My beer keeps going into the bottles tasting great and coming out tasting bad.

[nosoup4me]

I'm on brew #10 and my last 2 batches have just tasted like **** after bottling. And now I'm worried about bottling my Hoppy Wheat (8 Gallons) this weekend for fear of screwing up again.

My Mosaic SMASH (pilsner) somehow became oxidized and changed probably 10 SRM from bottling day to consumption and was over powerfully malty. I still don't know how I oxidized it. But the beer is basically trash.

My La Petite Orange is carbonated but has zero head retention and has started to darken slightly after being in the bottle for 5 weeks.

Now I have 8 gallons of a Hoppy Wheat beer ready to be bottled and I'm worried I'm going to botch this one too.

Things I think may have gone wrong in the la Petite Orange:

Problem:I have been using Planet Dish Soap to clean all my bottles and I think maybe I didnt rinse them enough and some soap residue was left on the bottles, killing my head retention. and some bottles are just flat out not carbonated.

Possible Solution: Soaked all my bottles in PBW (no more soap) trying to get rid of any soap residue that may still be on and rinsing like crazy using a Faucet Jet. Also, soaking all my bottling equipment in PBW (bucket, spigot, bottling wand, auto siphon).

Mosaic SMaSH problem: Oxidation:

• I stirred my wort chiller in the hot wort too much trying to cool it down and maybe got hot side aeration. I did not stir on the Hoppy Wheat.
• Didn't siphon my beer slow enough into the bottling bucket and oxidized it then?
• My capper isn't creating a good enough seal with my bottle caps?

What can I do to try to prevent future screw ups?
My method was:

1. Clean bottling bucket with Planet Soap, rinse, sanitize.
2. Clean all bottling equipment with same soap, rinse, sanitize.
3. Auto siphon into bottling bucket which contains sugar/water solution (homebrew dad priming calc)
4. Dunk bottles into star san solution, empty and place on ground.
5. Connect bottling wand to tubing then to spigot and start filling bottles. Placing caps on bottles then onto table (using capper after filling 1/2 batch.)
6. Capping with wing capper, turning bottle 90 degrees and capping again to make sure of a seal.

 

[birdley123]

...NO SOAP! ever; trust me on this, I learned the hard way... I just soak them in Oxyclean, then rinse with faucet jet sprayer, starsan, cap and go!

 

[nosoup4me]

...NO SOAP! ever; trust me on this, I learned the hard way... I just soak them in Oxyclean, then rinse with faucet jet sprayer, starsan, cap and go!

Yeah, that's what I've been reading after researching why the hell my bottles are lacking head retention. So I took all my saved bottles (some of which had soap and some of which hadnt ever been cleaned with soap) and soaked then in a bucket of PBW last night and then rinsed them out. Do you think this will suffice to remove any residue? or just I just play it safe and go buy 90 more bottles and clean those with an oxy clean or PBW solution?

 

[cannman]

I made changes when this happened to me that boiled down to this:

I changed all of my lines. ALL of them.
I use Sanstar on the caps (i used to use them right out of bag but no more...)
I boil the bottle bucket's spigot before use.
I change my bottle bucket after visible ware (scratches)
scrub your bottle wand!!!!!!!

Also try boiling your hop bag before entering the wort

hate bad bottled beer after a fantastic bottling session sampling. I feel ya.

 

[mdbrewer1]

Your process looks similar to mine, but I use Oxiclean Free for cleaning. I also drown the bottles in clean water after taking them out of the Oxiclean bath.

Just a couple thoughts. Double check your tubing connections at the siphon and bottling bucket. I had some issues early on with oxygen getting in at those connections. Now I push the tubing on further.

Soap can kill head retention, but it wouldn't affect carbonation as far as I know. The only reason I can think of for inconsistent carbonation is uneven mixing of the priming sugar. Do you create a whirlpool effect when siphoning into the bucket? Do you gently stir after siphoning? I don't think stirring is necessary as sometimes I forget to do it and have never had any issues, but it can't hurt to try.

I don't think there is a need to hit the bottles with the capper twice. Have you had trouble in the past getting a good seal when only hitting it with the capper once? I have no idea if it is possible, but maybe using the capper twice is pushing the cap out of round, thus allowing oxygen in. If you aren't getting a good enough seal with one crimp, make sure the metal pieces are turned the right way for the bottles you are using. One side works for larger lipped bottles and one works for small lipped ones.

 

[nosoup4me]

I made changes when this happened to me that boiled down to this:

I changed all of my lines. ALL of them.
I use Sanstar on the caps (i used to use them right out of bag but no more...)
I boil the bottle bucket's spigot before use.
I change my bottle bucket after visible ware (scratches)
scrub your bottle wand!!!!!!!

