What is wrong and how do I fix it??

[john from dc]

i'm not sure if someone's asked this before, but after you soak in bleach, are you thoroughly rinsing the bottles? a soak in star san might not get rid of all the residual bleach and from what i understand, even a tiny amount of leftover bleach can be a big problem.

for diagnostic purposes i'd probably try removing bleach from the process entirely.

the spigot is another likely culprit as well.

 

[2bluewagons]

I just had a similar experience with an ordinary bitter, tasted great at bottling time, tastes off in the bottle 3 weeks later. I just looked at a bottle yesterday and there were some very small floaties in the beer, most of which had attached to the inner walls of the bottle near the liquid level. I assumed this to be yeast so I put the bottles in a fridge at 34 degrees and will check them in a few days to see if they clear up.

This was my first batch using a bottling bucket, which was passed to me from my brother after he used it once. I bottled another batch with the same bucket, this time a pretty hoppy amber, that is still conditioning. I have my fingers crossed on that one...

Be sure to let us know if the new spigot seems to permanently solve the problem.

Thanks and good luck

 

[sparkyaber]

John, I have not used bleach for quite some time. The last time I used it was in the bottling bucket. After that I had a few good batches and then back to the problem.

 

[sparkyaber]

One poster a while back said something about light, and it got me thinking, and searching. I did find that florescent lights have some effect on beer. Well how much light we talking about here? I searched and did not find a definitive answer. I keep my carboys in my utility room, with no windows, and the lights get turned on for an average of less than 10 minutes a day. Could this be an issue with giving the beer it's off taste? And no it does not taste skunky at all.

 

[sparkyaber]

Just an update- all of my batches after switching the spigot have been fine. I have had a few bottles that have been bad, but I think the bottles in question did not get properly cleaned from the infection that they had. Now I just wish I knew what was the culprit in the first place.

 

[jessierae314]

I have another question related to bottle sanitizing.....

When I started brewing, I used the dishwasher, then also briefly soaked the bottles in one-step sanitizer, which seemed to work well for me. I moved to a place without a dishwasher recently, so I started using 1/4 of a tbs of bleach in a beer bottle filled with water and let it soak for 15-30 min. But after rinsing the bottles thoroughly I still felt that some of my bottles were tainted with bleach when I tasted them, so I want to switch to using a different sanitizer like one-step or star-san. What procedure and sanitizer would you recommend?

 

[DRoyLenz]

One relatively secure process to sterilize, not only sanitize, is to clean the bottles out with oxi-clean or something, rinse well, cover the bottles with foil and stick them in the oven. Once they're all in the oven, start preheating the oven up to 300F. Once the oven reaches 300F, start the timer for one hour.

The tin foil keeps the nasties out after they've been sanitized. Remove the foil right before bottling.

It's important to preheat the oven with the bottles in there, you don't want to thermally shock the bottles by putting them in a hot oven. This process is pretty labor intensive, but it ENSURES that everything inside those bottles is dead.

Also, important safety tip, let the bottles cool before touching them

Edit: I should note that I've never actually done this, but it is my plan of action if and when I start having issues with bottle sanitization.

 

[sparkyaber]

Comin' around again for the third time. I have had many good batches since I switched spigots, but I did have one in the middle that went bad.
Who here knows about infections, what they taste like, and wants to be a guinea pig? I will ship some bottles to you and you can let me know what I have. It is really driving me crazy.
Anyone up for a bad beer?
Maybe I should sweeten the pot by including some "good" beers.

 

[LeeF]

I'll pass on the infected beer.

It may help if you detail your process as much as possible. Everything from flame out to bottling. How you sanitize everything that comes into contact directly(buckets, bottles, tubing) and indirectly (bottling tree, your hands) with the beer. I don't know if I'll have the answer but this could help someone else pinpoint the problem.

