praying that it was just the one bottle.

 

[cbenn22]

Kind of hard to say for sure. Does your water have a lot of chlorine in it? Chlorophenols from tap water create the "band-aid" type taste.

It's possible that the hop aroma masked the flavor before.

 

[misterkidd]

Sounds like phenols. I think the most likely culprits are:

1) chlorine/chloramine in your water (see cbenn22's post above).
2) fermentation temperature too high

I wouldn't rule out infection, but the two above are more likely I think. There are some other possibilities as well : http://www.winning-homebrew.com/phenolic-flavors.html

 

[chucknorris101]

I used campden tablets in my brewing water, so i dont think it was that! but i may have missed one of my two sparge additions, i cant recall exactly. so maybe? I feel like it wouldnt be so very different only a week or so later if that were the case.

My water is pretty clean to begin with, ive had one or two prior brews with no campden have no chloro problems at all

I have a ferm chamber and kept it at ~66 til a ramp to 72. The only thing would maybe be bottling temp i set to 70, but i didnt think bottle conditioning would stress it all that much? Maybe after crashing it did?

 

[misterkidd]

Hmmmm... well I've never heard of, read about, or experienced bottle conditioning at higher temps producing phenols. And campden tablets are the prescribed cure for choramine, so i'd agree my two suggestions are unlikely. Two other options :

1) use of chlorine-based (eg bleach) without rinsing.
2) you might be right about infection. the over-carbonation you mentioned plus the phenolic taste may mean that you have picked up a gusher infection. This will be easy to spot with your next bottle.

 

[jekeane]

did you wash your bottles with oxyclean or something before bottling? how well did you rinse them afterwards and with what temp water?

 

[chucknorris101]

I never use bleach. I have starsan and pbw. Typically for bottles I will rinse with h20 at time of use, shelve, then PBW soak for indeterminate time in a big tub to remove the labels (maybe not all the bottles internals are getting pbw though!! - I should probably mix the pbw first and then add bottles instead of other way around) after pbw soak they are rinsed twice with hot (idk temp, maybe like 120-150F) water, nothing that would likely kill anything) and go upside down onto the tree or into 6 packs.

At bottling time they are taken from the packs and flushed with starsan via vintanator and put on the tree. I put the caps in the vintinator dish and grab a handful out as my fiancee bottles. (Potentially infecting caps if they dry out in my hands/too much non starsan contact - though im not really touching anything but caps, starsan, and bottle exterior (source?))

Maybe ive just been getting lucky with previous batches as far as keeping the caps starsan-ed and bottles washed? I dont think im that unsanitary though. Ive had two prior batches with this bottling method and not a single bottle cleanliness issue.

As I said first, potentially they arent getting a good clean either, though I know i checked a fair portion for cleanliness before bottling, maybe a one off.

Im off work soon so ill try another bottle sometime tonight (hopefully before class)

Thanks for all your (ongoing) help

 

[oljimmy]

I just posted a thread in this forum on a bottling experiment I did trying to resolve a very similar issue. I think that a significant color change in the bottle is always a sign of something having gone wrong (don't listen to people who tell you that it's because the yeast is dropping out... the color change from that is noticeable but not terribly significant in a pale ale).

When *all* your bottles taste bad, it's a sign that it wasn't in fact something in the bottle, but something just prior to the bottling, that went wrong. Dirty bottles or caps can happen, but that would only show up in a portion of the bottles, not all. My results didn't get me too much information, but my fundamental recommendation is to oxyclean the hell out of your bottling bucket and wand prior to bottling. I think that a lot of little nasties can hide in the micro-scratches in a plastic bucket and in a plastic wand.

 

[unionrdr]

Or. like me, you're using a wing capper & the bell stretched out a but with use? My o2 barrier caps didn't get real tight on some bottles, & they oxidized. But that was a must basement wet cardboard smell & taste. Just spit balling, but it's possible.

 

[chucknorris101]

my capper is fairly new, i figure the caps must be good still since I got a nice pop -

still at N=1, wont get a chance to taste another til later tonight but I did check the used up bottle - there was some residue on the inside of the neck from crappy washing that wasnt previously evident. Cue "so there's a chance". We will see! I wish i didnt have to wait lol

 

[unionrdr]

I was just thinking about that one. I had a similar problem last year with some bottles that were "off". I found specks of dark crud inside the bottles here & there. I was just rinsing them, onto the bottle tree, then into covered boxes for storage. Sanitized with my avinator & Starsan come bottling day.
So I started swirling the liquid dregs & dumping that in the sink. Then Fill to below the shoulder of the bottle with tap water, shake, dump& fill to the top with tap water. I then use my bottling brush to scrub them clean. Doesn't take but a minute or less. Thebn add about 2" of water, swirl & dump. I have a 5 quart ice cream pail I can fit 7-12oz bottles in to transport from kitchen to brewery to put on the bottle tree to dry. No more problems.

 

[chucknorris101]

so! status report, bottle No. 2.

Opened - Aroma! -ish, this wasnt present in bottle 1 from my recall
Poured - Half or less as much head as the one yesterday, though i may have poured more slowly. Retention about the same
Taste - First sip was decent. After that the bad flavor became more and more present! ugh!

So its obviously not just one bottle impacted which is bad. But the flavor is notably less severe than yesterday - possible that this ferments away? Again medicinal is the best i could describe it as - im having another homebrewer friend try it out in the next day or two to see what he thinks. Maybe Bottle 2 was just less developed? It was in a different part of the chamber (boxed rather than the extra 6 pack) but i dont think it would have that much impact. or more developed! Which is the optimistic view - Edit: maybe since i double cold crashed this one it will need time to work its magic? Seems weird the carbonations have completed though if thats the case