Equipment Sanitation Problem?

[Inkdrop]

I have run into a problem, and I think it must be a sanitation problem. About 6 months ago I brewed a "voodoo Dixie black lager" and everything looked good come bottling day. After 3-4 weeks bottle conditioning, I cracked one open and tried it and it was awful. The best way to describe the taste is spoiled or cultured tea. I continued to age in the bottle hoping the taste would smooth out, but it only got worse. The recipe had rice in it, which I have never worked with, so I decided that must be the problem and would avoid recipes with rice until I could research it a little. I have brewed a few batches since, and ran into no problems. I just cracked open a bottle of Vanilla Carmel Cream Ale that I bottled a month ago and BOOM.....spoiled tea.

Here is the thing. I don't know if it is infection, but there was no visible infection. Everything looked good and tasted good at bottling.

 

[Skep18]

You've always bottle conditioned? Nothing has changed, just randomly your batches started tasting off?

Just trying to clarify.

FWIW, I've read on here rarely ever do people actually get infections. YMMV, but in my limited experience, tastes (very awful tastes) I thought were coming from an infection were not. They were coming from somewhere else in my process.

 

[fartinmartin]

Whoa, that's bad.
If you have grown a problem, you now need to kill it.
I would take every item of kit and wash it thoroughly in a strong bleach solution, then wash it all again sanitising all the kit (star San ) then sanitise your brew house and all the kit again.

 

[Inkdrop]

Both of the batches that have the bad taste were bottle conditioned. 95% of my batches are bottle conditioned. I rarely ever keg because I prefer it bottle conditioned.

I am not certain sanitation is the problem because there were no visual signs of infection, just the off taste. And no problems with any of my other batches. That is why I asked if anyone else has had these bad taste in their beer before.
I don't mind bleaching everything really good, I will do whatever I need to, but doesn't the taste and smell of bleach stick around for a while? I don't want my beer to taste like bleach.

What else in my process could be causing this if not infection? And if something in my process was the problem, wouldn't a lot more of my batches taste bad instead of just two?

 

[IslandLizard]

How did it taste at time of bottling?

How clean and sanitized were those bottles?

 

[Inkdrop]

Tasted good at bottling.

I soak my bottles in PBW, for a couple hour, clean with bottle brush, rinse with hot water from tap, then I use this bottle sanitizer that squirts starSan solution into the bottle and place on bottle tree to dry which i clean and sanitize the same way.

Maybe oxidation? What kind of off flavors would oxidation cause? I try to be very carefully with it when I transfer buckets, but I have never had a batch have oxidation issues before, so I wouldn't know how to tell if it did happen

 

[IslandLizard]

Your sanitation practices for the bottles looks fine. I hope you're thorough with the racking cane or siphon and racking hose too.

Are you racking to a bottling bucket with a plastic spigot near the bottom?
Those spigots can be bug traps. The 2 main barrels that make it turnable, without loosening the nut, do come apart after soaking in really hot water for 20-30 secs. You won't believe what can grow in that tight space. Brush well, sanitize well, and reassemble wet. There is also that rubber washer... Rubber can harbor bugs and is really hard to clean.

How's the carbonation in those bottles?

Oxidation makes your beer taste stale, like wet cardboard, or even wet dog in bad cases. But if you're careful transferring without splashing it should be fine.

What do you use for priming? Corn sugar? Taste some of it, maybe it's tainted.

You sanitize the bottle caps?

 

[Skep18]

Tasted good at bottling.

I soak my bottles in PBW, for a couple hour, clean with bottle brush, rinse with hot water from tap, then I use this bottle sanitizer that squirts starSan solution into the bottle and place on bottle tree to dry which i clean and sanitize the same way.

