WTF am I doing wrong??!!!

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Mark_B

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I get as far as bottling day. I take my sample to get a final gravity reading ... then I drink my sample ... and I'm usually quite happy with the results. I then prime my bottles, fill my bottles, seal my bottles, store my bottles in a dark place at room temp for a couple of weeks. Then when I crack one open to try it, the flavour is off from the sample I tried. It's driving me nuts because I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'll lay out my process step-by-step, in case anyone is remotely interested enough to help me out here.


Bottling Day:

I use recycled flip-top Grolsch bottles (450mL)

  • I soak all of my bottles in a PBW solution for a couple of hours, then rinse thoroughly.
  • I prepare a priming solution of corn sugar and boiled water ... cover and set aside to let it cool to room temp.
  • The Pyrex measuring cup I use to mix this solution is first dunked into a StarSan solution. However the spoon I grab out of the utensil drawer to scoop the corn sugar and stir the solution generally is not. Nor is the plastic wrap I use to cover the Pyrex cup.
  • The bottles are all rinsed in the StarSan solution and placed on the bottle tree to drip dry. I spray the bottle tree with StarSan before I place the bottles on it.
  • My bottling wand is rinsed inside and out with StarSan solution.
  • The spigot on my fermenting bucket is sprayed inside and out with StarSan solution.
  • I attach the bottling wand and open the spigot.
  • I use a measuring spoon and funnel (both dunked in the StarSan) to put the priming solution into each bottle.
  • I then fill the bottles and seal them as per usual with this type of flip-top seal.
  • The bottles go into milk crates (16 fit perfectly) and the crate is then covered with a black garbage bag as an added buffer against light.
  • The crates are then placed in a corner of my basement (typically around 18C/64F) and left untouched for 2 weeks.

OK, so perhaps the spoon I use to scoop the corn sugar or the plastic wrap are causing some adverse reaction? But I always figured I was safe because it's going into boiling water. However it's the only thing I can think of. Basically, I try the sample ... have this wonderful hoppy flavour and aroma ... typically the flavour profile I was aiming for in my recipes ... then I try a bottle after conditioning and all of that is gone. Barely any aroma at all and a totally blah flavour. I'm gettin' seriously ticked here.

Anybody care to help me out?

Much thanks!


M.
 
Does it seem over carbonated? Do you have gushers when you open them? It's possible that it's the spoon an plastic wrap, but I find it somewhat unlikely. How is your sanitation process after flameout to pitch to post ferment? Do you add enzymes?
 
DBhomebrew said:
Loss of hop flavor and aroma leans toward oxidation. Style, recipe, pics of a few bottles?
Click to expand...
Ehh, oxidation is more of a stale, wet cardboard flavor. Wild yeast contamination is usually the perpetrator of a loss of character. My first suspect would be your chilling method.
 
If hop aroma is fading, my first thought is oxygen exposure. In my experience, and based on your process description here, it's a lot easier to oxidize your beer than to get it infected with something. Particularly if this has happened on multiple batches and only after bottling. Seems unlikely you'd get the same bug on multiple batches and only have it infect beer after bottling.

Couple more questions to narrow things down. Have you noticed any off flavors, or is it just duller? Have you seen any rings in the bottles or extra residue? Any gushers? When you pour a full glass, do you see any unexpected color changes? Does it look darker or more purple than you'd think? To test that color over time, you could open one after a few days and pour it into a pint glass and take a picture. Then open one once fully carved and compare them.

Also in your pre-bottling process, do you transfer beer to a secondary fermenter? How often do you open up your fermenter for things like sampling and testing and dry hopping during fermentation? Have the beers you've noticed this all been IPAs? If so, which kind? And if not, what other styles?

Sounds like you bottle off a fermenter, but can you confirm you aren't transferring it to a bottling bucket?
 
My question is the same as above. Please clarify how the beer gets from the fermenter into the bottles. If you use a bucket with a spigot, why don't you add the sugar solution to the bucket? It seems like it would be hard to get the same amount of solution in each bottle. Other than that that your process is pretty similar to mine, I also use Grolsch fliptop bottles. Are your washers still good and do you sanitize the caps? I boil the caps before putting them back on the bottle.
 
