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Bad streak in brewing

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zlaker

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Joined
May 24, 2016
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It seems I've been cursed by the brewing gods, my past 5 batches have all had some sort of problem.

Let's begin with I've been brewing for the past 3 years and have never faced this problem, all my brews had come up great except for this past month.

I have a friend that has a restaurant ( BTW I don't live in the US so I don't really want to get into regulations and permits discussions) and he tried my English pale ale (standard bitter) and he liked it he has tried it in several occasions and he really loves it. He proposed that I deliver 48 bottles every week to his restaurant and that he can help me, 1 - to sell them and 2 - get funding to set up a small brewery. Since then all my batches seem to hit a problem or another.

Batch 1 was ok out of primary (7 days) and on secondary ( 14 days) gravity was spot on as well as flavor (og 1.036 fg 1.008 ) fermented with u-04. Temp was around 19-20 C. Bottles went through standard sanitization process (detergent washing with hot water wait to dry, then starsan). Made a table sugar water solution to carb in bottle. 2 days after bottling on the neck bottle a small film appeared. Not too strong but still a small flim that clinged to the side of the bottle with movement and to the top of the beer. ( my first guess acetobacter) 2 weeks after fermenting the bottles are well carbonated and they have a slight acidic aftertaste can be felt in the back of the mouth. I'm hoping this is just that the beer is green.

Batch 2 was ok out of primary (7 days) and on secondary up to day 12 on day 13 it developed a white pelicule gravity was spot on as well as flavor when I moved to bottling (og 1.036 fg 1.008 ) fermented with u-04. Temp was between 20-21 C. Bottles went through standard sanitization process. Made a table sugar water solution to carb in bottle. 1 day after bottling on the neck bottle a small film appeared. Not too strong but still a small flim that clinged to the side of the bottle with movement and to the top of the beer. 2 weeks after fermenting the bottles are well carbonated and they have a slight but more pronounced acidic aftertaste can be felt in the back of the mouth. I'm guessing this is infected

Batch 3 tasted off after primary really acidic and developed a white pelicle after 1 day in secondary. That went straight to the trash.

Batch 4 was the same as batch 2 but it developed a pellicle after 7 days of secondary. Beer tastes like acid after bottling. The pellicle on the bottle was white. All got discarded. The fermenting temperature was about 22-23C the upper limit for u-04 but 3 C outside the recommended fermenting temp.

Batch 5 went exactly the same as batch 1

I always ferment on plastic buckets and do secondary on plastic carboys. However to keep the temp I had to place the buckets's inside water containers, the water level went to about half the height of the bucket. So this is also something new I've done and I don't know if the problem is in the cooling method or if I'm just in a really bad streak and somehow my beer oswaldo getting infected.

Like I said no problems in 3 years I want to do something to sell and all hell breaks loose.

Any tips or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Zlaker
 
Stop using secondary, it's generally not necessary for making great beer and can introduce unwanted oxygen and or infection.
 
Thanks Pkrd, did that with batches 6, 7 and 8 as a precautionary meassure. Although in 3 years I always used secondary decided to stop to try and reduce that risk. I'm trying to upload a pic of batch 3 and the film on the beer bottles
 
I hear ya man I've been hit with crazy oxidation issues after years with no probs this hobby has a way of just when you think things are good something comes up.

Anyway that looks like an infection of some sort aceto or lacto could be the culprit. However you fill the bottles I'd get all new lines, siphon, etc some bug could be in there somewhere. I'm no expert but the way that bottle has that cracking look with a pelicle in the middle looks like infection to me. I'm sure someone here with more experience will know more. I also see you use buckets, get rid of them and get new ones, one little scratch in those things could harbor a bug that will infect everything, that could be the culprit and yes top using secondaries which they could have a scratch in them that could be harboring something too.
 
Thanks, yep those beers with the thick film got trashed. 2 Buckets were brand new always clean with soft sponge and nothing too abrasive on the inside. Anyways after the incidents I bleach bombed everything lines, siphon, buckets thief, airlocks, rubber stoppers, spigot. Then washed, 4 times with detergent, then starsan. I'm hoping that infection of it is in the lines is gone.

But yeah I'm considering getting glass carboys.
 
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