Need Help!

[jacenbeck]

I've been brewing for about a year and with some initial success totally fell in love with the hobby. Lately, however, all my batches have come out terrible and its very discouraging. They taste sour and gush as if they are over carbonated. I know sanitation is the kneejerk reaction and I recognize this is probably the issue, though I am at a loss as to what else I could do--sanitation has become an obsession of mine and still I'm getting terrible results!
For reference, I'm soaking the bottles, carboy, and racking bucket in a bleach-water solution (or non-rinse sanitizer--I've tried both) for several hours, boiling caps for 5 minutes, and have even bought new tubing and carboy plugs (and soaked them in either a bleach or sanitizing solution) and even tried using only bottled water but it seems no matter what I do the result is the same! Can anyone help?

 

[Rook]

if you have a glass carboy, use that as a primary, and bottle out of it (no secondary), becuase glass doesn't scratch it won't harbor any bacteria.

This will eliminate your plastic bucket as a source of contamination, as any scratches may keep bacteria alive even in sanitizer or bleach.

 

[the_bird]

Well, it does sound to me like you've still got an infection lurking SOMEWHERE. Seems that if it were a procedural thing (not cooling your wort and pitching yeast quickly enough), that you'd have issues some times but not others. Personally, I'd start replacing anything else plastic that you're using - ale pales, bottling buckets, racking canes, etc. If money's tight, maybe do an extended soak of those items in a stronger sanitizer solution, there's something in there that you;ve got to kill. Do you only ferment in carboys?

Here's something out of left field, just 'cause I know nothing at all about your procedures; you sure that you've got the right solution for the bleach and no-rinse sanitizers? I've never known personally how much bleach to use, and it's not immediately clear how much Idophor one needs just from the bottle.

Are you doing partial boils and topping off? Is the water you're topping off with boiled? Even bottled water COULD have some kind of bug in there (although given that you always seem to have problems, this seems unlikely).

How sour is sour? Is the beer green (young)? It's possible to perceive young beer as a bit sour, green-apple-ey. Combine too much priming sugar and too young a beer, you could be dealing with sour gushers. Some yeasts produce different off-flavors with different fermentation temps, although heat (what one might expect to be a problem this time of year) would usually result in a hot flavor, not sour.

I don't know, I'm rambing... welcome to the foums, BTW, any other info you can shed on your procedures, recipes, etc. could be useful.

 

[Monster Mash]

Did you taste the beer before you bottled it? I would replace all of your hoses and buckets. Try Star San, it is much better then bleach.

 

[jacenbeck]

Thanks for all the tips!

-The only plastic/rubber thing that I have consistently used is my racking bucket. I've soaked it overnight before and it really does look brand new (no obvious scrathes or wear) but I recognize that looks can be deceiving---I'll replace that.
-I have been pitching pretty quickly. As I mentioned, I've been using gallon jugs of bottled water and I put them in the fridge for a few hours before combining them with the boiled wart and thus the temp is right pretty quickly.
- And oh, yes, I did forget to mention that I've tasted the fermented beer and it is usually pretty good (not at all like the conditioned final product). So the infection is probably coming from the racking process. As I mentioned earlier, I'll replace the bucket. Perhaps its something in the process I use the start the syphon? I have to handle the racking cain (for instance, putting my thumb over the end while I fill it) but in my obsession for sanitation have been using rubber gloves (that have themselves been rinsed with sanitizer).

 

[Beerthoven]

It sounds to me like your sanitation proceedures are good, so I wonder if you really do have an infection. The only thing I would recommend as far as sanitation goes is to stop using bleach and start using starsan. Bleach is known to cause off flavors, and starsan is virtually foolproof. Starsan is kinda expensive, but its definately worth the money IMO.

Without knowing details of your processes, its difficult to give specific advice. I would just say go back to the basics of your process and try to keep it simple. Are your ingredients fresh? Are you getting a vigorous boil? Are you being sure not to scorch your extract? Are you cooling your wort fast? Is the yeast healthy? Are you aerating well? Are your fermentation temps under control? Are you racking quietly? Get an autosipon - they are worth the money. Start using corn sugar for all your bottle priming to eliminate variations caused by different batches of DME. Let your beer age; don't rush to secondary or bottle.