Also try boiling your hop bag before entering the wort

hate bad bottled beer after a fantastic bottling session sampling. I feel ya.

I think I'm just going to buy a new bucket to be safe. Should I get a new wand and siphon, also? I may be paranoid but I don't want to lose another 8 gallons! And from what I tasted when I took a gravity reading last week this stuff was impressive.

 

[nosoup4me]

Your process looks similar to mine, but I use Oxiclean Free for cleaning. I also drown the bottles in clean water after taking them out of the Oxiclean bath.

Just a couple thoughts. Double check your tubing connections at the siphon and bottling bucket. I had some issues early on with oxygen getting in at those connections. Now I push the tubing on further.

Soap can kill head retention, but it wouldn't affect carbonation as far as I know. The only reason I can think of for inconsistent carbonation is uneven mixing of the priming sugar. Do you create a whirlpool effect when siphoning into the bucket? Do you gently stir after siphoning? I don't think stirring is necessary as sometimes I forget to do it and have never had any issues, but it can't hurt to try.

I don't think there is a need to hit the bottles with the capper twice. Have you had trouble in the past getting a good seal when only hitting it with the capper once? I have no idea if it is possible, but maybe using the capper twice is pushing the cap out of round, thus allowing oxygen in. If you aren't getting a good enough seal with one crimp, make sure the metal pieces are turned the right way for the bottles you are using. One side works for larger lipped bottles and one works for small lipped ones.

I have been aiming the hose to the side trying to get a good mix, but I think I'll give it a gentle stir to make sure it's distributed.

 

[mdbrewer1]

Usually the bucket and tubing are replaced when it is suspected that the reason for degradation is an infection, but your issues don't sound like an infection based on what you've posted. My understanding is that an infection would cause an increase in carbonation as the wild yeast can chew through more sugar than the original yeast did, and that doesn't sound like that has happened to you.

It can't hurt, but I don't know if it will fix the problem.

 

[cannman]

I think I'm just going to buy a new bucket to be safe. Should I get a new wand and siphon, also? I may be paranoid but I don't want to lose another 8 gallons! And from what I tasted when I took a gravity reading last week this stuff was impressive.

If you soak your wand in oxyclean for a few hours dissembled and take the time to scrub it, you should be ok. But a new wand is only a few bucks... maybe buy a new one and start treating it like gold? Get one of these when you order:

3 foot line scrubber

In truth, unless you have an air compressor to fire out the leftover moisture from the lines, anything over 2' is suspect IMHO... After scrubbing, I usually hit it with starsan again...

See... this is EXACTLY why I want to just buy a 100' pack of both 1/4" and 1/2" lines...

 

[rmyurick]

What makes you think the Smash beer is oxidized--does it taste "cardboardy"? I think hot-side aeration is unlikely from your description. Beer will look darker when yeast settles and it clears. Maybe it's a recipe issue.

 

[madscientist451]

Agree with most of the above, not necessary to crimp caps twice. I soak bottles in starsan minimum 2 minutes, maybe that's overkill, but it works for me. Out of starsan and immediately filled and capped. If your beer doesn't taste good, perhaps you have a sanitizing issue. How much sanitizer contact time do you usually do?
I have 4-5 gallons of star san on hand and everything gets soaked before use, then rinsed after use and soaked in sanitizer again before being put away.
Some people fill a bunch of bottles, then cap them all. I fill and each bottle and then cap each one before moving on.
You don't need soap, or oxyclean or PBW unless the bottles have dried on crap in them.
If there's some item that doesn't easily rinse out, I chuck the bottle, I've got plenty more.
I always rinse my homebrew bottles immediately after drinking. Treat yourself to a 12 pack of commercial beer once a month, and you'll never have to buy bottles, or trade homebrew for empty bottles w/friends or co workers.
Your mosaic Pilsner might improve with some cold lagering. I brewed a rye kolsch that I thought was total crap, I couldn't stand to drink it; but after 4-5 months it dropped clear and the taste has dramatically improved and now I'm wishing I had more of it.
Any dust in your bottling environment? Bacteria and wild yeast can be on dust particles. Do you boil the water for the priming solution and then add the priming sugar to the hot waster to sanitize it? Put a cover on the priming sugar pot while it cools?
Just trying to think of every angle, After it carbs up, what temperature does the beer get stored in? Have you noticed any taste difference if you let the bottled and carbed beer age for a while?

 

[nosoup4me]

What makes you think the Smash beer is oxidized--does it taste "cardboardy"? I think hot-side aeration is unlikely from your description. Beer will look darker when yeast settles and it clears. Maybe it's a recipe issue.

Color: Beer should be around 4 SRM (beersmith calc) but is probably closer to 15 SRM (13.5 # Avangard Pilsner @ 90 min boil)

Taste: Overwhelmingly malty, very muted hop flavor.

