IPA Off flavor and color change

[jasonv]

I have been brewing mostly IPAs for about two year now. The last 8 or so batches have been troublesome. In between I have brewed stouts and porters that have turned out fine. The issues becomes apparent about 2 days in the serving keg. The SRM of 6 has gone to 12 or higher. The hop aroma and taste have disappeared. The mouth feel is slick and a caramel like taste has appeared. When i look into the top of the keg i see an oily layer. The beer has starting to carb but no head will form only few large bubbles are present. Around day 5 a head will finally from in a poured beer but the aroma, taste and SRM stays the same. I dry hop and transfer similar to this procedure. http://www.bear-flavored.com/2014/09/how-i-dry-hop-my-ipas-with-no-oxygen.html.
The beer is exactly were i want it pre serving keg. Im out of ideas can this be an infection?

 

[Build]

Are you using the exact same equipment to brew and keg, the only difference is the recipe?

Are you getting the oily layer with the stouts? Seems the oil is absorbing the aroma/flavor, and darkening the beer. Are the IPA grains/hops all in great condition?

 

[jasonv]

Same equipment same grain bill with some variances in hops. Stouts are fine. I think i narrowed it down to the dry hopping but why doesn't it change in the dry hopping keg? Cold or C02 issue? All grain is new i buy sacks of fawcett GP. The Hops i buy in 1 lbs and use a vacuum sealer when the factory seal is broken. I do think some of the hops are at least a year old. All the hop that i have used smell great i have never questioned the quality. I just ordered hops from Morebeer to brew Friday to disprove an old hop theory.

 

[m00ps]

I would pbw the crap out of those kegs and break them apart

 

[jasonv]

I always break down my EQ down and clean after use. I use Oxyclean free. I did purchase some PBW its on the way.

 

[jasonv]

I keep going back to oxidation of the beer. My methods post fermentation are pretty solid. I use a better beer vessel with a spigot and force the beer out with c02 into a corny keg to dry hop for 3-5 days then transfer into the serving corny keg via c02. I purge the kegs. I even purged the dry hop keg every day to make sure the hops didn't have any o2 in them. Can i be picking o2 in the better bottle and its not affecting the beer until cooled? I did do a diacetyl test pre dry hop. It passed.

 

[Build]

If it was oxidation you'd have it in your other brews. If it's only your IPAs then it has to be something you're adding/doing only to the IPAs.

Do you only dry hop the IPAs and not the others?

 

[jasonv]

With the dark beers I'm thinking that the flavor and color could be masked. I did dry hop a black IPA. It was tough to tell but in pretty sure it had a slick mouthfeel.

 

[blackey73]

I had same issue with my IPA's but it appears to have been an oxidation issue. I've gassed the hell out of the kegs lately and all is good again.

 

[TurnipGreen]

I've recently had he same issue with a pale ale. At first I thought it was infection. So I started drinking it all as quickly as I could. That was fun and definately not a wasted effort. I'm pretty sure it was only one bottle that was infected. But all of them are definately darker and the aroma hops have masivley dropped out if not entirely gone.

I have pretty much the same beer fermenting right now and I'll be paying closer attention to any potential for oxidation.

I'd love to hear from more knowedgable folks if this sounds like oxidation.

 

[blizz81]

OP's issue sounded like oxidation off the start to me, but I wasn't sure how it could be given the explanation of his process. I don't think the Better Bottle is an inherent O2 risk, especially in terms of IPA turnaround time. Are you cold-crashing at all before the keg(s)?


As for TurnipGreen, probably the same, though in the case of bottling, I think it's a harder fight against oxidation / harder to achieve crisp and clean hoppy beers.

 

[jasonv]

That's exactly what I thought before my last batch cold crash suck back. I remove it from my process and still received the same brown beer. I contacted 5 star to ask about a gallon of star San that I have been using for over a year now. They stated that it has only a year shelf life. For tomorrow's brew day I'm using pbw (I was using oxy clean) and fresh Starsan along with fresh hops and grain from a new sack. Now that I'm thinking about I did try dry hopping in primary and received the same beer.

 

[blizz81]

When you're force transferring with CO2 from the FV, do you leave the CO2 hooked up the whole time? I only ask because as an idiot that doesn't understand simple things, the first time I did a force transfer via my carboy cap, I started with CO2 and figured oh, it's going, I can unhook the CO2 now. Actually, I think I left the hose hooked up and turned the CO2 off, and buckled my (already buckled) plastic carboy. But if I had pulled the tube, it could have kept going while sucking air in the whole time. Just grasping at straws though.

 

[jasonv]

I do leave it going the whole time to were it swells the carboy a little bit. About 2-3 psi.

 

[jasonv]

Here is a shot from the top of the keg.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3ehHHces8ZfYVdHdWZ0dW5YMW8

 

[dwhite60]

What's your grain bill?

All the Best,
D. White

 

[jasonv]

15lbs golden promise
1lb oats
4oz TF caramalt

 

[jasonv]

Solved!

It was oxygenation. I started pushing the starsan out of my serving kegs via CO2 and pressurizing them with 30lbs 3 times before moving beer into them and haven't seen an oxidized beer again. Im talking 6 batches of non oxidized beer. :rockin:

 

[leonardoreges]

Oxidation in the cold side of things. For sure. Maybe when dry hopping, maybe transferring from one keg to another.