Beer gone off in corny keg

[Marty1819]

so frustrated to find that my last two brews have gone off after a couple of week in the corny keg. I am using the BIAB method and to get a hop punch I dry hopped with 100g , 4 days into fermentation. 5 days later once fermentation was complete I transferred i to a glass carboy and removed the hops ( gave the hop bag a good squeeze to get all the flavours out). The brew sat in the carboy for 2 weeks until clear and then i transfered into my corny and gassed with C02. At this point the brew tasted great, nice smooth and hoppy, 2 weeks later it tastes acrid and comes out very foamy, the foam is slightly yellow.
This has now happened twice with the same recipe, the corny was stripped an sanitized along with all other equipment apart from the gas line from my c02. could this be the overload of hops at 100g in the fermenter ?.
I am quite new but have had 10 previous successful brews, but never dry hopped before.

 

[Calaeb]

No seems to me that you've maybe over carbonated the beer. It also seems like that you're not giving the beer enough time to finish cleaning it's self up. I typically don't use secondary unless I'm adding something like fruit or wood. You could be putting it at unnecessary risk of oxidation by using a secondary. What did you have your co2 regulator set at on the keg? You can't really overload a beer with hops so thats definitely not the issue.

 

[divrack]

so frustrated to find that my last two brews have gone off after a couple of week in the corny keg. I am using the BIAB method and to get a hop punch I dry hopped with 100g , 4 days into fermentation. 5 days later once fermentation was complete I transferred i to a glass carboy and removed the hops ( gave the hop bag a good squeeze to get all the flavours out). The brew sat in the carboy for 2 weeks until clear and then i transfered into my corny and gassed with C02. At this point the brew tasted great, nice smooth and hoppy, 2 weeks later it tastes acrid and comes out very foamy, the foam is slightly yellow.
This has now happened twice with the same recipe, the corny was stripped an sanitized along with all other equipment apart from the gas line from my c02. could this be the overload of hops at 100g in the fermenter ?.
I am quite new but have had 10 previous successful brews, but never dry hopped before.

couple of things.
you state it is infected. do you know this for a fact? it is possible that the acrid taste is from hops settling to the bottom and concentrating, but unlikely. pull a few pints to check this.
if it is infected it's possibly from squeezing the hop bag or the bag itself. if you've had an infection in the past it's advisable to boil everything you can, deep clean and give a strong soak in acid and base, of everything. some critters are tough, believe me.
I have to say it's surprising you got something that develops without o2 in the cold in 2 weeks, but there are literally millions of nasties out there.
I used to be unbelievably slack and never had any issues at all, then I started getting repeat infections. now I'm super careful to kill anything dead and minimise any o2.

 

[divrack]

No seems to me that you've maybe over carbonated the beer. It also seems like that you're not giving the beer enough time to finish cleaning it's self up. I typically don't use secondary unless I'm adding something like fruit or wood. You could be putting it at unnecessary risk of oxidation by using a secondary. What did you have your co2 regulator set at on the keg? You can't really overload a beer with hops so thats definitely not the issue.

you can overload a beer with hops, trust me...
that's what happens when you start buying ten pound sacks.

 

[Marty1819]

I don't know for a fact that the beer is infected, how can I check. I carbonated the corny to 40 psi and left it in the cool for a week before testing and it tasted fine. It was not very carbonated so I upped the pressure back to 40 to give it a real sparkle, it was a couple of weeks later that it tasted off. I did not know you could over car, I thought the more you pushed in the corny, the more fizzy it got . I did clean all my kit with acid base sanitizer and then used starsan before transferring to the corny.

 

[divrack]

ooft. yes two weeks at 40 is definitely over carbed. co2 is acid so the acridity might be from that. not saying it's definitely not infected. sometimes only experience can tell you that.
I would say though that my guess is now that you're tasting some concentrated trub from the bottom of the keg plus over high levels of co2. vent the keg to almost empty a few times until you can stabilise at serving pressure of about 15 psi (you are at triple normal co2 concentration) and try it again. you could also try a sample from the top of the keg to see if the settling trub is an issue.