 

[gingerdawg]

YeOlebrewer posted a thread with a picture of a spigot that was dissassembled. It is amazing what gunk can get trapped in there. REPLACE YOUR SPIGOTS OFTEN!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/spigot-infection-121734/

 

[sparkyaber]

I'll pass on the infected beer.

It may help if you detail your process as much as possible. Everything from flame out to bottling. How you sanitize everything that comes into contact directly(buckets, bottles, tubing) and indirectly (bottling tree, your hands) with the beer. I don't know if I'll have the answer but this could help someone else pinpoint the problem.

I am pretty sure that the infection came from the spigot, but just wanting to know what the infection is.

 

[sparkyaber]

YeOlebrewer posted a thread with a picture of a spigot that was dissassembled. It is amazing what gunk can get trapped in there. REPLACE YOUR SPIGOTS OFTEN!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/spigot-infection-121734/

Thank you, I did not know they came apart. I am going over to post in that thread now.

 

[StoutattheDevil]

This is another longshot but to add to the stressed yeast idea. What type of sugar do you use for bottling and do you heat it into a sugar solution before adding to your bottling bucket? If that solution is too warm that cold help impart issuse with the yeast in the bottles. Not the most likely of solutions but checking everything off the list can't hurt

 

[sparkyaber]

This is another longshot but to add to the stressed yeast idea. What type of sugar do you use for bottling and do you heat it into a sugar solution before adding to your bottling bucket? If that solution is too warm that cold help impart issuse with the yeast in the bottles. Not the most likely of solutions but checking everything off the list can't hurt

I do boil corn sugar to carbonate, but I have always done that. And so far I have had only a handful of bad batches.

 

[sparkyaber]

Now I am just furious! all of my batches are bad, with the exceptions of a few IPA's. I am dieing here. All but two tasted fine at bottling, and then went bad in the bottle, same as the rest. two were bad right out of the fermenter. Most of these beers have been sitting on the primary for a long time, what effect does this have on beer? I had to bring all of my carboys up stairs in the house to get the temp up to 65. Right now I am just throwing money away. 2 batches bad in the bottles, 1 in a keg, and one still in a carboy.

 

[maztec]

Sparky - Here's how it's going to go. You have two options:

1) Find a local brewer who can go through the process with you, inspect all of your equipment and your house, and attempt to figure out what is going wrong.

or

2) Detail every single step, every single piece of equipment, every bit of cleaning and cleaner, and every ingredient you use chronologically in brewing your beer in this forum, and see if we can help you spot the problem.

---

However, I am going to throw out one other possibility that you might want to try. Take your equipment, go to a friend's house, clean the equipment thoroughly, get fresh ingredients, and brew a batch at your friend's house. Leave the beer to ferment at your friends, then bottle it. If you have one batch not go bad doing that, try a second batch that way. Then, come back, make one batch at home - see if it goes bad.

What I am wondering is if there is something environmental going on. Perhaps some type of nasty toxic mold or similar in your walls that is infecting your brews.

Or, do you have kids, and are they putting crayons in the brew? Or do you have a spouse who does not appear of your brewing and is sabotaging you? Or maybe the Government is out to get you. Wait, now we're going into crazy talk. Back on track ...

I am going to speculate that you have a few possible problems:
1) You are not cleaning your gear well enough. Get new tubing, and clean what you have extra-carefully. Have someone who has a lot of experience brew with you and see if they can spot something wrong in your technique. You might even go so far as trying all new equipment.
2) Something in the environment is contaminating your beer. Try brewing somewhere else and see if it works.

-- Good luck!

 

[sparkyaber]

I think I will opt for #2, as for I know no other home brewers locally. The local brew club seem to now be defunct.

Ok, this could get long-
First off, I clean everything in oxiclean, sanitize in star-san.