But, I've never tasted a confirmed oxidized beer, so I'm kind of speculating oxidation. I should probably do a 2x 1 gallon batch and oxidize one on purpose to really know what 'cardboardy' taste like.

Here was my recipe.
Recipe Type: All Grain
Size: 5 Gallons
Target ABV: 6.9%
Target IBUs: 70
13.5 lbs Weyermann Pilsner Malt
1 oz - Mosaic 11.5 AA - 60 mins
2 oz - Mosaic 11.5 AA - 5 mins
2 oz - Mosaic 11.5 AA - whirlpool
3 oz - Mosaic 11.5 AA - dry hop

 

[hanuswalrus]

I just rinse all my bottles w/ hot water immediately after pouring them into a glass. Rinse 2-3 times then fill them up w/ the hot water, let them sit and soak in hot was over night, then let them drain upside down for a couple hours. I then store them in a cabinet so no debris/dust can fly into them.

I think it might be a good idea to get new bottling equipment, especially new siphon tubing and bottling spigot/tubing. I like to get new stuff like this every 10 batches or so. I'm actually going to get a new bottling bucket today as I've noticed some scratches in my old one.

 

[bigdaddybrew]

If your beers are darkening then I agree with you it sounds like oxidation. I'm a little OCD but I'm careful to minimize aeration at each step in my process. While wort is hot, no pouring, splashing or aggressive stirring. I use tubing to drain my wort into my boil pot so there is no splashing also when cooling the wort only gentle stirring nothing aggressive. Same with bottling. Gently transfer beer to the bottom of the bottling bucket onto the priming sugar with a racking hose. A very gentle stir if any to make sure priming sugar is mixed in.

Recognize any mistakes?
Is your Auto Siphon or bottling wand drawing in air (bubbles in the lines)?
Are you using a secondary?
Stupid question but why assume. Did you boil the priming sugar?

 

[nosoup4me]

If your beers are darkening then I agree with you it sounds like oxidation. I'm a little OCD but I'm careful to minimize aeration at each step in my process. While wort is hot, no pouring, splashing or aggressive stirring. I use tubing to drain my wort into my boil pot so there is no splashing also when cooling the wort only gentle stirring nothing aggressive. Same with bottling. Gently transfer beer to the bottom of the bottling bucket onto the priming sugar with a racking hose. A very gentle stir if any to make sure priming sugar is mixed in.

Recognize any mistakes?
Is your Auto Siphon or bottling wand drawing in air (bubbles in the lines)?
Are you using a secondary?
Stupid question but why assume. Did you boil the priming sugar?

1) when the wort was hot i stirred my chiller pretty aggressively to cool it down. I only realized my mistake after the fact.
2) I may have pumped the siphon too much to speed up the transfer of the beer to the bucket.
3) now I'm also wondering if my dry hop in a bag added oxidation? I tried to be careful (boiled bag, gently lowered into beer) but i remember when moving it I let it drip any beer collected in the bag back into the beer in the bucket. I should have just removed it and lose the 1-2 oz that the hops absorbed. I dont know if the minor splashing oxidized it, but it's something that I can take out the equation next batch.


I did not secondary. I boiled the water/sugar solution and cooled with lid on.

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Your describing pretty minor aeration for that much darkening. The aggressive stirring of the wort chiller is the only thing that stands out to me otherwise your process sounds pretty good.

 

[joshesmusica]

Check out brulosophy.com and check their hsa experiment. The guy intentionally tried to get hsa by stirring with a drill and I think paint mixer at every stage of hot side. Didn't get anything. He most certainly mixed in way more oxygen than you could with manual power, and didn't get any oxidation. From things I've read it takes months for that kind of dissolved oxygen to adversely affect the beer.
You mentioned no carbonation, this doesn't sound like oxidation either I don't think.
Also if there's no infected off flavors I don't really understand why you would be tossing things. Just seems like a huge waste for something that's not likely to fix your problem. If you're worried about wasting large amounts of beer start brewing smaller batches like 1-2 gallons, until you start making good beer.

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

Nosoup,

Check out the following for a terrific description of happens when beer meets oxygen:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=26869#_thread

I struggled with IPAs - nice light color with great flavor out of the fermenter and dark and dull flavored out of the bottle.

I ended up kegging - CO2 push out of the fermenter into a CO2 purged keg. If I want some bottles, I'll give each bottle a decent flush with CO2 and fill from the keg.

