Bottled batch has aged strangely - carbonation issue

[KookyBrewsky]

My third extract batch (pale ale), which started out absolutely phenomenal, has aged strangely.

So this many weeks in, after I’ve drank plenty of them, the remaining ones behave strangely. They’re not gushers, but once I open them and pour, just a small amount will make half the glass foam! None of the earlier ones I’ve drank have behaved this way.

Is this indicative of an infection, or perhaps it’s the priming sugar fully incorporated? I’ve followed the same bottling recipe every time, my stout and porter barely have a head, my pale ale had a proper head for the vast majority until the recent ones I’ve drank, and my IPA is nearly perfect. Doesn’t matter if it’s been chilled for 3 days or a week-two weeks. The recent pale ales I’ve drank have this bizarre carbonation issue.

Regards

 

[ike8228]

Mixing issue? How did you add the sugar? Perhaps more made it into those bottles.

 

[doug293cz]

It's possible that you have an infection in the bottles. Look at the interface between the beer and headspace with a strong light. If there is a film or layer on the surface of the beer, then you probably have an infection. It is safe to drink the beer, although if it doesn't taste good, why bother. The organisms that infect beer are not dangerous to humans.

Brew on

 

[KookyBrewsky]

It's possible that you have an infection in the bottles. Look at the interface between the beer and headspace with a strong light. If there is a film or layer on the surface of the beer, then you probably have an infection. It is safe to drink the beer, although if it doesn't taste good, why bother. The organisms that infect beer are not dangerous to humans.

Brew on

man, already an infection on my third batch! I cannot imagine any beer being this carbonated when other bottles had only a moderate head. However, I would not say there is any sort of film or layer, it goes from beer straight to bubbles when looking from underneath.

I carbonated as I have for all my brews. Make up the priming sugar solution, dump into bottling bucket (sanitizer), rack beer slowly on top of priming solution.

 

[brewdude88]

How long was the beer in fermentation before bottling? I've had batches do this because I've rushed to the bottle

 

[LittleRiver]

Another thing that can cause this is poor mixing of the priming solution. It happened to me once with a stout. Some bottles were flat, others were good, and some were over carbonated. I had racked the beer into the bottling bucket with the priming solution, assuming the gentle whirlpool created would be sufficient for mixing. Not.

But I agree with the others that your situation sounds more like an infection, since you said they were all OK initially, then they all started showing signs of excessive carbonation.

 

[KookyBrewsky]

I am pretty certain it was an infection.

Here's what I believe happened : the first pale ale of the batch I opened was a gusher. It behaved the same as these recent ones and I was very worried the entire batch was infected. I dismissed it and decided to chill a bunch of them which turned out perfectly and tasted amazing. The reason my recent beers have started gushing as well is because I switched cases! The first beer I tested was from the infected case, I chilled and drank beers from the uninfected case. This leads me to believe the entire second case of beer was infected from the bottles.

Is there any sort of yeast/bacteria soaking the whole bottle in a bucket of Star San won't kill? Because that's what I've done for every bottle I've used. It makes no sense to me as to why an entire case of bottles would be infected whereas another case bottled the same day and sanitized the same way didn't have an infection.

Such a weird outcome. I knew on the first bottle I opened there was some sort of issue but because I didn't drink anymore from that case, never knew about it until now! I had come to believe it was due to being the last bottle I bottled (which is always my "test beer") that it had a higher amount of nucleation points due to the excess bit of trub from being last.

Oh well, hopefully someone knows what could've infected an entire case of bottles that wasn't cured with Star San.

 

[wstumper]

Here's what I believe happened : the first pale ale of the batch I opened was a gusher. It behaved the same as these recent ones and I was very worried the entire batch was infected. I dismissed it and decided to chill a bunch of them which turned out perfectly and tasted amazing.