Brew day:
Take out all equipment.
Equipment is:
10 gallon cooler with cpvc manifold
HLT 36 quart igloo cooler
cpvc sparge manifold
all tubing is clear vinyl
valves are copper boiler valves
15 gallon SS brew pot
Start warming strike water.
Water report:
Unsoftened tap water as tested by Ward labs.
pH 8.0
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Est 236
Electrical Conductivity, mmho/cm 0.39
Cations / Anions, me/L 4.1 / 4.2
ppm
Sodium, Na 7
Potassium, K 1
Calcium, Ca 55
Magnesium, Mg 12
Total Hardness, CaCO3 188
Nitrate, NO3-N < 0.1 (SAFE)
Sulfate, SO4-S 2
Chloride, Cl 9
Carbonate, CO3 6
Bicarbonate, HCO3 221
Total Alkalinity, CaCO3 191
"<" - Not Detected / Below Detection Limit
Add a quarter to a half camdend tablet depending on volume.
This water is either 100 percent tap or cut with distilled water depending on style/color.
Dough in to a achieve desired temp. (150-155 degrees F)
I add salts as needed per palmer's mash RA v2d spreadsheet.
(these don't seem to matter as I have had dark beers, medium beers, lighter beers, turn out good and bad, but I do everything the same for every batch, so....dunno.
Mash for an hour-90 minutes.
add boiling water to raise temp to 165-168 for mash out.
Vourlof 2-4 quarts of wort.
sparge water gets a few ml of HCl acid to put Ph in check. other wise tap water.
fly sparge for about an hour.
I usually start the burner about half way through the sparge.
boil wort.
Take boil pot to the basement and submerge star-san sprayed copper wort chiller.
cool wort to below 80. Usually about 75 degrees.
Whirlpool wort.
While Whirlpooling I sanitize auto siphon, siphon hose, carboy, funnel, air lock, bung.
I sanitize the hoses, airlock, bung, and auto siphon in a one gallon pail fully submerging the hoses, air lock, bung, and spraying everything else with a spray bottle of star-san.
I then sipon the wort through the screen on the funnel.
I add the yeast, whether it be dry, starter, no starter, harvested, new smack pack, I have used them all.
I had put many of the brews in my crawl space, but they did not get warm enough, even when trying to ferment. They would get to about 58 degrees by the little stick on thermometer when fermenting, and drop to about 54 degrees when done. I had to bring them all up stairs into a spare bedroom where the temps would them get to about 64 degrees. On a few brews, I had to place the carboys onto my heated floor in the bathroom downstairs to bring the temp up even more, trying to bring down the FG. One is still sitting there, and the other is dry hopping right now.
Wait until FG is where it is going to stay.
Now for the most part, most all beers up to this point taste fine. The two that don't taste right directly out of the fermenter, it is not the same taste, similar, but not the same. I think I will continue in a second post, as to I belive the issue is after bottling, and this is getting long.

 

[sparkyaber]

Bottling day:
Get 2 cases of bottles ready. I use a vinator, with drying rack for the bottles. I spray the bottles with a few shots from the vinator, and place on the rack. I submerge all of the bottling parts in star-san. Hoses, spigot (disassembled) wand (disassembled), clamps, bottle caps. I spray the bottling bucket with star-san and tip upside down on the bottling tree with the bottles. I boil priming sugar (5 oz) in about 2-3 cups of water. assemble bottling bucket, place hot priming solution into bottling bucket and rack beer onto solution. I then remove caps from star-san, and place face down on a paper towel. When carboy is empty, I start filling bottles directly from the bottling tree, place a cap and if working with a partner sealed immediately, and if by myself, place a cap on about 10 bottles and then seal them all at once. During carbing, the bottles are in cases on the floor of my basement (cold). It takes at least 2-3 weeks to carbonate.
Now during carbonation, I can see this film forming on the side of the bottles. It seems to be "loose" and not fused to the side of the bottle until the beer is carbonated.
I really need help identifying what this "bad" is. To me and others it tastes like a Belgian, except bitter and dry. The bitterness is all on the back end of sip. It does seem as if some are worse than others. I have saved a batch of ESB from many months ago, and it is the worst of them. Also, it seem that the longer they sit the worse they get, until I check them 6-8 months later, and they seem better. I am testing that ESB for this. I brewed it last Sept. bottled in October. So I will give it a few more months to see what happens. Anyone in the twin cities a BJCP judge? I tried mailing once, and got a call from the usps the next day saying that the box was leaking. oops. Just happened to get a little cold that night and burst a bottle. I don't think they were to happy about that.
Ok, what did I miss?