That sucks dude. I know how you feel -- I had some batches I was disappointed with. Keep at it! The next batch will be better.

A lot of people talked about oxidation, and I agree. Do you think contamination or infection is getting in? I introduced brett into my brewery and it took 2 years to eradicate it. Every bottle had a wintergreen flavor from the infection.

But honestly, you're going to brew bad batches. I just did this week. In 2022 I dumped 20 gallons of beer. It happens. Just pick yourself up and move on to the next brew. Because the next batch will be amazing...
 
Try using your bottles when they are still moist with star San. This has no effect on the yeast or flavor.
 
dmtaylor said:
My guess is oxidation. Putting priming sugar into each bottle separately using a funnel is a sure way to cause oxidation. Try bulk priming instead.
Click to expand...
Why?
I can't really see a difference. Bottle is open and filled with air before filling either way.
If you add sugar to each bottle, you don't have to stir the uncarbed beer.

To me it sounds like 6 of the one or half a dozen of the other
 
Zambezi Special said:
Why?
I can't really see a difference. Bottle is open and filled with air before filling either way.
If you add sugar to each bottle, you don't have to stir the uncarbed beer.

To me it sounds like 6 of the one or half a dozen of the other
Click to expand...
Double the necessary amount of handling, more dripping and splashing.
 
Sounds like a case of over-handling the beer. Hoppy beers are susceptible to this especially. Reduce oxygen exposure wherever possible.

If you can do a low oxygen transfer to a keg you’d be better off. You can bottle from a keg. Take a 10” or so length of racking cane and fit it into a plastic picnic tap. Run a 30” line to your keg. Set the CO2 regulator to push maybe 1 lb pressure. I use Brewers Best corn sugar conditioning pills in each bottle.

If you are really persnickety, you can blow a little CO2 under your flip tops before closing.

This will give you nice bright hoppy beers without flavor and aroma loss.
E249ED12-1E99-4BB2-9137-F0D44400BB99.jpeg
7E35D8B6-197D-47CA-9ACB-E4BB29DB5772.jpeg
 
Get a used corny keg, cut about 3" off the dip tube or buy a floating dip tube, downsize your batches to 4 or 4.5 gallons, and ferment in the keg and Beermeister32 said above, bottle off the keg or even better, transfer to serving keg.

:mug:
 
Admittedly, I didn’t read every word of each comment. Given that admission, does anyone think the flippy bottles could be the culprit for oxidation at packaging? More specifically, the seal?

“oxygen can get into a bottle through the neck-crown cork junction. Tighter seals (e.g. pry off rather than screw off) are better.“ (C. Bamforth, based on the paper given to the 36th Biennial Convention of the IBD Asia-Pacific
Section, March 2021)

…also… “Worthwhile doing a check on the levels of iron, copper, and manganese in your beers. The lower the better – and certainly less than 0.05 ppm of each. They may come from various sources: water; …; dry hopping (manganese); fabrication materials (copper).” (C Bamforth) As homebrewers we don’t analyze our beer but we can use insurance. Brewtan B is a heavy metal chelator that can trap the divalent cations to reduce and possibly eliminate the oxidation reaction. (J. Formanek)

Bamforth also discusses bottom-filling of vessels, using deaerated water for slurries, limit transfers, etc. as less important but additional steps that can be taken.

Something as simple as an antioxidant such as Ascorbic Acid could help. Though slightly less effective in solution at scavenging oxygen than NaMeta, enzymes exist within the malt that increase the effectiveness of AA as an oxygen scavenger. The added bonus is it won’t cause your beer to taste like ass the way NaMeta can. The guys at Genus Brewing use 3-5 grams (~1 tsp) Ascorbic Acid to their mash to fend off oxidation.

”Keep out the oxygen from the final package and keep the beer cold. And minimise the time from production to consumption. Worry about these things before anything else.” (C Bamforth)

Cheers!
 
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I use sugar tablets from Cooper's in each bottle, but if you are bottling right from the primary fermenter, then your process is very similar to mine.

