Very fine dust-like particles clinging to the inside of the beer bottle

[thehopbandit]

I may as well thread jack instead of starting a new thread with maybe the same issue.

I've seen the clinging on some bottles as well but along with the clinging yeast I've had some odd looking guys take hold. You can make them out in the pictures below. This was a mini batch with raspberries and was a gusher. Any ideas?

The last one is the little mfers out of the bottle after some vigorous shaking.

Hmm, I'm not too apt at diagnosing what looks like an infection, but that last picture definitely looks like some kind of mold or infection. The fact that you mentioned it was a gusher gives some backing to this idea. Could have been from some bacteria/spore on the raspberries if they weren't sanitized. It could also be from not cleaning the bottles well enough.

In your second picture, around the rim (largest part of the bottle) it looks like the hop/yeast dust that we were discussing in this thread. The other part, like the last picture, looks like what I was describing above.

 

[vp1]

Hmm, I'm not too apt at diagnosing what looks like an infection, but that last picture definitely looks like some kind of mold or infection. The fact that you mentioned it was a gusher gives some backing to this idea. Could have been from some bacteria/spore on the raspberries if they weren't sanitized. It could also be from not cleaning the bottles well enough.

In your second picture, around the rim (largest part of the bottle) it looks like the hop/yeast dust that we were discussing in this thread. The other part, like the last picture, looks like what I was describing above.

Ya that is my best guess that these other ones are definitely foreign. Curious to see if anyone else has had something like this before. I am by no means a mold expert but I am surprised it is sub-surface. Spore wise I've read nothing harmful can grow in beer (I drank the last few of these and they were still pretty tasty) but would love to know the origins

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

I agree with hop bandit's theory and I'm a microbiologist FWIW.

 

[MedBrewer]

That last pic defiantly looks like bacteria. I am not a microbiologist bit did work years in a microbiology lab preparing cultures. I'm not sure why you would have a bacterial infection. Try scrubbing bottles better with antibacterial soap,let dry,then sanitize. Make sure you store bottles clean right after use. Make sure you store bottles with opening covered after use and dry.

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Update. Bleach definitely gets rid of these deposits. I used a tsp in 12 oz water which is a bit strong but I didn't try weaker solutions so they might work too. None of my extract beers have it but all my partial mash and all grain beers do, so this is consistent with yeast becoming charged due to mineral deficiency, perhaps calcium.

 

[MedBrewer]

I noticed something similar in my newly bottled beer (it was bottled 4-6-13) tonight (3 nights after bottling). Would this be to soon to diagnose the same thing? Could it just be yeast falling out of suspension at this point?

Update: the beer turned out A-OK, the dots on the bottle dropped out eventually,ones that didn't I spun them a bit between my hands and all the stuff came loose. Almost a year later I'm still enjoying the brew! The saying "relax,don't worry, have a homebrew" truly goes a long way!

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Thanks for the update. Spinning the bottles doesn't shake em loose for me. Maybe if I try on day 3 it will work better.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Here's another picture. Filled the bottom half of bottle with Oxyclean and Sodium Metasilicate (poor man's PBW substitute) and it removed the yeast film. Would be cheaper to soak them in bleach but would be more paranoid about rinsing out all the chlorine...

 

[lovilela]

Resuming this thread after a while. Here’s my case:

In some batches I noticed that all bottles had to some degree these sediments clinging to the side of the bottle, near the bottleneck.

First I was concerned about some level of contamination, but the beer was fine. Something was off in the flavor, not sure what but certainly is not a big deal, it's good beer after all.

Anyway, some facts on the 5 batches (out of my last 20) that I noticed it:
- All bottles had side sediments in very similar conditions, both in terms of quantity and how it looks. I usually condition my beers in different types of bottles (sizes ranging from 300ml to 1 liter) and in my opinion that rules out something related to the bottle size or format. In other words, there was some consistency across most if not all bottles when it comes to side sediments, all looking the same.
- Sanitization: I use iodophor and results are fine, never had issues. My bottles with clinging sediment were cleaned the same way as the ones that didn’t have it. Note also that my process is fairly consistent, i.e. I run almost exactly the same process when cleaning/sanitizing on all batches.
- Recipe: from my last 20 batches, I got side sediments on five – a porter, a stout with ground coffee addition, a pale ale with dry hopping, a pale ale with ground coffee and a brown ale. I would rule out dry hopping as I had other four dry hopped batches with no side sediment issues. Someone could argue it was the coffee, but that would not explain why I had batches of simpler recipes (brown ale or porter) with exactly the same issue.
- OG/FG: These five batches were all in different ranges in terms of ABV, OG, FG. No luck here too.
- Water: I always use the same water.
- Whirlfloc: again, my process is consistent, I always add the same quantity on all batches.

So, in my quest to find a correlation, what is left is the yeast. Guess what? All batches that presented clung sediments in the side of the bottle were fermented with S-04. The 15 others were on US-05 or some other yeast.

Now the million-dollar question is why S-04? I don’t know, but it is somehow interesting to notice that from 20 batches, the exact 5 ones that developed side sediments were all on S-04.

Does it make any sense?

 

[william_shakes_beer]

When I bottled, I used dark brown bottles. If there was yeast clinging to the sides I would never have seen it in the first place.