 

[myndflyte]

Agree on the over carbonation. I'm not sure what your setup is like but I feel like that long at 40 psi is going to overcarb it. I leave mine at 30 psi for only 24 hours before turning in back down to serving pressure and even at that point, it's pretty close to fully carbonated.

You could try to decarb it but taking it off the gas, venting it and then roll it on its side for a few minutes, vent again, and repeat. Then I'd just put it back on the line at serving pressure. It might take a week or so but it'll carb up again.

 

[GPP33]

I'd bet these guys have nailed your problem. Too much CO2 can give it a bite and hop debris can give it a bite as well. When you squeezed your bag you release a bunch of little tiny particles of hop debris, that "juice" that came out of the bag when you squeezed it smells amazing but tastes terrible. DO NOT roll or shake the keg or you'll stir that stuff back up, just relieve some pressure, let it sit, relieve some more, repeat a bunch of times while letting the keg sit undisturbed. Carb it back up at a 10 psi and slowly adjust it up until it's at your preferred carbonation. You'll probably have to dump a few pints before you wash all the hop debris crap out.

 

[Marty1819]

I'm new to this forum and still learning lots about the art of home brewing. Thanks all for your help I will try out your advice.
Cheers Marty

 

[divrack]

I'm new to this forum and still learning lots about the art of home brewing. Thanks all for your help I will try out your advice.
Cheers Marty

btw. if you are unhappy with the carbonation of the beer it might be foaming too much while pouring? if so to avoid you need to get more/thinner tubing between corny and tap to provide more gentle friction and avoid sudden pressure change. I have like 20ft or so rolled up. it's a pita but haven't found a better option. make sure it's a super good quality barrier line also or you'll have to waste half your beer by chucking the plastic tasting first part.
happy brewing, hope it turns out to be the problem of over carb, not nasties.

 

[kevin58]

Unrelated but something you said in the OP... it takes more than 5 days for most beers to finish fermenting. By taking it out of primary after just 5 days you have not let the yeast finish cleaning up undesirable compounds which can lead to off-flavors.

Here is the cycle of yeast in a nutshell... 1st stage: they take in nutrients (no noticeable activity in the airlock) . 2nd stage: they multiply (lots of activity in the airlock). 3rd stage: with their preferred nutrients used up they start working on those other compounds (no noticeable activity in the airlock). You might be racking your beer off the yeast before the 3rd stage is finished.

I have never dry hopped in the primary fermenter but it seems to me that doing so at just 4 days into fermentation might be too soon. If I had to guess I would suggest waiting until that 7 to 10 day fermentation period was over. Let the yeast do their thing before adding things to their world. Someone with more experience doing this should chime in.

When I dry hop it's in my corny keg. I stopped using a carboy to secondary opting instead to rack just once into the keg. I use a stainless steel dry hopper made for corny kegs. Add your hops, seal up the keg and add a blast or two of CO2 to purge the oxygen and let it sit in the basement for up to a week. At which point I remove the dry hopper and then I put the keg in my keezer and start carbonating.

And when I carbonate my routine is to set CO2 to serving pressure... 10 - 12psi and just leave it there for another week to 10 days. That way I don't have to mess with turning the pressure up and down... no shaking or rolling and the beer will benefit from the extra time conditioning.

 

[GPP33]

Unrelated but something you said in the OP... it takes more than 5 days for most beers to finish fermenting. By taking it out of primary after just 5 days you have not let the yeast finish cleaning up undesirable compounds which can lead to off-flavors.

Here is the cycle of yeast in a nutshell... 1st stage: they take in nutrients (no noticeable activity in the airlock) . 2nd stage: they multiply (lots of activity in the airlock). 3rd stage: with their preferred nutrients used up they start working on those other compounds (no noticeable activity in the airlock). You might be racking your beer off the yeast before the 3rd stage is finished.