I never could figure out where I was picking up enough oxygen to completely destroy my IPAs. Good luck - I feel your pain.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

When you transfer your beer, look at the lines (if you have clear tubing). Sometimes if you use a 3/8"ths tube on a 5/16"ths barb, there will be a tiny tiny space, enough that when you start the flow the suction will pull in a tiny bit of air into the beer. This has happened to me, I did not get any distinct oxidation flavors, but I watched the little stream of bubbles and I couldn't really do anyhting about it when I noticed since it only had a gallon left "Oh look, its the train of f'ing up my beer bubbles".

That could potentially cause a large ingress of oxygen into the beer, and it's not easy to notice it (not like hardcore splashing beer into a bottling bucket).

 

[nosoup4me]

Nosoup,

Check out the following for a terrific description of happens when beer meets oxygen:
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=26869#_thread

I struggled with IPAs - nice light color with great flavor out of the fermenter and dark and dull flavored out of the bottle.

I ended up kegging - CO2 push out of the fermenter into a CO2 purged keg. If I want some bottles, I'll give each bottle a decent flush with CO2 and fill from the keg.

I never could figure out where I was picking up enough oxygen to completely destroy my IPAs. Good luck - I feel your pain.

I've been contemplating kegging this batch and all future batches... I keep leaning towards and then away from it. Can I justify the space for a kegerator to my wife? She already thinks this hobby takes up a lot of space.

Also, I thought about just kegging and then bottling immediately after... but I really don't want to learn how to do all this in the 3 days before I am supposed to bottle. I'm going to buy a new bucket, and lines and try one more time to get this **** right... I mean it has been right... just not lately.

 

[PlinyTheMiddleAged]

Understood. Good luck getting it right. I never could successfully bottle any light colored beers. Stouts were fine - dark beers couldn't get any darker and there was enough going on flavor wise that I never noticed anything really bad. However, my favorite beer (an nice crisp IPA) would fail time and time again. I tried for about two years and finally got a keg. First batch out of the keg was what I was after.

Other folks say they do just fine with a bottling bucket. I could not. Ever. I hope you have more luck than I did!

 

[rmyurick]

If you want to taste oxidized, just look for an old bottle of any micro pale ale or amber. I had some ~9 month old Lagunitas "Censored" that was awful. Didn't check the dates before buying & it was sitting on a warm grocery store shelf. Barely recognizable as beer. Worse than macroswill.

 

[jahdub]

Are you racking to a secondary fermenter? I'd imagine the level of exposure to oxygen when going from primary -> secondary -> bottling is much higher than that of going from primary -> bottling. Especially since at bottling, you're adding fermentables, which will help the yeast to use up some oxygen when they ferment the priming sugar.

It may or may not be a coincidence, but besides when I switched from extract to all grain, dropping secondary fermentation reduced the darkness of my beers more than anything else I've done.

 

[nosoup4me]

Understood. Good luck getting it right. I never could successfully bottle any light colored beers. Stouts were fine - dark beers couldn't get any darker and there was enough going on flavor wise that I never noticed anything really bad. However, my favorite beer (an nice crisp IPA) would fail time and time again. I tried for about two years and finally got a keg. First batch out of the keg was what I was after.

Other folks say they do just fine with a bottling bucket. I could not. Ever. I hope you have more luck than I did!

I just bottled half my batch. I'll do the other half tomorrow. I paid closer attention to make sure bubbles weren't created in this batch. Place my hoses on the wand and spigot a good .75" and noted no bubbles. The only bubbles I got were from a small bit of air in the bottling wand when filling the first bottle. I took a photo. Seems close to where it should be: 5.7 srm and it taste great! Fingers crossed that it's the same in a few weeks. If not my only other guess of oxidation would be when I cold crashed. If this one fails... Kegging here I come.

View attachment 1431199053426.jpg

 

[nosoup4me]

sorry, repost

 

[joshesmusica]

That amount of bubbles should not be causing oxidation, especially not so soon. I've seen and done way worse and not gotten oxidized beer. I use to do a horrible job with transferring to bottle bucket, then even bottling. I actually had five different people asking if they could buy those beers in the future... I literally ran it through a filter into a bottling bucket, and only had a siphoning hose and two funnels to bottle with. Tons of bubbles all the time. I just can't believe that I was just lucky.

 

[Yooper]

How did you bottle only 1/2 the batch? I'd be worried now about headspace and oxidation from the other half still in the fermenter, if it was in the same fermenter.

 

[nosoup4me]

How did you bottle only 1/2 the batch? I'd be worried now about headspace and oxidation from the other half still in the fermenter, if it was in the same fermenter.

It was a split batch. 2 fermenters. 2 different yeast. I'm letting the wheat yeast go another day cold crashing.

 

[nosoup4me]

Another repost. Sorry. App doesn't like me

 

[bigdaddybrew]

Cold crashing will cause some oxidation but if there is a large headspace then it can be much more of an issue. How big are your fermenters and how much beer did you have in them?