Something got into my beer?

[|-|edghog]

My latest batch of beer tastes kind of funny and has some kind of residue on the inside of the bottles.

The residue shows up as an opaque line around the inside of the neck.

It looks like it might be from some kind of nasties that got into the beer.

Any info would be great.

Hedghog

Taste is kind of like saccharine like.

Fermentation temperatures where between 70-75.

No gravity readings.

Everything soaked in bleach solution and rinsed with hot tap water.

Other Info:
1. Mix of 10 litres boiled wort and 10 litres of cold tap water.
2. Fermentation took within 12 hours from a starter and lasted about 10 days before activity was completely done.
3. Siphoned from carboy to plastic bucket for bottling.
4. Boiled bottling sugar.
5. Boiled caps.

 

[Arneba28]

Taste? Fermentation temps? gravity readings. Cleaning procedure?

Need alot more information for anyone here to help you.

I cant see the residue, is it that film on the neck?

 

[bethlehembrewer]

Did you wash/rinse the bottle before taking the pic? I have never used green glass, just brown, so I dont think I would be able to see a residue if there was one. Hence why I ask the question, you might be able to see it just becuase the glass color.

If I am way off feel free to correct me.

 

[solidghost]

Could it be just skunking for the reasons of the beer tasting funny? Green bottles isn't good for keeping out sunlight.

 

[Revvy]

You definitely need to change from using bleach and rinsing to sanitize to using a no-rinse sanitizer like starsan or iodophor...I never understand why people would sanitize with bleach, and then undo what they just did by rinsing with tap water...No matter how hot it is you can't guarantee that there's not some unsanitary gunk lurking somewhere in the plumbing.

Having said that, and never using green glass, could it simply be the remnants of a bottle Krauzen? Are all the bottles like that? It kind of looks like a soapscum line. But since I can see that much detail in my brown bottles...maybe the line is normal?

How many weeks in the bottle? Maybe the taste and the line are two separate issues, and it taste funny becasue it's still green...

 

[|-|edghog]

The bottle was rinsed out immediately after the pour.

Most of the bottles are like this...some worse than others.

A soap scum film starting at the line and moving down best describes it.

The beer is 3 weeks in the bottle and the taste has been getting progressively worse from when it was fresh.

I am starting the think that maybe your right about the water...I will change my procedure and use star-san and see how it works.

Thanks for the input...any more would also be appreciated.

Hedghog

 

[Revvy]

If it's getting worse I'd say infection due to using bleach and rinsing with tap water *shudders* Switching to Starsan is your best bet.

And for god sakes use brown bottles!!! Save the green for apfelwein unless you are brewing a corona or heineken clone, where skunk is part of the taste.

 

[grasshopper1917]

Rinsing your bottles with tap water would not cause every bottle to be infected. In fact if your ater is good enugh to drink it should be fine for making homebrew and cleaning your equiptment. Ive made about 80 gallons of beer over the past year (around 800 bottles) and I havent had any infections using this method.

It may be possible that the water in your area is bad? Personlly I thnk sanatizing and rinsing with clean water is a sound sanitation method.....

Cheers

Ivan

 

[solidghost]

I listened to basic brewing the other day and they interviewed the maker of star san, he was all for using bleach for sanitizing when brewing. Just need to get the correct type of bleach and the correct concentration.

 

[DrewsBrew]

If it's getting worse I'd say infection due to using bleach and rinsing with tap water *shudders* Switching to Starsan is your best bet.

And for god sakes use brown bottles!!! Save the green for apfelwein unless you are brewing a corona or heineken clone, where skunk is part of the taste.

Considering that a lot of people brew extract batches and top off with unboiled tap water and don't have problems, I would have trouble believing its tap water. I use bleach and rinse all of my stuff with the worst tap water known to man....coming from pipes that are a lot older than all of us here. So far, not a wink of an issue with taste.

One step that could be taken and one I do take with my bottles is to sterilize them in the oven at 300 for a couple of hours. That same procedure could be used for any all steel items. I'm sure it could be done with carboys too as the risk or breaking would be low, provided that it was allowed to cool slowly.