Question About a Bad Batch of Beer

[thomer]

I know there are many different reasons for a beer going bad, but wondered if any of you experts recognise this so I can learn what went wrong. I have brewed probably 50 batches, and have only had 4-5 go bad so I think my cleaning and sanitisation is generally good. But want to learn for the future.

This is an IPA.
Dry hopped.
Fermented for 3 weeks, bottled for 2 weeks.
Open the bottle and the foam slowly starts to come over the neck.
Then after about 5 seconds turns into Vesuvius.
I poured some into a glass and can see what looks like sediment at the bottom causing the high effervescence.
Beer smells and tastes 'okay' (but a little off) and has alsmost a greyish tinge to it.
Is this bad cleanliness, oxygen from dry hopping or something else.

 

[davidabcd]

Sounds like an infection. I'm not sure when the infection gets introduced based on the info.
I'm not hop savvy enough to say if that's the cause.

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Please don't take offense at this, because none is intended. If 10% of your batches have gone bad, your cleaning and sanitation may not be as good as you think. That's where I would start looking.

 

[madscientist451]

When you drink a bottle of homebrew, immediately rinse the bottle out so beer residue doesn't become stuck on the bottom.
Before bottling, each bottle has to be cleaned and inspected by holding the cleaned bottle up to a strong light source and looking though the opening. Bottles that are hard to clean should be recycled.
Immerse bottles in bucket of star-san and dump out right before you fill them. Caps should be in a small container of star-san before use. Of course your siphon, bottling bucket and everything that touches the beer should be properly cleaned and sanitized.

 

[Gorm]

On sanitation, every 5 months or so all bottles get soaked in chlorine for a day then rinsed several times in hot water.
I use swing top or grolsh type bottles and every year I change the gaskets regardless of how good they look.
Cheap insurance. Cleaning bottles with a bottle washer after consuming the beer always a good idea.

I have found excess sediment in suspension when I am racking into the bottling bucket always leads to bottle bombs the first few weeks and a lot of hop particle residue on the bottom of the bottle.

beer tastes off after a month.

 

[thomer]

Please don't take offense at this, because none is intended. If 10% of your batches have gone bad, your cleaning and sanitation may not be as good as you think. That's where I would start looking.

No offence taken. But in my defence I only started brewing about 18 months ago and the 4-5 batches included ones when I was first starting and making some mistakes. Have not had a bad batch for a while which is why I asked the question. I consider my cleaning and sanitation to be good.

 

[jdauria]

So sediment at the bottom of bottle would be from carbonating in a bottle, yeast sediment mostly. However, being an IPA, after it fermented, did you cold crash the beer to drop everything to bottom? It's highly possible you have a lot of hop material that transferred to the bottles that would cause nucleation points to cause CO2 to gush. How did you carbonate the bottles? Maybe you over carbonated and have gushers because of it. Did you store bottles at room temp until fully carbonated, then put in fridge? Two weeks is not a long time to carbonate in a bottle, 3-4 is better. Not sure what's causing the "greyish" color, and as for being a little off, IPA's and especially NEIPA's can get oxidized very quickly if too much oxygen gets into mix, and the bottling process can pull in a lot of O2.

 

[thomer]

So sediment at the bottom of bottle would be from carbonating in a bottle, yeast sediment mostly. However, being an IPA, after it fermented, did you cold crash the beer to drop everything to bottom?

No I didn't as I do not have the equipment at the moment, but it is something I am looking into.

How did you carbonate the bottles? Maybe you over carbonated and have gushers because of it. Did you store bottles at room temp until fully carbonated, then put in fridge? Two weeks is not a long time to carbonate in a bottle, 3-4 is better.

Carbonation was done with sugar/water (according to the recipe) and added to the bottling bucket. Yes the are stored at room temp and then transferred to the fridge. However 2 weeks to the day I do open a beer and try it and 99% of the time the beer is good. But I will try to be more patient in the future.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[davidabcd]

The way I read and the way I use to avoid contamination is to account for and know every single surface/object the beer is going to come into contact with and make sure it's sanitized. Everything, start to finish.
My setup is very basic. I don't have taps on my fermenters or anything like that.
It's not necessary to engage in overkill, just make sure the surfaces/objects are free of debris and then sanitized.
What's not feasible is a video of a brewer's process, start to finish, though it would be helpful. It could be something the brewer's not even aware of doing.
In any case, if every surface is accounted for and sanitized, there should never be an infection.

 

[ncbrewer]

Carbonation was done with sugar/water (according to the recipe) and added to the bottling bucket.

If you used the amount of priming sugar shown in the recipe, there could still be a problem. Is it possible your beer volume into the fermenter was less that the target? Or could there have been more trub than expected in the bottom after fermentation? (I sometimes get varying amounts of trub.) Or maybe poor mixing of the priming sugar in the bottling bucket - that could result in some over carb'd and some under.

 

[thomer]

If you used the amount of priming sugar shown in the recipe, there could still be a problem. Is it possible your beer volume into the fermenter was less that the target? Or could there have been more trub than expected in the bottom after fermentation? (I sometimes get varying amounts of trub.) Or maybe poor mixing of the priming sugar in the bottling bucket - that could result in some over carb'd and some under.

Thank for the reply, but this issue is more than just priming. The beer has a greyish color and tastes off. So I think an infection snook in there somewhere.