 

[maztec]

Sparky:

It appears that your process is thorough. The fact this creates a film is odd, it makes me suspect the bottles; but if you also have a funk in some fermenters, then I am not sure. I have no idea what this is, but I do know a method you can use to find out where you are getting it from so you can eliminate it.

I find that whenever I am checking out a system and trying to find an error in it, it is best to eliminate as much as possible and test each piece independently. Keep in mind two things: (1) It may be an environmental problem, (2) It may be a process, not an equipment problem. However, by eliminating equipment and steps, we reduce the odds of it being either.

Thus, I recommend the following:

First, keep excruciatingly detailed and careful records throughout this entire process. Include in this environmental factors - is it raining, is it snowing, what temperature is it outside, have you had a cold recently, did your dog drink any of the wort, what were you wearing, who else entered and left the brew room while brewing, what time of day was it, where did you brew at, etc.

Do an extract brew. Eliminate all of the steps that you can. Thus skip the mash and sparge. Buy a new hose for the process, and new cleaner. When you get to bottling, buy new bottles, use the new cleaner, and hand fill the bottles. If it is easier to keep things cold, maybe you should do a lager instead ... otherwise, try to control temperature as best you can.

If the batch goes bad - you have eliminated the mashing equipment, hosing, and bottles from the potential suspects. If the batch is good, then I would first do a second batch, and see if it too is good. If you get two good batches, then you have a lot more testing in front of you.

If you have two good batches, the next step would be to make a batch with your usual bottling procedure and your existing bottles. Same test applies here - if it is bad, you have a culprit; if it is good, do a second batch. If you get two good batches, move on to testing your mash.

If you can simplify your mash equipment and procedure any, do so, test it, repeat process.

Eventually you should get a bad batch. When you do, look at what was different about this batch from the last batch - in any of equipment, ingredients, or environment. Anything different is a likely culprit.

Once you have a list of culprits, you have two choices. 1) Replace everything in that list; or 2) Replace the most likely suspects in the list and test again from the last point in the process you were at when the batch went bad. I would classify hoses, plastics, anything that is not glass or metal, or has a scratch or ding as a more likely suspect.

If you replace those, and it still goes bad, you have two potential culprits - something else, or an earlier step. I would back up one brew time, eliminate the newly added equipment, and test again. Make sure it is not just environment or chance and that the brew just went bad on the third time through.

Now the special situation - it goes bad on your very first extract batch. Replace all the likely suspects and try again. If it is still bad, I am going to bet it is something in the environment and not in your equipment. At that point hire an inspector to come out and check your home for molds, toxins, and other potential problems.


---

Finally, out of your entire process, I would say the most likely suspects are (1) mash tun, (2) tubing, (3) bottles, (4) environment, (5) bottles and caps, (6) process. The environment is going to be the hardest to correct for -- I would actually hire someone to come out and check my house for molds and similar problems. The others are going to take testing and checking to discover which is the cause, but you can fix them. Also, it is possible for mildew, mold, bacteria, and other suspects to evolve a resistance to sanitization chemicals ... great brewer in the sky help us all if this happens.

----

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

 

[sparkyaber]

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this for me, I actually was thinking of brewing an extract kit to eliminate the mash tun/all grain side of it. I really need to have an experienced brewer taste this stuff as the issue is all the same, so with that in mind I am hoping they would know exactly what I am dealing with and could help me pin-point the issue faster.

As for the film, it is a big mystery. Next clear bottle that has it, I will take a few more pictures after it dries. I looked back, at the picture I took, and it is hard to see what I am talking about.

