Different beer

Slammer · Post by **Slammer** » Thursday Feb 17, 2005 11:11 pm

Hi all,

New homebrewer..

Made a hooegarden just before xmas and generally it is not too bad. Racked and bulk primed..no problems but around half of the 750ml bottles are awesome and taste great. Nice looking beer with a good head on them when poured into glass etc. But the others are just ordinary and do not have a good head and the taste is quite noticeably different. Not horrible but just a little flat etc. Any ideas why this may occur?

Cheers Sam

Hillbilly · Post by **Hillbilly** » Friday Feb 18, 2005 12:13 am

The only way you could have that problem is having an inconsistent bottle sterelisation. Do you have used bottles? Ifso before washing them hold them up to the light and check if there is a slight film clinging to the inside, pretty sure that that's your problem. Next time soak them in 'bottle washer' and scrub them with a bottle brush then rinse and then sterilise. I know it's a pain but better safe than sorry.
Hope this helps,
Hillbilly

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Friday Feb 18, 2005 1:09 am

Cheers Hillbilly..

That was my guess but I was not sure because I thought I had sterilised them well. I will have to make sure next time. Bloody pain though cause the good ones are a great drop.

Cheers Sam

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Friday Feb 18, 2005 8:51 am

Sam,

I had the same problem with my second brew. I too rack and bulk prime before bottling. Some of the bottles were too flat, some were too fizzy (beer flavoured soda water) and some were just right (Three Bears brewing Co?).

Anyway, I discovered that this was due to me not mixing my dextrose into the primary fermentation product properly

. (ie. the beer at the bottom had more sugar than the beer at the top) I took some advice off this forum and added the sugar solution first and positioned the hose from the primary fermenter so that the beer created a vortex in the bottom of the second barrel. Also I gave the mix a VERY GENTLE stir with a sanitised spoon to make sure the sugar concentration was consistent.

Note, that my flat beer tasted the same as the carbonated beer so, like Hillbilly said, it's probably the bottles in your case. Just thought I'd pass on another potential reason, can't hurt.

Hope this helps as well,
Jay.

Dogger Dan · Post by **Dogger Dan** » Friday Feb 18, 2005 8:54 am

I think we tend to automaticlly assume it is an infection when something goes wrong.

Trust me if you get one, you will know

Dogger

thehipone · Post by **thehipone** » Friday Feb 18, 2005 9:21 am

Inconsistent fill height might be something to check, if you have too much headspace then you get crummy carbonation. What sort of bottles are you using and how are you capping them?

It is a lot harder than you think to get an infection and as Dogger said, you will definitely know.

db · Post by db » Friday Feb 18, 2005 12:02 pm

i've recently noticed that, depending on which part of the cupboard i store my beer in, i'm getting differing levels of carbonation.. ie. the bottles at the back of the shelf, where the breeze doesn't hit, are perfectly carbed. while bottles from the front of the shelf, which catch the breeze, are a little low on carbonation...
not sure if this has anything to do with the probs your experiencing.. so i'll just go away now