Defect in Brown Ale

[mazaman]

Hi,

I brewed a northern brown ale back in September and bottled in October. When I bottle, I do a variety sizes, specifically 12 oz, 1 pint, and 750 ml. Overall, the beer turned out pretty good, with a pronounced biscuity flavor. One thing I do notice is that in the 750 ml bottles, there is a slight but noticeable alcohol taste (not enough to ruin the beer, just enough to notice it), I need a very aggressive pour to get any head and it quickly disappears. The 12oz bottles are perfect, with no alcoholic taste what so ever and perfect head stability (a 2 finger head that lasts the whole time that I'm drinking the beer). In the pint size bottles, I don't get any alcoholic tastes, I need a less aggressive pour than the 750's, but there is no head stability.

Do you think this is a problem with bottle cleanliness, or a defect in the beer? I clean and sanitize all three sizes of bottles the same way, in the same batches. My process wasn't perfect (the fermentation temp was 70-72), so I wouldn't be surprised by the fusel alcohols, but I'm surprised its only showing up in the 750ml bottles. Also, I don't know if this makes a difference regarding head stability, but I carbonated the beer on the lower end of the style guidelines, to make the beer more drinkable. using corn sugar.

Craig

 

[Revvy]

Nope, just that bigger bottles need more time.

A larger volume sized bottle usually needs more time to carb AND condition. I have some pints, 22 oz bombers and other sizes that I often use, but since I enter contests I usually also do a sixer or two of standard 12 ouncers for entering. And inevitably the 12 ouncers are done at least a week faster than the larger bottles....some times two weeks ahead of time...

Also the rule of thumb is 3 weeks at 70 degrees for a normal grav 12 ounce bottle....to carb and condition....It takes longer for the yeasties to convert the larger volume in the bigger bottles to enough co2 in the headspace to be reabsorbed back into the solution...A ration I don't know how much...

Big Kahuna gives a good explanation here...

Simple. It's the ration of contact area just like in a keg. The c02 will need to pressurize the head space (Which takes LESS TIME) in a bigger bottle (More Yeast and sugar, roughly the same head space) but then it has to force that c02 into solution through the same contact area...thus it takes longer.

 

[Brewham]

Could be that you washed the offending bottles with soap and it wasn't fully rinsed out. A little soap can kill the head. Did you wash them separately from the others?

 

[superjunior]

Nope, just that bigger bottles need more time.

this ^^

 

[jfr1111]

The beer was bottled in October. Unless his Brown Ale had a starting gravity of 1.090+ or he tried carbonating them in a 55F room, they should be carbed by now, 750ml bottles or not.

What process did you use to clean/sanitize the bottles ?

 

[mazaman]

A couple steps, but they were all done the same way and roughly at the same time. First, I send them through a dishwasher cycle to get the bulk of the crud out (they're recycled from a previous batch), then I soak them in PBW for 45 minutes to an hour. When rinsing them, I run a bottle brush in and out of them. Then to sanitize, I soak them in Starsan foe about 15 minutes.

 

[jfr1111]

I'd do a simple test: crack a 12 oz bottle and a 750ml one and pour three samples from each aside. Let them go flat or shake a spoon into them until they stop foaming/bubbling. Check the gravity for each. If you have an infection in the big bottles (wich can cause a loss of head retention along with alcohol aromas), the gravity will be lower than the reading you took at bottling and the reading from the okay bottles since the bugs will be eating the leftover sugars the beer yeast couldn't consume.

If there's no difference, you probably don't have any bugs and the poor head retention is probably due to rinsing issues all accross the board. Your process seems convulted as all get up to me. I usually treat all but the most offending bottles in a 2-3 hours long warm Oxyclean bath, rinse every bottle three times and use the oven to sterilize. You using the dishwasher and then PBW can mean that soap/cleaning residues got into the long bottles and had a harder time getting out than from the shorter ones. Makes sense, since the 500ml are in between in terms of alcoholic aroma and head retention.

Low carbonation can result in lower head retention, altough it cannot account for changes in aromas from one size of bottle to the next.

 

[mazaman]

Thanks. Sounds like a good plan and a good opportunity to cook some brats.