Did you open the bottle BEFORE you chilled it? I opened a bottle of Raging Red Irish Ale (bottle conditioned for 3 weeks at about 68 degrees) before I chilled it. It was a gusher to say the least! First time that happened although I've only been brewing a few years and not regularly. After chilling, the rest of the batch, had no problems after that.

IMO, my gusher was from opening a warm beer that had never been chilled.

 

[KookyBrewsky]

Did you open the bottle BEFORE you chilled it? I opened a bottle of Raging Red Irish Ale (bottle conditioned for 3 weeks at about 68 degrees) before I chilled it. It was a gusher to say the least! First time that happened although I've only been brewing a few years and not regularly. After chilling, the rest of the batch, had no problems after that.

IMO, my gusher was from opening a warm beer that had never been chilled.

No, the first one I opened before drinking the non-infected batch was chilled, every beer I opened from the infected batch once I got to it was chilled... that is until I poured out 10 of them in a row. Then I just dumped the entire rest of the warm case (probably 15 beers or so). I drank plenty of the non-infected case and was satisfied beyond belief, disappointing to say the least.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Is the pale ale in question dry hopped, perhaps?

What was the starting gravity and the gravity at bottling?

Pour a bottle, and decarbonate it (pouring back and forth between glasses until all the carbonation is gone) and read the gravity.

If it's the same as when you bottled, it's likely a priming issue (inconsistent mixing of priming sugar is my guess). If it's less than when you bottled, there's a bigger issue. May be infected, maybe something else (bottling before fermentation was done, or hop creep come to mind)

 

[KookyBrewsky]

Is the pale ale in question dry hopped, perhaps?

What was the starting gravity and the gravity at bottling?

Pour a bottle, and decarbonate it (pouring back and forth between glasses until all the carbonation is gone) and read the gravity.

If it's the same as when you bottled, it's likely a priming issue (inconsistent mixing of priming sugar is my guess). If it's less than when you bottled, there's a bigger issue. May be infected, maybe something else (bottling before fermentation was done, or hop creep come to mind)

No dry hops, I just dry hopped for the first time, a different pale ale in the fermentation bucket...

The PA in question is the Great Lakes PA. I used two cases of beer bottles, one entire case had the issue, the other didn't, and they were both sanitized in exactly the same way. I have two pale ales right now after dumping out the PA in question: The American PA. One batch is still in the fermenter (the one I just dry hopped), the other is almost ready to drink after bottle conditioning for 2.5 weeks. Now you have me concerned after dry hopping the second batch of American pale lol.

Unfortunately I dumped them all out. They tasted nothing like the part of the batch I enjoyed so much. The beers were getting closer to tasting like some odd-flavored Hefe instead of the PA I came to enjoy.

If it was a priming issue, I have no idea where I went wrong. I racked the beer on top of the priming solution like I did the first two times without any issue. Although my first two batches were a bit weak in the head department, they were definitely carbonated almost perfectly.

I have been on the dot for every batch so far regarding OG and FG except one. I always test and the only one that's given me trouble was a stuck guava IPA whose alcohol content is 2% too low. Not sure what went wrong there. However that and this PA have been my two homebrew issues so far. The PA was definitely done fermenting and was precisely as the recipe kit said.

 

[rburrelli]

Are you making the priming solution according to a priming calculator or just going with the 5 oz package supplied with the kit? If so you may be over priming.

And soaking in StarSan is not the same as using a cleaner like PBW first. StarSan is a sanitizer, not a cleaner.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

The PA in question is the Great Lakes PA. I used two cases of beer bottles, one entire case had the issue, the other didn't, and they were both sanitized in exactly the same way.

Were the two cases from different sources? Or were they just bottles that you already had stored, that were treated the same way but physically stacked into different cases? In the latter case, I'd lean towards insufficient mixing of priming sugar (assuming one case was filled, then the other). If it's the former, the bottles in that case probably weren't properly cleaned to start with. Did you check them for mold? Starsan (and any other sanitiser) won't kill visible colonies of organisms, it can only sanitise clean surfaces. I stopped giving out bottles of beer very early in my brewing journey, because NOBODY returned properly clean bottles, no matter how clear the instructions were to properly rinse and then leave inverted.

