Darth_Morris
Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2018
- Messages
- 11
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- 2
Hey everyone!
I've been brewing beer for some time now and have come across a very strange issue. At first I thought it was an oxidation problem, but after being incredibly careful with my racking and bottling, I am starting to think it may be something else. Now, I am not saying my bottling is perfect -- I usually have to stir in the sugar mix (I deal wit large volumes - around 40Gal -- but there is always some variation, so I have to measure the beer volume before adding the sugar solution), and our bottling method uses a machine called enolmatic vacuum filler that essentially sucks up all air from bottles and replaces it with beer. It is not perfect, like I said, but we don't have the means to use CO2 to purge lines and fill bottles yet. This had all been working fine though.
Some of our batches have been bottled looking a nice golden color, characteristic of the Belgian blond we were brewing. Then though, after popping a bottle open after a couple of weeks in conditioning, they have been coming out darker than normal.
Pinpointing the problem has proved super hard because when tasting the beer, I cannot detect any cardboard taste whatsoever. In fact, I think it doesn't taste bad, it is just not what I brewed. The hop character is close to all gone
I was wondering if anyone had any input on this. I've been wondering if this could be caused by any of the following:
1. Improperly sealing bottles (our bench capper wasn't working so great: a recently bought go-no-go gauge told us that). We have since moved on to a different bottle capper that seems to be exactly what we needed.
2. Oxidation from over stirring of priming sugar (I find this improbable as I am very careful with this). I give it a few swirls and make sure not to bubble or raise any liquid from the pot.
3. Maybe it is actually an infection from wild yeast. However I am wondering how this would be the case since I always clean everything with 0.3% Peracetic acid (they don't sell Starzan where I live). Bottles are also left in 0.3% PAA solution prior to bottling to make sure they are sanitary.
Any help to pinpoint this problem will be awesome. I am attaching a couple of pictures to this post: left golden glass contains the beer as it should look, the other one looks browner. Also, I have obtained a few other batches that looked even darker than this one in the glass.
** Please note that the golden beer was bottled 3 days ago so the difference in carbonation is due to it not being fully carbonated yet. I popped it open to look at it and see if anything had changed. The darker beer is about 3 weeks old since bottling
I've been brewing beer for some time now and have come across a very strange issue. At first I thought it was an oxidation problem, but after being incredibly careful with my racking and bottling, I am starting to think it may be something else. Now, I am not saying my bottling is perfect -- I usually have to stir in the sugar mix (I deal wit large volumes - around 40Gal -- but there is always some variation, so I have to measure the beer volume before adding the sugar solution), and our bottling method uses a machine called enolmatic vacuum filler that essentially sucks up all air from bottles and replaces it with beer. It is not perfect, like I said, but we don't have the means to use CO2 to purge lines and fill bottles yet. This had all been working fine though.
Some of our batches have been bottled looking a nice golden color, characteristic of the Belgian blond we were brewing. Then though, after popping a bottle open after a couple of weeks in conditioning, they have been coming out darker than normal.
Pinpointing the problem has proved super hard because when tasting the beer, I cannot detect any cardboard taste whatsoever. In fact, I think it doesn't taste bad, it is just not what I brewed. The hop character is close to all gone
I was wondering if anyone had any input on this. I've been wondering if this could be caused by any of the following:
1. Improperly sealing bottles (our bench capper wasn't working so great: a recently bought go-no-go gauge told us that). We have since moved on to a different bottle capper that seems to be exactly what we needed.
2. Oxidation from over stirring of priming sugar (I find this improbable as I am very careful with this). I give it a few swirls and make sure not to bubble or raise any liquid from the pot.
3. Maybe it is actually an infection from wild yeast. However I am wondering how this would be the case since I always clean everything with 0.3% Peracetic acid (they don't sell Starzan where I live). Bottles are also left in 0.3% PAA solution prior to bottling to make sure they are sanitary.
Any help to pinpoint this problem will be awesome. I am attaching a couple of pictures to this post: left golden glass contains the beer as it should look, the other one looks browner. Also, I have obtained a few other batches that looked even darker than this one in the glass.
** Please note that the golden beer was bottled 3 days ago so the difference in carbonation is due to it not being fully carbonated yet. I popped it open to look at it and see if anything had changed. The darker beer is about 3 weeks old since bottling