stewart194
Well-Known Member
I've been brewing for a year now. I started off with extract and brewed 7 batches before moving to all grain. Since then I've brewed around 10 more batches. My last 5 brews have been less than awesome. Each one has been thin, with very little body, head, or head retention. I'm currently bottling, and have steadily increased the amount of corn sugar to see if that would help. It seemed to help the head, but not the head retention. Still, the head goes away within a few minutes. If I pour the beers hard, it lasts longer, but within a few minutes it's completely gone again.
To top it all off, each beer has gotten worse in the bottle over time. They all seem OK after 4 weeks in the bottle, but then they eventually get super thin, tasteless, and fizzy. I've had several "gushers" that spill out the top immediately after opening. The funny thing is that all of my IPA's have been fine, no matter how long they are kept in bottles. I'm super diligent (I think) with sanitation. I used to reuse Star San for a few months (about 4 batches) but I stopped doing that to see if that was the problem. It apparently isn't as I used fresh Star San these last few batches.
Could my kitchen be full of wild yeast? Am I taking too long during the bottling process with an open bottling bucket? Are my bottles not clean enough? I rinse every bottle really well immediately after pouring a beer. I keep the bottles in boxes in the garage until I'm ready to bottle again. I don't wash the bottles with anything, I just use a bucket of Star San and soak them before bottling again...but they appear to be super clean before doing this. I have a friend that does this too and he doesn't have any problems. In fact I think I read online somewhere that Palmer said this is OK.
The only other thing I can think of, is that a few times while making a yeast starter, the foam stopper has slightly popped out of my erlenmeyer flask. (I've woken up in the morning to find it slightly popped out, I push it back in, and it doesn't do it again) But with some of these problem brews, this hasn't happened.
I thought that maybe my dip tube in my new keggle brew kettle might be the cause, but it's surely sanitized after boiling for 90 minutes...and this has happened with extract using my old brew kettle also. I've also cleaned and sanitized the vinyl tubing that goes from the valve to the carboy. I put my wort chiller in the kettle with 15 minutes left in the boil, etc, etc. And like I said, I honestly think I'm super thorough with sanitation. The weird part is that it doesn't happen with every brew, and I can't find anything in common between the good brews and bad brews that might be the culprit.
If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.
To top it all off, each beer has gotten worse in the bottle over time. They all seem OK after 4 weeks in the bottle, but then they eventually get super thin, tasteless, and fizzy. I've had several "gushers" that spill out the top immediately after opening. The funny thing is that all of my IPA's have been fine, no matter how long they are kept in bottles. I'm super diligent (I think) with sanitation. I used to reuse Star San for a few months (about 4 batches) but I stopped doing that to see if that was the problem. It apparently isn't as I used fresh Star San these last few batches.
Could my kitchen be full of wild yeast? Am I taking too long during the bottling process with an open bottling bucket? Are my bottles not clean enough? I rinse every bottle really well immediately after pouring a beer. I keep the bottles in boxes in the garage until I'm ready to bottle again. I don't wash the bottles with anything, I just use a bucket of Star San and soak them before bottling again...but they appear to be super clean before doing this. I have a friend that does this too and he doesn't have any problems. In fact I think I read online somewhere that Palmer said this is OK.
The only other thing I can think of, is that a few times while making a yeast starter, the foam stopper has slightly popped out of my erlenmeyer flask. (I've woken up in the morning to find it slightly popped out, I push it back in, and it doesn't do it again) But with some of these problem brews, this hasn't happened.
I thought that maybe my dip tube in my new keggle brew kettle might be the cause, but it's surely sanitized after boiling for 90 minutes...and this has happened with extract using my old brew kettle also. I've also cleaned and sanitized the vinyl tubing that goes from the valve to the carboy. I put my wort chiller in the kettle with 15 minutes left in the boil, etc, etc. And like I said, I honestly think I'm super thorough with sanitation. The weird part is that it doesn't happen with every brew, and I can't find anything in common between the good brews and bad brews that might be the culprit.
If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.