Each bottle tastes different?

[BRUbaker]

Now drinking the first batch i bottled. Not great, Maybe not good, but OK. Fine. Most of it has that slight band-aid after taste.

My Question is this. 'How come every couple of bottles I get one that has no off flavors?' In fact it's real good stuff.

I don't understand how individual bottles can have a different taste when they're all from the same batch.

At the time of bottling, the siphon to the bottling bucket aimed to one side. Causing the brew to whirl and mix with the priming syrup. Then immediately bottled. All the beers so far have had the same head on them.

 

[MalFet]

Need more info, including cleaning process/chemicals, type of beer, length spent bottle conditioning, etc. There are plenty of things that can cause variation from bottle to bottle. But, the first thing that jumps to mind with bandaid is chlorine, either from bleach or water. How are you cleaning your bottles before you package?

 

[14thstreet]

I would venture that even experienced bottlers get "off" bottles here and there within the same batch. Why? You are reducing the size as well as increasing the number of vessels that are being asked to condition your beer. It's just a law of statistics and sampling that each of the 50 or so bottles you get out of 5 gallon batch will behave / end up differently even if you apply the same procedures to all of them. Even with kegs where some of these variables are reduced, one pint could taste differently from the next, depending on your mood, what you've eaten, etc. I have to believe that the macro breweries go to great lengths to produce a beer that has the least variation from batch to batch, bottle (or can) to bottle. If you aren't controlling variables to the extent the big boys are, you'd have to expect some level of variation.

 

[VegasBrew]

I used to get that when I bottled in my kitchen, figured it was something blowing out of my heating/ac vent which was right above my bottling area. I made sure the bottling bucket was covered and all by bottles were on a bottling tree so they had to get contaminated during the fill. My off flavor was sour to a weird bitter not bandaid. Once I moved everything out to the garage it has stopped. However as MalFet said, more info would help.

VB

 

[rycov]

my first brew was mr beer. he said not to use twist off caps and i didnt listen. all of them carbonated. but some were good and some were just drinkable. off flavors and what not. if you did this too then that could be an issue.

another thought, is it possible that after drinking one you get used to it and notice it less or not at all?

 

[BRUbaker]

cleaning process/chemicals = dishwasher sanitized, idofore, rinsed
type of beer = Scottish Ale LME kit
length spent bottle conditioning = bottled on 1/29/11
No chlorine - well water only

Beer tasted great on bottling day. no off flavors

Had another one tonight that was good.

 

[MalFet]

cleaning process/chemicals = dishwasher sanitized, idofore, rinsed
type of beer = Scottish Ale LME kit
length spent bottle conditioning = bottled on 1/29/11
No chlorine - well water only

Beer tasted great on bottling day. no off flavors

Had another one tonight that was good.

Have you ever had a good bottle and a bad bottle side by side? It's possible that you are just more sensitive to the off flavor at some moments than others. But, if you are sure that there really is a difference between bottles and that the beer from the bottling bucket doesn't have any of the off flavor, then something is happening at bottling time.

If you notice as time goes on that the off flavor becomes less and less likely to show up, then it was just an metabolic intermediate that the yeast needed more time to break down. I.e., even though it had been a good three weeks, the bottles aren't finished conditioning.

Or, if the bandaid off flavor sticks around, something is getting introduced at bottling time. It could be either chlorine or a bug, both of which can produce chlorophenols. What kind of priming sugar and how was it prepared?

There could also be something in your rinse water, as well. Consider trying a no-rinse sanitizer next time.

 

[Kahuna]

I'd guess some variation in the cleanliness of the bottles. I see you ran these through the dishwasher, but did you really clean the bottles? ie. Soak in a cleanser and scrub the insides with a bottle brush. Using a dishwasher is no guarantee that the bottles will be clean, prior to sanitation.

 

[boss429]

Baker ive experienced differences in bottles like you and I did a little experiment. After I racked into my bottling bucket I numbered my first 5 bottles with a 1 and my last 5 bottles with a 0. The result was the first 5 bottles were watery with some hop aroma/and little flavor and the last 5 bottles were not watery and had nearly no hop aroma/flavor. Id even go so far to say the flavor of the hops are different from bottle to bottle.

stuff in the beer seperates after sitting in a fermentor for weeks and since agitation is so taboo because of oxidation well the substances dont mix too well. This is just my opinion but what I'm hoping to do soon is what I heard on this brewstrong podcast.

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/Brew-Strong-12-08-08-Dry-Hopping

1:11:20 to around 1:11:45

"blow co2 into the bottom of the fermentor"

to resuspend dry hops and yeast to dry out beer.

according to him everything that should not be in the beer will fall out relativly quickly.

 

[beergolf]

How long since you bottled?

My first batch had a very slight band aid taste in the first one I tasted. I waited about a week and a half to taste the first one ( too soon) . By three weeks in the bottles it disappeared and by 4 weeks it was very good beer.

Let them sit for a while longer.