As others have stated, my first guess is cold side oxidation. Hard to see where in your process that is happening, but I think that's more likely than an infection. Especially if your recipe has a lot of hops.

My second thought is your recipe. In my experience, the way a beer tastes before carb and conditioning is only loosely correlated to the final product. Does this happen to all of your beers or just this recipe?

Your beer ends up well carbed, correct? My third thought is get some new bottles. Those old caps may be leaking...
 
palmtrees said:
It sounds to me like he predoses the bottles with sugar, which I would think would be less splashing and handling than trying to stir priming sugar into the full batch.
Click to expand...
Not sure why this would have to be the case. Dissolve your priming sugar in boiling water. Let it cool. Add it to your bottling bucket. Rack beer into your bottling bucket from the bottom up. No splashing and sugar gets mixed in without stirring.

Bottling straight from the fermenter saves a transfer, but that's a separate question. I do that transfer under fermentation gas to let as little room air in as possible.

Isn't the consensus that oxygen in the bottle head space is the biggest threat?
 
mac_1103 said:
Não sei por que isso teria que ser o caso. Dissolva o açúcar priming em água fervente. Deixe seguido. Adicione-o ao seu balde de engarrafamento. Coloque uma cerveja em seu balde de engarrafamento de baixo para cima. Sem salpicos e o açúcar é misturado sem mexer.

O engarrafamento direto do fermentador economiza uma transferência, mas essa é uma questão separada. Eu faço essa transferência sob gás de fermentação para deixar entrar o mínimo de ar possível.

Não é consenso que o oxigênio no espaço da cabeça da garrafa é a maior ameaça?
Click to expand...

Não há resíduos de Starsan nas garrafas e utensílios. ?
Isso é um problema muito comum com resíduos de iodo, pode ser o mesmo com Starsan .


Are there no Starsan residues on the bottles and utensils?
This is a very common problem with iodine residue, it could be the same with Starsan.
 
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Every little thing you can do do reduce post fermentation oxidation adds up. Try using CO2 to displace beer when decanting from fermentor, and bottle or keg directly from primary in closed transfer, no splashing.

Is easier to achieve with kegging, but possible for bottling too. When I occasionally bottle or transfer to growler from kegs for sharing or transport, it is beer that is already carbonated, so easy to "cap on foam" which is only way I know to not have much o2 in headspace.

I was going to post this yesterday, but then figured OP probably does not have C02 gear, and can't assume everyone wants to get into kegging,... but there it is.
 
mac_1103 said:
Not sure why this would have to be the case. Dissolve your priming sugar in boiling water. Let it cool. Add it to your bottling bucket. Rack beer into your bottling bucket from the bottom up. No splashing and sugar gets mixed in without stirring.

Bottling straight from the fermenter saves a transfer, but that's a separate question. I do that transfer under fermentation gas to let as little room air in as possible.

Isn't the consensus that oxygen in the bottle head space is the biggest threat?
Click to expand...
In my experience, bottle conditioning may actually be an advantage because the yeast scavenges for more oxygen. So I personally don't feel the head space is a big problem. Using bottling buckets is the worst thing you can do to a hoppy beer IMHO.
 
Much good advice and ideas to investigate were provided already.

Hoppy beers are among the most demanding when it comes to process and packaging. Every detail where those beers can be exposed to oxygen needs to be scrutinized and if possible prevented.

How hoppy are those beers in question (e.g., IPAs, NEIPAs) or is this problem with all beers, even malt forward ones, becoming lackluster?

Mark_B said:
The spigot on my fermenting bucket is sprayed inside and out with StarSan solution.
Click to expand...
Do you take that spigot off your fermenter and separate all the parts to thoroughly clean after each fermentation or before filling with a new batch of wort?
 
I think it's been assumed that you are making hoppy NEIPA's or otherwise doing a lot of dry hopping. Probably need to be mitigating the O2 at every possible place if that is the case.

For almost all the beers I've made this year, I've just stuffed a bunch of hops in at flame out. No dry hopping at all. Still I get what to me are very hoppy beers. Yet don't seem to be as prone to any oxidation problems that I had with the few dry hopped beer I attempted in the previous year.
 