Sounds like you've been brewing long enough to know all these things. Try not to get discouraged. After some initial good batches, I had two bad batches in a row. It was a combination of things that made those batches suck, not just one thing. My last few batches have been much better because I was able to correct simple things.

 

[Jaybird]

I would suggest boiling your bottled water and I too agree there are MUCH better sanatizers out there. Do you let your sanatized stuff dry completly or do you rinse? how much bleach are you using per 5-6 gal of water? I would leave the rubber gloves off and use a good hand sanatizer before you touch anything that is going to touch your beer. also what about the bottles how are you sanatizing them? and completly dry???
good luck
JJ

 

[Madtown Brew]

This may not make any difference, but depending on the type of bottle cap your using a 5 min. boil may be too much. I know I read somewhere that boiling caps for too long will degrade the rubber lining on the inside surface of the cap that keeps them sealed tightly to the bottle lip. Consequently, I only boil my caps for about 30 sec and have had no problems so far.

I don't know how that could be the cause of infection, especially since you say the bottles are gushers meaning that there is definately a good seal being made between the cap and bottle, but I just thought I'd share. Someone please correct if I'm wrong on this.

Only other thought is that, like the_bird noted, bleach can be a finicky sanitizer. If not used in the right concentrations or pH it doesn't do anything. Also, if your bleach is old then it may no longer be good. Even if you recently bought it, you have no idea how long it sat in a warehouse or store shelf before you picked it up.
Here's an interesting broadcast from The Brewing Network with the owner of Five Star Chemical Co. discussing sanitation. I highly reccomend listening to it if you haven't yet.
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/archive/search.php?story=five+star&dosearch=yes

 

[BierMuncher]

...Lately, however, all my batches have come out terrible and its very discouraging. They taste sour and gush as if they are over carbonated.

Before you go replacing equipment, let's just rule out a faulty brewing process that is giving you bad (not infected) beer.

Are you brewing with a kit and how old are the kits?
Are there any consistents like the same recipe, same supplier, same LME?
How long are you letting the beer ferment in the primary?
Are your gravity readings normal...(what you expect)?
Are you letting the beer sit in the fermenter until the gravity has stopped dropping for several days?
Are you using a secondary fermenter and if so, how long is the beer conditioning?
How much priming sugar are you using?
What temperature are you conditioning the bottles?

I just want to make sure that (unlikely as it may be) that your not making process errors like moving the beer out of the primary into the bottling bucket at the peak of fermentation...adding too much priming sugar to an already explosive situation...conditioning your bottles in an 85 degree attic...etc.

 

[gnets99]

Just wanted to chime in here....You said the beer tastes fine coming out of the fermenter, etc. It sounds to me that things seem to go south after bottling. How are you washing the bottles? When I do use bottles, I rinse them really good with hot water after pouring the beer. Then, before I use them again, I wash them really good with hot water prior to sanitizing. If you don't have one, I'd recomend either investing in a bottle brush or jet bottle washer, This will ensure that anything left from the last batch will be removed from the bottles. Also, I agree with the other posts that Star San is worth the price. I started using it about 4 batches ago and can't believe I didn't start using it earlier.

 

[FlyGuy]

Hey Jacenbeck, I can really empathize with you, man. I had the SAME thing happen to me when I started brewing. I picked up an infection in my equipment from a locally produced, spoiled no-boil beer kit and I ruined a few batches while trying to find the source. In the end, I just got rid of ALL my plastic and started new. It was the only thing that worked. I tried virtually the same things that you did, to no avail.

In the end, new plastics don't cost that much. If I had just listened to my friend's advice and bought new plastic right away, it would have been a lot cheaper than the 3 beer kits I pitched.

Oh, it is my opinion that plastic buckets are the number one source of infection for most people. Get a new one. The old one can still be used for soaking bottles to remove labels or something. Unfortunately, the new plastic you bought might be infected now, so at least replace the hoses and carboy caps and anything else that is cheap.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I can relate, and I hope you get through this quickly.

 

[Sea]

This may sound like blasphemy on this site, but if you don't want to shell out the bucks for StarSan, use Iodophor. It works in virtually the same way, and costs less than half as much!