I have never dry hopped in the primary fermenter but it seems to me that doing so at just 4 days into fermentation might be too soon. If I had to guess I would suggest waiting until that 7 to 10 day fermentation period was over. Let the yeast do their thing before adding things to their world. Someone with more experience doing this should chime in.

When I dry hop it's in my corny keg. I stopped using a carboy to secondary opting instead to rack just once into the keg. I use a stainless steel dry hopper made for corny kegs. Add your hops, seal up the keg and add a blast or two of CO2 to purge the oxygen and let it sit in the basement for up to a week. At which point I remove the dry hopper and then I put the keg in my keezer and start carbonating.

And when I carbonate my routine is to set CO2 to serving pressure... 10 - 12psi and just leave it there for another week to 10 days. That way I don't have to mess with turning the pressure up and down... no shaking or rolling and the beer will benefit from the extra time conditioning.

I agree that 5 days is probably too short, he put in a carboy for two more weeks though so the yeast should have had plenty of time. I assume anyway, never done secondary myself.

You might also want to burp that keg a couple more times to actually remove O2, 12x @ 30psi is a good rule of thumb.

 

[divrack]

Unrelated but something you said in the OP... it takes more than 5 days for most beers to finish fermenting. By taking it out of primary after just 5 days you have not let the yeast finish cleaning up undesirable compounds which can lead to off-flavors.

Here is the cycle of yeast in a nutshell... 1st stage: they take in nutrients (no noticeable activity in the airlock) . 2nd stage: they multiply (lots of activity in the airlock). 3rd stage: with their preferred nutrients used up they start working on those other compounds (no noticeable activity in the airlock). You might be racking your beer off the yeast before the 3rd stage is finished.

I have never dry hopped in the primary fermenter but it seems to me that doing so at just 4 days into fermentation might be too soon. If I had to guess I would suggest waiting until that 7 to 10 day fermentation period was over. Let the yeast do their thing before adding things to their world. Someone with more experience doing this should chime in.

When I dry hop it's in my corny keg. I stopped using a carboy to secondary opting instead to rack just once into the keg. I use a stainless steel dry hopper made for corny kegs. Add your hops, seal up the keg and add a blast or two of CO2 to purge the oxygen and let it sit in the basement for up to a week. At which point I remove the dry hopper and then I put the keg in my keezer and start carbonating.

And when I carbonate my routine is to set CO2 to serving pressure... 10 - 12psi and just leave it there for another week to 10 days. That way I don't have to mess with turning the pressure up and down... no shaking or rolling and the beer will benefit from the extra time conditioning.

I think that's generally good advice, I don't secondary and leave a couple weeks before racking to secondary, however there is nothing wrong with active fermentation hopping, I do it all the time. it's an essential part of ne style ipas etc called biotransformation, basically the yeast seems to transform some of the thiols into tropical juicy compounds that otherwise don't appear. also creates the haze though which you either want or don't.
it's interesting you keg hop for so long, I find I can only leave hope in for 48hrs before I get a horrible veg taste from them.. I wonder if it's because I do it under some co2 pressure..

 

[eadavis80]

I would leave the beer in primary at least a week before moving to another carboy for any purpose and then lower your PSI in your keg to 20-30 for 1 day and then dial it back to 10-12 until it reaches proper carbonation level.

 

[Marty1819]

OK... So I gave the corny keg a good shake and released all the CO2 before cold crashing and force carbonation for an hour or so at 20psi, a week later the Ale has cleared and tastes OK, however it has lost the fresh hoppy flavour that it had originally. I now intend to dry hop for 4 days with fresh hops in my keg in a last Ditch attempt to get it back.
Just for the record I originally dry hopped 4 days after the initial aggressive fermentation in my fermentation bin an removed the hop bag 5 days later when fermentation was complete and I transfered into a carboy it sat there for 2 weeks until cleared before going into the corny keg to be carbonated. This way there is very little clearing to do in the keg and nothing much in the way of sediment at the bottom, if there is then it normally gets drawn thru in the first pint.