Maybe oxidation? What kind of off flavors would oxidation cause? I try to be very carefully with it when I transfer buckets, but I have never had a batch have oxidation issues before, so I wouldn't know how to tell if it did happen

I'm opening myself up to all sorts of rage here, but in my experience, and I can't reiterate enough, YMMV, darker beers like stouts and brown ales bottle condition well with corn sugar/fizzy tabs. But I have yet to have an IPA taste right out of a bottle if I bottle condition with corn sugar. Idk if they have all been too high gravity to let the new sugar ferment due to yeast limitations or if the flavor of corn sugar causes issues, but FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IPA's in a bottle are a no-no I was going to try to bottle condition with DME, but didn't figure it was worth the time/effort of a batch so I bought keg things. That is 100% the reason I keg now and bought all the keg equipment now.

To sum it up, its like someone poured Robitussin or other cough medicine in my beer. BEFORE BOTTLING THE BEER TASTED GREAT OUT OF THE CARBOY. But something about adding the sugar didn't work for me.

I'm not saying this is a real community issue, its quite possible I'm fail and stupid. But if you're making a hoppy beer, one that's not based mostly on malts (darker beer), try keg-to-bottle to carb it. Maybe it will work for you too?

FWIW, this 100%, heck, 1,000,000,000% fixed my issue with terrible tasting Pale Ales and IPA's. Today I have some older bottle conditioned IPA's I keep in hopes time will fix things and can drink it side-by-side to my kegged IPA's and it's night and day different. Never again will I bottle condition my hoppy beers.

Dark ales onthe other hand go GREAT in bottles for some reason. IDK why. Any leftover sweet must just blend well with the malts or the yeast attenuates better/higher gravity than what I use. Again, not sure.

For records, I used Wyeast 1272 in my pale ales/IPA's.

 

[Inkdrop]

Your sanitation practices for the bottles looks fine. I hope you're thorough with the racking cane or siphon and racking hose too.

Are you racking to a bottling bucket with a plastic spigot near the bottom?
Those spigots can be bug traps. The 2 main barrels that make it turnable, without loosening the nut, do come apart after soaking in really hot water for 20-30 secs. You won't believe what can grow in that tight space. Brush well, sanitize well, and reassemble wet. There is also that rubber washer... Rubber can harbor bugs and is really hard to clean.

How's the carbonation in those bottles?

Oxidation makes your beer taste stale, like wet cardboard, or even wet dog in bad cases. But if you're careful transferring without splashing it should be fine.

What do you use for priming? Corn sugar? Taste some of it, maybe it's tainted.

You sanitize the bottle caps?

Yes. I clean all of my equipment thoroughly with the same method. I soak with PBR, scrub, rinse in HOT water, and spray with stars an solution.

I take my spigot off bottling bucket and clean it too, I do clean the rubber seal but I have never changed it.....

My beer was carved up fine, but now that you mention it, the 'black lager' got over carbonated as it aged, and the bottles began to spew when I opened them. What does that mean?

No.. I must confess I have never thought to sanitize the bottle caps.

I use corn sugar mostly, but I always dissolve in boiling water. I used DME on the VCCA and boiled it to dissolve.

 

[Inkdrop]

I'm opening myself up to all sorts of rage here, but in my experience, and I can't reiterate enough, YMMV, darker beers like stouts and brown ales bottle condition well with corn sugar/fizzy tabs. But I have yet to have an IPA taste right out of a bottle if I bottle condition with corn sugar. Idk if they have all been too high gravity to let the new sugar ferment due to yeast limitations or if the flavor of corn sugar causes issues, but FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IPA's in a bottle are a no-no I was going to try to bottle condition with DME, but didn't figure it was worth the time/effort of a batch so I bought keg things. That is 100% the reason I keg now and bought all the keg equipment now.

To sum it up, its like someone poured Robitussin or other cough medicine in my beer. BEFORE BOTTLING THE BEER TASTED GREAT OUT OF THE CARBOY. But something about adding the sugar didn't work for me.

I'm not saying this is a real community issue, its quite possible I'm fail and stupid. But if you're making a hoppy beer, one that's not based mostly on malts (darker beer), try keg-to-bottle to carb it. Maybe it will work for you too?

