Residue on inside of bottle

[Deon Botha]

Hi there all. So I have bottled my first batch of IPA 2 weeks ago. It was just a kit set, so I didn't expect too much.The carbonation is really good, too good actually. So much so that it is too difficult to drink. The taste is not too great either. But something I have noticed it that there is a layer of something that formed on the very top and also some residue that formed on the inside of the bottle sort off between halfway and 3/4 off the way up to the top of the bottle. That is like that with all the bottles. So I have a couple of questions:

1 - What can cause something like that? Anyone else ever experienced that? Water quality maybe? Or just yeast residue? Or maybe bottles wasn't clean enough?

2 - Could the extra carbonation mean that I bottled too soon, while the yeast was still active? I must admit, I did not use a hydrometer. Or too much sugar in the priming solution?

Photos attached.

Thank you.

 

[RPh_Guy]

The film at the top is called a pellicle. It means your beer is contaminated with wild yeast and/or bacteria.
It is still ok to drink.

Wild microbes can be introduced at any step in the process after the wort is chilled.
It's time to carefully review your cleaning and sanitation practices.

Over carbonation can result from
- Bottling before fermentation completes
- Wild yeast contamination
- Too much priming sugar or uneven mixing

Put the bottles in the fridge and drink them quickly ... Or dump them out if you don't like the flavor. If you leave them at room temp there a possibly it will get worse and ultimately bottles could explode.

 

[Deon Botha]

The film at the top is called a pellicle. It means your beer is contaminated with wild yeast and/or bacteria.
It is still ok to drink.

Wild microbes can be introduced at any step in the process after the wort is chilled.
It's time to carefully review your cleaning and sanitation practices.

Over carbonation can result from
- Bottling before fermentation completes
- Wild yeast contamination
- Too much priming sugar or uneven mixing

Put the bottles in the fridge and drink them quickly ... Or dump them out if you don't like the flavor. If you leave them at room temp there a possibly it will get worse and ultimately bottles could explode.

I thought that I did take care with sanitation, bacause I read that it is really important. It doesn't taste great. I thought the taste might get better with time.

 

[rburrelli]

I thought that I did take care with sanitation, bacause I read that it is really important. It doesn't taste great. I thought the taste might get better with time.

Not likely. You have an infection and it will likely get worse.

 

[DVCNick]

I would say the stuff on the side of the bottles is normal. I see that in all mine. Some of it will drop when the bottles are chilled, but probably not all. It is just a tiny bit of trub that was generated by the bottle conditioning, or was transferred in when you bottled.

The layer on the top, as mentioned, definitely shows an infection... is it in all the bottles? If not, it is likely that some of the bottles were clean/sanitized enough and others weren't. If it is in all the bottles, either all the bottles weren't clean enough, or the infection was introduced before bottling.

I don't bottle much anymore, but when I did, in probably ~400ish bottles before I started kegging, I had two or three that were infected. I didn't notice a pellicle, but they were real gushers when opened, and the color and taste were clearly different from the rest of the batch.

I just tossed those bottles... bottles are easy to get, and I didn't see the point in trying to wash them well enough the second time and getting a possible repeat.

 

[Deon Botha]

Thank you