 

[Beernik]

If it is an infection & it’s showing up In random bottles, it could be the bottles themselves. Check they rinse visibly clean after pouring. If they don’t, you can try soaking or scrubbing them clean. If they still don’t come clean, replace them.

 

[KookyBrewsky]

Were the two cases from different sources? Or were they just bottles that you already had stored, that were treated the same way but physically stacked into different cases? In the latter case, I'd lean towards insufficient mixing of priming sugar (assuming one case was filled, then the other). If it's the former, the bottles in that case probably weren't properly cleaned to start with. Did you check them for mold? Starsan (and any other sanitiser) won't kill visible colonies of organisms, it can only sanitise clean surfaces. I stopped giving out bottles of beer very early in my brewing journey, because NOBODY returned properly clean bottles, no matter how clear the instructions were to properly rinse and then leave inverted.

I ordered cases of bottles from homebrew sites when I started, I’ve read those are likely recycled but still, they were soaked completely in Star San for 5+ minutes before drying on my also sanitized inverted rack.

 

[Beernik]

Yes, I generally used new bottles too, or microbrew ones I reused. Bottles can build up crud over time. I had 4 brews that were randomly infected before it occurred to me to rinse one, hold it up to the light, and see if it rinsed clean. When I did, there was a 1/16” dot of crud on the inside of the bottle.

I spent the next year checking every bottle after I poured it and again before bottling with it until i had a clean inventory again.

 

[Qhrumphf]

If you were getting off-phenols (Hefe-like is the clue there) and overcarbonation, that's definitely textbook infection. Either one case of bottles didn't get cleaned, or the whole batch was contaminated and you drank the first case before it could show. Since your first bottle was bad case and showed the same as the rest of the bad case later, that does point to the bottles themselves. Or perhaps caps. Or perhaps you introduced something while bottling (say laid the bottling wand on the ground and didn't re-sani it).

Even new bottles I'd clean with PBW or Oxyclean Free or something, rinse, and then store upside down, and give em a dust rinse before sanitizing. If there's any soil at all in there, Star San will not penetrate it.

 

[KookyBrewsky]

Thanks everyone... live and learn. Just too bad the uninfected beer was so amazing!

 

[Stormcrow]

Is the pale ale in question dry hopped, perhaps?

What was the starting gravity and the gravity at bottling?

Pour a bottle, and decarbonate it (pouring back and forth between glasses until all the carbonation is gone) and read the gravity.

If it's the same as when you bottled, it's likely a priming issue (inconsistent mixing of priming sugar is my guess). If it's less than when you bottled, there's a bigger issue. May be infected, maybe something else (bottling before fermentation was done, or hop creep come to mind)

That's just a dandy idea I'm going to file away for the future! I had a couple of weird bottles in a batch recently. Never thought to recheck the gravity and see if it dropped.

 

[Stormcrow]

Sounds like you're on the right track with infection via the bottles on this one. Just fyi for the future though; I'm gonna gently stir my beer after racking onto the priming solution from here on out. I have always just let the discharge from my siphon mix the solution like you always hear about, and it has worked perfectly except for one time. For some reason with a dark brown ale I made, some bottles were completely flat, some were perfect, and a few blew past the gaskets on my swing tops. (No doubt would have been bombs if crowned. ) All these beers tasted phenomenal. You just never knew what carbonation you would get. For some reason, my sugar just didn't mix well, as far as I can tell.

 

[Snuffy]

I’d believe uneven distribution of priming sugar per bottle. if you had enough bacteria to create that much pressure then there would be obvious evidence in the bottle - not to mention off flavors and odors. Sometimes you just get a gusher.