 

[maztec]

The film is also occurring on brown bottles? Or just clear? Are you keeping your clear bottles in a dark place?

-- I take that back, I see you answered it earlier. I would still throw something dark and heavy over them, just in case. And try new, glass, brown bottles.

 

[Homercidal]

Dude, I think that if you have replaced ALL plastic equipment from the boil forward, then it must be something in your air. Try brewing somewhere else. Outside if possible (or inside if you brew outside. You could have an infection in the fermenter that doesn't show for several weeks, which might make it appear to be a bottling equipment problem. But the odds are that it really is a bottling equipment infection. (or airborne contamination problem).

 

[sparkyaber]

The film is also occurring on brown bottles? Or just clear? Are you keeping your clear bottles in a dark place?

-- I take that back, I see you answered it earlier. I would still throw something dark and heavy over them, just in case. And try new, glass, brown bottles.

I keep the beer in the cardboard cases, shut, in an very dark basement, I have even placed some in my crawl space which gets zero light.

 

[sparkyaber]

Dude, I think that if you have replaced ALL plastic equipment from the boil forward, then it must be something in your air. Try brewing somewhere else. Outside if possible (or inside if you brew outside. You could have an infection in the fermenter that doesn't show for several weeks, which might make it appear to be a bottling equipment problem. But the odds are that it really is a bottling equipment infection. (or airborne contamination problem).

I really am leaning that it is bottling also, Some of the beers are in the fermenters for months, and taste fine before bottling. My RIS was fine after 8 months in a secondary, and after a month or so in the bottle I noticed the off flavor and the film.

I am wondering if boiling the priming sugar is suspect. I think I am going to replace everything that I use on bottling day, hoses, bucket, spigot, bottling cane to see if that is the culprit. On last thought, I have not cleaned the bottling tree, I just figured with all of the star-san running out of the bottles it would be fine? Maybe not? That will get a run through the dishwasher before the next bottling day.

 

[jmwc95]

You have some sustained microbial population that is killing your beers. It is the same infection and it is has never been erradicated. Change out all your plastic equipment, bugs can live in the scratches. Change where you brew. Your environment might be responsible.

 

[maztec]

Could have some type of funk in the crawl space. Something you are getting on your hands or in the air when you move bottles around.

 

[Dave11980]

Just out of curiosity, how could the mash tun be responsible for an infection? Short of it not even being washed out for weeks on end between uses any small infection it may have should get wasted in the boil, right? It was my understanding that sanitation really became key after the wort dropped below 170 or so during the chill.

As for the problem it definitely sounds like a bottling issue, I would have replaced that whole line a long time ago.

 

[Want2Brew]

Is your basement a dark, dank scary place typical of older homes (like mine) or is it tight and dry like found in newer homes? I have seen many people say to replace tubing but what about the auto-syphon, I don't use one my self but have seen a few threads where they were found to be the cause of infections. Are you sanitizing the lid you cover your brew pot with when you move it to the basement and the spoon you use to whirlpool. These are just some random thoughts I had while reading this thread, hope they help

One other thing, if I were in you shoes I think I would bleach every thing that comes in contact with the post boil beer including the bottles, rinse well and soak in star san until time to use it and I think I would continue to do that until I figured out what the problem was. Good Luck,

 

[Stevesmirk]

When was the last time the bottle tree was disassembled and thoroughly cleaned? Any chance of the prongs carrying an infection?

 

[sparkyaber]

Could have some type of funk in the crawl space. Something you are getting on your hands or in the air when you move bottles around.

Is your basement a dark, dank scary place typical of older homes (like mine) or is it tight and dry like found in newer homes?

My crawl space is just an extension of my basement, but with no windows and a door. My house is only a 10 years old and the basement is finished. It is dark because it has all of the the shades drawn for watching the idiot-box. Plus the beers are in cardboard cases behind my bar. I figured that would be dark enough.