To bottle or not to bottle... Acetaldehyde

Hi guys,

I need some help... the quicker the better. I just went to bottle up a beer that's been in the fermenter for 20 days (all primary). It tastes so strongly of green apple I am wondering if it's even worth bottling. Any chance conditioning it for a few weeks will fix it?

I've already transferred into the bottling bucket and the priming sugar is in... should I bother bottling it all up or toss it?

Thanks.

 

I would still bottle it. What kind of beer? The yeast may clean that up but it might take a little time

 

I had it in a beer I made last year and it took awhile but it went away, I keg so I just let it sit in the keg and tasted it every few months.

 

Okay... maybe I'm being to hasty since I already put in the priming sugar.

I guess I should give it some time. Should I:

1. Bottle it

2. Leave it in the bottling bucket for a few weeks and bottle later?

Thanks... this is my first dealings with Acetaldehyde... at least I know exactly what that off flavor is now

 

So I decided just to leave it in the bottling bucket with an air lock and wait to see if it clears up.

From what I've read, it seems there are 4 possible causes (please correct me if I'm wrong):
1. Incomplete fermentation
2. Oxidation
3. Yeast autolysis
4. Bacterial contamination

The FG is currently 1.008 which is lower than the expected 1.010. So I'm thinking 1 isn't the cause. 4 is a possibility I suppose but I've never had any contamination issues before so I think it's unlikely but I guess it could be the cause of the low FG? 3 is not normally a problem at the homebrew scale from what I hear, but it was in the primary for for about a week longer than I usually do. Thoughts?

So I'm leaning towards oxidation I guess. For this batch I fermented in the brew kettle which I put inside two plastic trash bags which were each tied off. Maybe that wasn't oxygen tight enough? Or can there be problems with it being too gas tight? I.e. Not letting anything out during fermentation?

 

What kind of beer is this? If I had to guess without too much information, I'd think pitching your yeast at too high a temp might have been the issue. Or, your pitch temp was significantly higher than the temp of the beer post fermentation. That can lead to slow cleanup. Or just poor yeast health. What was the recipe?

I agree with your assessment above, for the most part. 1) is not it, most likely. 2) doesn't usually give apple flavor, though you can get oxygenation if you let this sit in the bottling bucket too long (though it helps you added sugar to restart fermentation. 3) is unlikely, given the timeframe. 4) is also very unlikely, and there are no other signs of bacteria, per your report. Your FG is not low, either. .002 off is an easy error in measurement, and well within the range of a normal fermentation. Remember, recipe FGs are nothing more than a best guess at where most beers from this recipe ought to end up.

When it comes time to bottle, don't forget to ad more sugar, per a calculator. And if you have a bucket and an airlock already, why did you not ferment in there to begin with? I have no idea what this plastic bag approach might do, but it goes against best practices in a big way.

At this point, your best bet is to bottle soon. The beer will still continue to condition in the bottle. Just add the same amount of sugar as before, dissolved in water, and away you go. There's no real benefit to leaving it in a bucket now, but I can think of a few drawbacks.

 

Acetyladeyhde is a common fermentation byproduct. Some conditions make more, and could take longer to clean up.

• Low temperature range fermentation for the yeast
• Underpitched yeast or poor yeast health
• Yeast dropped out of suspension before cleanup phase completed
• Racking to soon (doesn't appear you did this)

Assuming your brew kettle had its lid on, oxidation not a likely cause. Our favorite rocket scientist ferments this way (check out @ 2:30 in)
https://youtu.be/t9gpqMUS_ko

 

The recipe was the Can You Brew It Arrogant Bastard clone. I do 2.5 gal batches, and I pitched 1 vial of WLP007. Maybe not enough? I pitched at 64 F, but the rest of fermentation happened at 70-74 F.... my apartment has made it difficult to implement a temperature controlled fermentation chamber so far, but that's definitely in my future.

I do BIAB, and because I'm lazy I've decided to try fermenting right in the kettle for the ultimate in one vessel brewing. From what I've read, the main reason people are against this is that it ties up their brew kettle for the entire fermentation procedure. I decided that the 20 quart pots I found for $12 were cheap enough that I could just buy a few and not worry about it (http://www.boscovs.com/shop/prod/stainless-steel-stockpot-20-quart/12585.htm).

 

Check this article out, this might be more along the lines of what you have going on:
http://perfectpint.blogspot.com/2011/02/english-yeast-off-flavor.html

 

It seems like that compound might have come from the fermentation temp. I would bottle this asap as a bottling bucket isn't all that air tight and may cause further oxidation.

 

Bottling soon sounds good, but be sure the priming sugar that you added has fermented out (stable gravity).