Last edited:
I sanitize my bottles before filling and don't worry too much about drying them completely. I've never noticed any off flavors from Starsan. Iodaphor might be different. YMMV.
 
You can fill the bottles to about 1/2" below the rim. That reduces headspace. Some leave even less space, but I don't want to risk breaking bottles. If you leave no headspace or too little, the bottle could break when it gets warmer.
I compared the color of two beers from the same batch, poured into glasses - one with 2" headspace and one with 1/2". The one with 1/2" was a little lighter. Not a huge difference, but lighter.
 
a question based on this

Mark_B said:
store my bottles in a dark place at room temp for a couple of weeks.
Click to expand...

Has anyone else tried bottle conditioning warm (say 75F) with a bottle conditioning yeast (e.g. CBC-1) to speed up the conditioning process?

If yes, what did you find?

If no, informed speculation may be interesting (or not).


eta: the idea is 1) bottle condition it (properly and) as fast as practical, then 2) store it in the fridge to help preserve it.
 
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BrewnWKopperKat said:
a question based on this



Has anyone else tried bottle conditioning warm (say 75F) with a bottle conditioning yeast (e.g. CBC-1) to speed up the conditioning process?

If yes, what did you find?

If no, informed speculation may be interesting (or not).


eta: the idea is 1) bottle condition it (properly and) as fast as practical, then 2) store it in the fridge to help preserve it.
Click to expand...
I bottle condition at 75-80 and have used bottling yeast not to speed up conditioning, but to ensure it happens for really big beers like quads. Philly Sour also requires bottling yeast. There is an online calculator to help estimate how much you need - it's never the entire packet. But the yeast does work.
 
No bottle yeast, but conditioning is fairly warm. Seems fine by me
Conditioning is in a coolerbox to lessen temperature swings.
Other than that, it depends on outside temperature as I got no heating and no aircon.
Est temp 25-28 oC (77-80 F)
 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...dspace-o2-in-a-bottle-conditioned-ipa.653784/
The link above is a long but good conversation mostly about effectively reducing oxidation for brewers who bottle their beer, especially but not strictly in hoppy beers. Eventually, the methods that follow are presented:
  1. Purging the bottle headspace with Private Preserve or similar, or just CO2
  2. Minimizing the bottle headspace to about 0.5"
  3. The inclusion of vitamin C, i.e., ascorbic acid, at a rate of 0.6 gram per gallon of beer
(The original poster, Taket_al_Tauro, adds the ascorbic acid 4-5 days before bottling when dry hopping, also adding sugar at the rate of 1.0 oz. per 7.0 gallons of beer in order to purge air from the fermenter headspace by reactivating fermentation.)

In various experiments, the three methods are used alone or in combination with one or more of the others. Each method appears to be effective on it's own, but combining methods provides some insurance that the effects of oxidation will be minimized.
 
I add as much as 6g ascorbic acid at dry hopping. No perceptible flavor difference.

skip the starsan as the foam has dissolved oxygen. Use saniclean (non-foaming starsan) instead and add 2g (per 5 gallons) sodium metabisulfite to the saniziter. The SMB will scavenge any oxygen from the tap water in the sanitizer.

minimizing headspace the best call for bottles. Really though you should switch to kegging and closed xfers if you are serious about making hoppy beers. You can then get a counterpressure filler like a "tapcooler" to fill bottles when needed. These do basically a full purge
 
@SRJHops , @Zambezi Special : when bottle conditioning warm (but no additional yeast), how long did it take for the bottles to carbonate?


eta: looks like this topic may be entering the "... switch to _____ if you are serious about ___ " phase.

Before I take go back to lurking here, a round of visual +1s to a number of you who offered ideas on minimizing / mitigating oxidation during bottling and in upstream steps.
Now, where's the :popcorn: ?

 
Last edited:
Foam is bubbles. Oxygen inside bubbles is not dissolved in the liquid, sort of by definition. There will be dissolved oxygen in a non-foaming sanitizer too. So I'm not sure I get blaming Starsan for oxidation. Has anyone actually done a comparison?
 

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