Beer goes bad after bottling, please help!

[Pisty_Pete]

I've had a few batches of beer go south after bottling. Everything tastes good (albeit flat) on bottling day, but after the carbonation comes up so does something else....

It's hard to describe the off flavor, but it might be oxidation. Wet cardboard doesn't sound quite right, but closer than anyting else I've read. Does oxidation tend to manifest itself as carbonation comes up?

I had one batch of 7.5%abv SMaSH APA that tasted great at bottling. I sampled a bottle after one week and it was barely carbed (seems the yeast were struggling after being subjected to the high EtOH), but tasted good still. Two weeks later the CO2 had come up a bit and the beer tasted all kinds of bad. After 4 weeks in the bottle, it still hadn't really carbed fully and still tasted off.

Some sourness (lactobacillus??) may have developed as well. There was no gushing and no ring inside the bottle.

These bottles in particular were autoclaved. Previously I've had the same problem with iodophor sanitized bottles. All of my equipment is sanitized with iodophor.

Bottle conditioning (and fermentation) temp is about 68F and I've had this problem in a dunkel weisse (WB-06), a porter (Muntons yeast), and the SMaSH APA (US-05). I've followed the 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary regimen for all of these. So, the batches were racked once (carefully, I thought) between fermenters and once again into the bottling bucket, and (sorta) once more into the bottles.

I boil "sterilized" my priming sugar and poured it into the bottling bucket hot then siphoned the beer on top to mix.

All had good apparent attentuation.

Any ideas?? Thanks for your help!!!

 

[Revvy]

Well it's hard to read you big block of paragraph with my tired eyes. (Spaces between every few sentences makes things easier for some of us to be able to make out pretantent details.

Having said that, how long are you waiting after bottling day before you are openning them and tasting them....if it is under 3 -6 weeks, then more than likely they are just green and need some time for the yeast freshly activity yeasties to do their thing...

So it may appear that they are getting worse, when in reality you are tasting some things that are more apparant with partial carbonation, yet still need more time...

Read this for info about that...[URL="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/... [b]Patience[/b] and Bottle Conditioning.[/i]

If they taste fine at 3 weeks, but taste like crap a few weeks later...then you have a late onset infection...which means you need to button up on your sanitization process, both during fermentation AND during your bottling process...

Usually a beer improves with time, even most nasty tasting beers (even those from hot fermentation) can clean up over the period of a few weeks or months.

As the stories in this thread can attest to https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

But if they go noticeably down hill (and I'm not talking about how it tastes in secondary or at bottling time, way too much still has to happen in the next few weeks to use whether it tastes good or bad in secondary as and indicator.) then you do have to consider changing your santization regime....
I offer some info on post infection sanitization, here.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/1382345-post9.html

Hope this helps...

 

[Pisty_Pete]

whoops, sorry about that! hope that's better now.

thanks for the response and links! i appreciate it.

the first beer that this flavor developed in was the porter. it had this problem since probably the first sample at 1 week in the bottle all the way up through the last one which had about 3 months in the bottle.

also, the dunkel weisse, if anything only got worse over time. i've had that batch for about 3.5 months now and just finally dumped the remainder yesterday. it was totally undrinkable.

the SMaSH was only a 2.5gal batch and i've only got a few bottles left. they've been in the bottle 4.5 weeks now. i plan to take one to my local (not so local) homebrew shop to see if i can convince someone to taste it for me. i'm sure they love tasting everybody's off flavored beers...

i've read about people getting recurring infections from their plastic equipment. i really hope that's not the case. i have had other batches in between that come out fine. and haven't ever seen a precipitate ring in the bottle, nor had any gushers. so who knows...

thanks again for your insight!

 

[Revvy]

Yeah..try to find some knowlegable brewers, (depending on the lhbs, THEY MAY NOT be that knowlegable) If you can find someone (like at a homebrew club) who is bjcp certified, that would go far in helping you isolate the issue..

But consider the tips about infection fighting to be a good start either way.

And thanks for fixing the post...helps my tired old eyes.

 

[Hotspur]

My first suggestion is to toss the bottling bucket, and the associated tubing and bottling wand. Replacing these should be under $20, and rules out bacteria hiding in any scratches. If you're sanitizing everything else with iodophor, that's probably fine. I am on the bandwagon for StarSan, but both are proven to work.