FWIW, this 100%, heck, 1,000,000,000% fixed my issue with terrible tasting Pale Ales and IPA's. Today I have some older bottle conditioned IPA's I keep in hopes time will fix things and can drink it side-by-side to my kegged IPA's and it's night and day different. Never again will I bottle condition my hoppy beers.

Dark ales onthe other hand go GREAT in bottles for some reason. IDK why. Any leftover sweet must just blend well with the malts or the yeast attenuates better/higher gravity than what I use. Again, not sure.

For records, I used Wyeast 1272 in my pale ales/IPA's.

I bottle my IPA's, and they have always turned out great. I have only been brewing about a year, but I have brewed at least a batch every two weeks. That is at least 24 batches I have brewed, and everything came out great(minus my first couple batches that I did not reach my OG, but they still ended up tasting good). Only two bad batches, and both 5-6 months apart. That is why I am confused. I am fairly new to kegging, only kegged a couple batches so far.

 

[eastoak]

I'm opening myself up to all sorts of rage here, but in my experience, and I can't reiterate enough, YMMV, darker beers like stouts and brown ales bottle condition well with corn sugar/fizzy tabs. But I have yet to have an IPA taste right out of a bottle if I bottle condition with corn sugar. Idk if they have all been too high gravity to let the new sugar ferment due to yeast limitations or if the flavor of corn sugar causes issues, but FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IPA's in a bottle are a no-no I was going to try to bottle condition with DME, but didn't figure it was worth the time/effort of a batch so I bought keg things. That is 100% the reason I keg now and bought all the keg equipment now.

To sum it up, its like someone poured Robitussin or other cough medicine in my beer. BEFORE BOTTLING THE BEER TASTED GREAT OUT OF THE CARBOY. But something about adding the sugar didn't work for me.

I'm not saying this is a real community issue, its quite possible I'm fail and stupid. But if you're making a hoppy beer, one that's not based mostly on malts (darker beer), try keg-to-bottle to carb it. Maybe it will work for you too?

FWIW, this 100%, heck, 1,000,000,000% fixed my issue with terrible tasting Pale Ales and IPA's. Today I have some older bottle conditioned IPA's I keep in hopes time will fix things and can drink it side-by-side to my kegged IPA's and it's night and day different. Never again will I bottle condition my hoppy beers.

Dark ales onthe other hand go GREAT in bottles for some reason. IDK why. Any leftover sweet must just blend well with the malts or the yeast attenuates better/higher gravity than what I use. Again, not sure.

For records, I used Wyeast 1272 in my pale ales/IPA's.

no rage at all but most of the things described in your post are probably not the norm. bottle conditioning has nothing to do with making a beer go bad neither does sugar.

 

[eastoak]

Both of the batches that have the bad taste were bottle conditioned. 95% of my batches are bottle conditioned. I rarely ever keg because I prefer it bottle conditioned.

"bottle condition" is kind of misleading, beer conditions in whatever vessel you put it in. beer in a keg conditions the same as beer in a bottle.

 

[Inkdrop]

"bottle condition" is kind of misleading, beer conditions in whatever vessel you put it in. beer in a keg conditions the same as beer in a bottle.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying bottle conditioning might be causing the bad taste. Now I see you were talking about corn sugar.

I did bottle one of the batches with corn sugar, the other one with DME.

 

[Inkdrop]

One thing I changed in my process......I use to use the 1.2.3. Rule when brewing beer, then I started reading a lot of posts on HBT where brewers were saying they didn't go to secondary, just stayed in primary for a month so they wouldn't risk oxidation when racking to secondary. I started doing the same thing. Both of my batches that went bad have been since I made that change.

could that be the problem? Is 1 month too long to stay in the primary on the lees?

 

[eastoak]

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying bottle conditioning might be causing the bad taste. Now I see you were talking about corn sugar.

I did bottle one of the batches with corn sugar, the other one with DME.

i was saying that neither bottle conditioning nor sugar is likely to be the cause of off flavor.