Bottling straight from primary... different flavors from different levels

[petrolSpice]

On my last brew I experimented with no transfer brewing, meaning everything is done in the primary: ferment, dry hop, cold crash+gelatin, and then bottle from the spigot at the bottom of the fermenter. Bottles are primed with 2.5g sugar cubes.

I made an IPA using this method with 2oz of dry hop. All of the bottles were 22oz except for the last one which was 12oz because there wasn't enough beer to fill a 22oz.

I had one of the 22oz bottles and it was very good, easily one of my best brews. Then I tried the 12oz bottle and it's flavor was strikingly different. It has much less hop note and almost had a toasted/burnt malt flavor. It was still good, but tasted little like the others.

Has anyone experienced this?
Do flavors separate out like this in the primary?

My only though for next time is to very gently stir the beer prior to bottling, ensuring I don't stir up any trub

 

[xpops]

I've never tried that, but i suspect as beer is drawn from the primary, there is still some slight mixing/swirling/ going on amongst the full volume of the fermenter.

Did you use the same 2.5g sugar cube in the 12oz bottle vs the 22oz bottle??

 

[petrolSpice]

I've never tried that, but i suspect as beer is drawn from the primary, there is still some slight mixing/swirling/ going on amongst the full volume of the fermenter.

Did you use the same 2.5g sugar cube in the 12oz bottle vs the 22oz bottle??

1 cube in a 12oz bottle, 2 cubes in a 22oz bottle. The different flavors is not from the different levels of carbonation. Frankly they were carbonated almost identically.

I'm curious if there is an invisible layer of "sediment" at the bottom that contains things that may taste differently than the rest of the volume.

 

[Jhu1321]

I tried that once too. Stop now. Different amounts of yeast and priming sugar led to inconsistent results from bottle to bottle.