The last thing you could do, is to pick up new bottles, particularly if you've reused the same bottles for multiple instances of off flavors. If you're super paranoid, buy new empties.

From there, it's just the standard sanitizing practices that I'm sure Revvy has posted or linked to so many times he'd be rich if he had a nickel per.

 

[chefchris]

I feel your pain. I had the same problem with almost all of my beers. Good up to 2 weeks and after that went south. I switched to kegging and haven't tasted it since. I asked Jamil about it and he said it sounded like an airborn wild yeast. Maybe try a new bottling bucket and keep everything as covered as you can when transferring. Or, do like me and start kegging. It's very much worth it.

 

[Pisty_Pete]

I think it's unavoidable - time to replace all of my plastic... dammit.

Airborne yeast sounds like a likely culprit the more I think about it. My apartment is quite small (nyc woes...) and unfortunately the bathroom is right next to the kitchen. And... no matter how much bleach/bathroom cleaner I hose down the shower tiling with I'm constantly battling mold (more nyc woes...).

Seems likely some spores could make their way from the bathroom, into the bottling bucket, and into the bottles. I do keep the bucket covered as much as possible, but it's definitely open to attack moreso then than during the rest of my process.

I think I'm going to have to bottle in the bedroom from here on out as well. Hopefully this will nail it. I've got a nice saison and an xpa in the fermenters right now and will definitely end up red faced and teary eyed if these go south!

Thanks for all the input!!

 

[Pisty_Pete]

wait - just read Revvy's link about "scorched earth sanitization". i think i'll give that a go first. cheers!

 

[GreggZ]

I had the same problem with a series of batches...

So I looked at all of my bottling equipment pretty closely... WHen I took apart my bottling spigot it had a few nasty mold spots... I cleaned and sanitized it and i havent had a problem since...

But if you actually cant find any smoking guns I think its a good idea to just get a new bottling bucket, spigot and filler.

 

[remilard]

The kitchen is the worst place in the house in terms of beer spoiling organisms. Lactobacillus and Acetobacter thrive there and are the two most common bacteria harmful to beer. Also if you have wild yeast, the kitchen is a likely spot.

For that reason, I tend to think that bottling from an open bucket in the kitchen, which is very popular, is probably the weak point in a lot of peoples' process (unless you are spitting in the carboy or something).

I think that bottling in your bedroom is a good idea. When I bottle, I do it in the kitchen but using a better bottle, carboy hood and racking cane. Covering the bottling bucket loosely with foil is another idea.

Since the flavor seems somewhat close to cardboard to you, don't rule out oxidation. However, if you are being thoughtful in your transferring and bottling, a hand bottled bottle conditioned beer should not display oxidation soon after bottling unless subjected to extreme abuse.

trans-2-nonenal really does smell exactly like cardboard and everyone is sensitive to it so it is hard to mistake. There are other compounds caused by oxidation in beer but they don't taste anything like cardboard.

 

[Pisty_Pete]

An update: I just took a look at a sample of the sediment from the bottom of a bottle of the SMaSH APA under a microscope here at work.

I didn't see any obvious lactobacillus, but possibly some wild yeast. According to White Labs, wild yeast are 30 to 50% smaller than S. cerevisiae and I definitely saw a population of what appeared to be (to my untrained eyes) smaller yeast...

Thanks again for all the help!!

 

[EvilTOJ]

Well that's a unique way to test for infections! I wish I'd had something like that when I had been having my infection issues.

 

[JiP]

Wow- I wish I had thought to dig up a microscope! Good work!

Here's a thread on solving infection issues for bacteria: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/plastic-vs-glass-carboy-old-debate-but-looking-experience-263539/

 

[mthelm85]

BUMP! Did you ever solve the problem Pete? I have had the same issue now for 2 brews (not in a row) and I can't figure it out. Both tasted excellent on bottling day but after 7 - 10 days of carbing, they both had this nasty off flavor that is indescribable. It doesn't taste like any of the common off flavors mentioned in Palmer's book but it's the same with both brews. The beer tastes good when it first hits yours tongue but the off flavor dominates the end and after taste. Then, if you exhale after swallowing you can still taste it really strong. It subsides after about 3 weeks but is still very noticeable in the beers making them not pleasant to drink. My sanitation is really good though so I have a hard time believing it's a sanitation issue.