What's an infection look like in the bottle?

[TrojanAnteater]

My latest batch of IPA seems to be a bit weird in the bottle. Some bottles are crystal clear, and some have a dusting of particulate matter clinging to the sides (usually with additional small particulates floating in the middle). This was my first dry hopped beer (7 days), so I'm not sure if this is just left over pellet residue or some wild yeast or bacteria clinging to the sides. I'm pretty uptight about sanitation. Most of these bottles soaked in a weak solution of Pine Sol a week before while I was removing the labels and then they sit in an Iodophor solution (as well as the caps) for about 5 minutes each. My secondary didn't appear to be infected... nothing weird on top other than just a bit of hop pellet residue that was still floating. Plus, if it's not in all the bottles then I would seriously doubt anything would have infected it before the bottling stage. I'm worrying but having a homebrew right now.

 

[david_42]

97% it's just the pellets.

 

[TrojanAnteater]

It's only been 14 days of bottle conditioning so far but I put a clear one and residue-on-the-side one in the fridge so I'll try and taste a difference. My first batch ever was infected and looked vaguely familiar to this but every single bottle was infected and each one had just a ton of this particle dusting on the sides of the bottles. Those bottles became HUGE gushers and the drying sensation in the mouth was nasty. At least I'll know what to look for in the taste.

 

[JustDave]

You soaked in Pine Sol? I hope you rinsed very well .....

 

[TrojanAnteater]

You soaked in Pine Sol? I hope you rinsed very well .....

Heh, yeah I rinse really well. I've done it before and I don't find any off flavors in the beer contributed by the pine sol. But it really helps to get those damn labels off the bottles, more so than just soaking in water I think.

 

[Yooper]

Heh, yeah I rinse really well. I've done it before and I don't find any off flavors in the beer contributed by the pine sol. But it really helps to get those damn labels off the bottles, more so than just soaking in water I think.

Next time, for soaking I recommend either water and star-san, or oxiclean. Rinse well, and it'll be fine. Labels come off easily in less than an hour soak in oxiclean/hot water, and all that residue does too. I'm sure your concerns now are not Pine-Sol related, but I don't think that using it would be a good practice. I don't use any detergents/soap/laundry stuff in any of my brewery stuff, except for oxiclean or the stuff marketed strictly for brewing like PBW.

It sounds like some of your bottles just have more hops particulate than others, but keep us posted!

 

[TrojanAnteater]

Next time, for soaking I recommend either water and star-san, or oxiclean. Rinse well, and it'll be fine. Labels come off easily in less than an hour soak in oxiclean/hot water, and all that residue does too. I'm sure your concerns now are not Pine-Sol related, but I don't think that using it would be a good practice. I don't use any detergents/soap/laundry stuff in any of my brewery stuff, except for oxiclean or the stuff marketed strictly for brewing like PBW.

It sounds like some of your bottles just have more hops particulate than others, but keep us posted!

Thanks for that tip, I don't really enjoy using the pine sol so I'll switch over to the oxy clean.

 

[Jakobrau]

When I receive bottles from friends, I immediately soak them in bleach. It's cheap, I always have some around, it gets rid of anything that may be growing inside, and peels the paper labels right off.

Now the damn Heinekens with their plastic labels on the other hand...

 

[TrojanAnteater]

Well, after 3 weeks in the bottles I can confirm they are infected. As in my very first batch (this was my 4th) these bottles are becoming way overcarb'd and they are developing that really dry astringent finish to it (I guess cidery). It's really a bummer to go through so much sanitation effort and then they still end up getting infected. I had really thought after my first batch that I had corrected the problem (sanitizing the bottles better) and after 2 straight good batches we're back to this crap again. I have another IPA that just finished fermenting and I'm really not excited to think that in another month or so it'll have about a 50% chance of being infected (based on my rates).

I know it wasn't infected in primary b/c it stopped at 1.015. It didn't look infected in secondary, though this was the first time I dry hopped and of course there is some pellet gunk that remains on top, plus I don't really believe in infection by dry hopping based on what I've read/heard. I really don't think it can be the bottles or caps. Each is soaked in Iodophor for at least 5 minutes... it must be the transfer somehow.

I have been a bit worried about my siphoning tube (I have that autosiphon thing). After use, I push tons of soapy water and regular water though it, but you know when it dries it leaves water spots in there. Then before I siphon I always run a lot of Iodophor solution, or just let it sit in my bottling bucket of iodophor making sure the inside of the tubing is filled with solution as well. Does anyone think it could be the siphoning tube maybe not having the cleanest surface, regardless of how much iodophor goes through it? I think I'm going to buy a new tube to use for bottling this next batch.

UPDATE: so the IPA that I had in the fermenter right now, yeah it smells like crap. I think the yeast starter was infected. I'm having horrible luck right now. I love brewing but at this rate it's not worth the $50 a batch plus equipment that I keep buying to get spoiled batches, especially when I cant brew often enough to experiment with different procedures and whatnot.

 

[Jax19]

Old thread I know.

Trojan, did you discover the cause of the infection issue? I'm experiencing something similar right now and just looking for solutions. With the last two batches, everything seemed fine until after bottling. After a few weeks, they started having the particles clinging to the sides of the bottles and an astringency appeared in the taste. Did you replace equipment? Change sanitation?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[TrojanAnteater]

Jax19- wow, I'm glad I decided to re-read an old topic, otheriwse I would have never seen your reply. Well after that last infection in 2008, I've never had another infected batch and I think there may be 2 reasons why.

1. I switched from Iodophor to Star San. I will never ever ever use anything other than star san. I love it. I know Iodophor is suppose to work, but I just don't really trust it.

2. I think the exact cause of my infections was my racking tube. Like I said in the thread, it gets cleaned after use but I think it builds up bacteria and stuff in it when it sits between batches, and then at least when I was using Iodophor, it can't sanitize through all that buildup. What I started to do for every batch after that last infection was use OxyClean to run through the tubing. OxyClean litterally eats away any deposits/waterspots/etc that are left in the tubing and leaves it crystal clear so that Star San can do its thing right after. Haven't had an infected batch in any way over the last 4 years after switching to OxyClean and Star San as my clean and sanitize process.

Good luck. OxyClean is seriously a great set-up man as a cleaning agent before using whatever you sanitize with.

 

[rawlus]

Dont use dish soap, laundry soap or another soaps. Soap is not good for beer.
Oxyclean works but I prefer PBW.
Star San is fine,

Not a fan of bleach either, requires too much rinsing.