 

[divrack]

my opinion is 4 days is too long. beyond 48 hrs in keg and I get unpleasant vegetal flavors. I know it's hard pulling all those hops out at that time... I think the effect is maybe worse when under pressure in keg.
I know some people suggest longer, so do what you like, but to my tastes it's one of the most common mistakes I used to make.

 

[Marty1819]

my opinion is 4 days is too long. beyond 48 hrs in keg and I get unpleasant vegetal flavors. I know it's hard pulling all those hops out at that time... I think the effect is maybe worse when under pressure in keg.
I know some people suggest longer, so do what you like, but to my tastes it's one of the most common mistakes I used to make.

OK thanks for the heads up. I have never dry hopped finished beer in a keg so I am sort of fishing around for info on this. Currently I am trying to recover a lost batch which was spoilt by overcarbonation, its now OK but lacking the fresh hoppy taste from the original dry hopping in the ferment bin. Maybe I will have to give up on this batch
Every day is a school day

 

[GPP33]

Nothing wrong with dry hoping in the keg and I’m not surprised you lost some aroma with the roller coaster this beer has seen. Use muslin bags, 1oz per bag (they’ll swell like crazy), tie some flavorless dental floss to the bag and around the handle and drop them in. Adding dry hops to carbonated beer can cause foaming so be sure the beer is cold when you drop them in and cold when you take them out. Let it warm up for a few day in between to get the flavor out.

Your first pint will have some hop debris in it so dump it out, they do not taste good. And don’t squeeze the bags when you remove them, the juice in them smells great but it’s loaded with hop debris.

Next time you carbonate I’ve found that 24 hours at 50psi followed by 24 hours at 30psi then dropped to serving pressure of about 12psi works perfect. Your exact pressures may vary slightly. Yea it takes 48 hours to carbonate but it’s perfectly carbonated and I don’t have to sit there shaking/rolling it and risking over carbonation.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

What I do is let it sit in the fermentor for about a week. Check FG a few days in a row after then keg, purge the air, let it get cold, in the keggorator on serving pressure. add gelatin, give it a few days, then add a 3” tea ball with hops and just let that sit in the keg until done. It took me a little to get here but I’ve not had any issues lately.

 

[divrack]

OK thanks for the heads up. I have never dry hopped finished beer in a keg so I am sort of fishing around for info on this. Currently I am trying to recover a lost batch which was spoilt by overcarbonation, its now OK but lacking the fresh hoppy taste from the original dry hopping in the ferment bin. Maybe I will have to give up on this batch
Every day is a school day

i dont mean to put you off dry hopping it. you'll get what you expect, but id do as suggested above and ensure you can get the hops out, as if you are sensitive to vegetal flavour you'll curse yourself for leaving them in, especially in a pale low caramel beer. its not as noticeable in muddy beer styles ive found. i guess some people don't notice the negative side of it, but isure do, seem to be sensitive to that and any plastic taste, ruins it for me. but yea stick a good bunch of hops in for a couple of days and youll get a punch up in aroma going again.
all is not lost! granted its not as good as it might have been but im sure its better than a lot of swill getting sold for moneys, so, success!

 

[seatazzz]

I'm going to agree that OP took the beer off the yeast too soon. I usually go grain to glass in about 8 to 10 days and never secondary. As long as you're keeping your temperature in check, you can leave the beer on the yeast cake for at least that long, a lot of people here do that for 2 weeks.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

I'm going to agree that OP took the beer off the yeast too soon. I usually go grain to glass in about 8 to 10 days and never secondary. As long as you're keeping your temperature in check, you can leave the beer on the yeast cake for at least that long, a lot of people here do that for 2 weeks.

Depends on the beer.
For a session type, boil to keg in a week is no issue.
For something say 5% or higher yeah. 10 days min.