worse with age. why?

[illywhacker]

hey guys.

i've got a propblem with 2 brews now, in that the taste appears to be deteriorating over time. both tasted really quite good 2 weeks after bottling, fresh with great hop aroma, but after another two, strong off flavours develop.

writing about beer flavour is a bit like dancing about architecture*, but i can only describe it as tangy and with a kind of 'green' sourness to it, with the cascade hop aromas completely disappeared.

both brews were apa's, one extract, one mini-mash (all malt), both brewed at undesirably high temps of 24-25*, but did once taste good.

any ideas where i'm going wrong?

cheers.



* not mine - elvis costello i think. and he said 'music' not 'beer flavour', but i'm sure he'd agree.

[Zuma]

I had the same problem recently.

Beer tasted good two weeks after bottling but then it gradually deteriated.

What I had was an infection.

What I suggest you do(and Im sure alot of people will may not agree) is soak your fermenters for a couple of days in a sodium met solution with the airlock in and filled with some of the solution as well.

Rinse em out and then bleach or replace your taps.

I do this now after every brew.

[afromaiko]

I'd say get cracking on another brew to drink now, but put the suspect brews away for 3 months and reserve your judgment until then.

[Zuma]

I'd say get cracking on another brew to drink now, but put the suspect brews away for 3 months and reserve your judgment until then.

So you can waste more time and money?

Get some new bottles detox the fermenter and clean the taps is my advice.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

There have been some recent discussions on the AHB site about various sanitisers, several of which mention every known sanitising solution. Search for iodophor or phosphoric or some such thing...

Git yerself some powerful brown magic (Iodophor), or some acid (man...). Don't kill the bugs - reduce them to simple ionic compounds!

[Trough Lolly]

Yep, you have a bacterial infection in a part of your system that both brews were in contact with. Clean like a demon and sanitise everything that comes into contact with the beer. Phosphoric acid is the go here...

Cheers,
TL

[afromaiko]

I'd say get cracking on another brew to drink now, but put the suspect brews away for 3 months and reserve your judgment until then.

So you can waste more time and money?

Get some new bottles detox the fermenter and clean the taps is my advice.

Obviously they should always properly sanitise their brewing equipment and bottles, but no point throwing out the previous batch just yet. It's still early days and it may get better.. or worse.. only time will tell.

Personally I was using bleach but switched to Iodophor recently. I heard that Defender(?) was good too and quite fast acting but it little more costly.

[illywhacker]

thanks all,

i've had some more bottles since first identifying the problem, and found many of them to be fine.

looks like the problem is my bottling sanitization. while i'm pretty healthily paranoid with the fermenter and cooled wort, etc, i always figured that bottling was not so crucial as the alcohol would stave off any nasties

going to swtich to iodophor and be a little more rigorous in my bottling process.

[beerdrinker]

maybe the malt was masking the flavour early till it all got fermented out? have tried 4 year old ales and lagers with rusty crownseals kinda still on there fizzy,strong and kinda watery texture like a beer champagne

[illywhacker]

man. got the same problem as before, only worse. around 2 out of 3 bottles in the brew are infected; sour as hell, watery, over-carbonated etc. the remaining 3rd are just perfect, no hint of infection.

i thought the logical conclusion to be infection during bottling, but i don't see what improvements could be made to my process. i rinse bottles a good 3 times as soon as poured, and then immerse in idohpor for a good 15 mins just prior to bottling, including caps.

is it possible that the source of the infection is in the fermenter, but somehow only materialising in some bottles?

any other ideas?

i really want to nail this infection but can't work out where its coming from. i just want to cry when 2/3 of my first ag is a rank shadow of the delight that is the remianing third (btw, no going back frm ag now - the malt freshness and complexity is astounding - 33% of the time.)

cheers

[SpillsMostOfIt]

I reckon you should pile up everything you use for brewing and then talk to Ross about peroxide...

Basically, you have to napalm everything you use and ensure that every little bug within a 10km radius is dead, then institute procedures to ensure they ... never ... come ... back.

I've read a lot about infections. You have to resolve yourself to doing some seriously hard work. I reckon peroxide or phosphoric acid might help.

You can beat this thing.

[KEG]

illywhacker... how old is the brew you're now having issues with (the 2 out of 3 failure rate).. i would be interested to see whether the 1 out of 3 bottles that tastes ok degrades with age or not.

[illywhacker]

illywhacker... how old is the brew you're now having issues with (the 2 out of 3 failure rate).. i would be interested to see whether the 1 out of 3 bottles that tastes ok degrades with age or not.

you've got a point - its pretty fresh. only 2 weeks in the bottle now.
while i agree with you that for experiment's sake it may be worthwhile to see if the infection develops in all the brew, i'm quite hestitant to permit that enjoyable 33% to become a 0%.

in fact, i'm drinking this brew like a madman to catch the good ones while i can.

spillsit, i am sharing your nuke-the-lot-of-it mentality because quite frankly, i got the irrits. it's perfectly useless studying water chemistry while you've got an a-grade infection.

i've got the next brew down in my racking fermenter in order to see if that makes a difference. will replace the tap of regular fermenter, and throw everything i've got at all other parts of my rig.
will check out the chemical's you recommend. btw - where have you been reading about infections - looks like may more worthwhile than studying hop chemistry for the moment.

*ps - apologies spillsit. i have referred to you in another thread as 'spillsitall', which is clearly an unwarranted slur. from hereon, i will refer to you simply as 'spillsit' in order to avoid any commitment to actual percentages of spill.

[Zuma]

Are you using glass or plastic bottles?


I would pull your taps apart and bleach or at least replace them.

[Iron-Haggis]

It could also be from the bottler too.

[rwh]

Sounds to me like you have something in your bottles that idophor can't deal with. This usually happens when you get mould in the bottom, or some kind of sticky dust, whatever it is, it can't be removed by soaking for 15 minutes. And the bacteria can hide in the clump of gunk or whatever, and emerge once the idophor's gone.

Have a go with a bottle brush and some unscented napisan/alkaline salts/neo pink, then do the idophor.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com have had several topics on sanitation, etc. As is often the case, discussions sometimes become heated as everyone seems to have an opinion .

I believe that sanitation is important, but not difficult and you don't have to become a major polluter to achieve it.

Acids, bases and iodine are good things for sanitation, imo. I like iodine because it also helps to reduce goitres.

People previously have suggested pulling taps apart, looking under bottle tops and leaving no tern unstoned. Good advice, because the nasties are probably hiding out where you haven't looked yet.

I have only spilled a small amount today, but that was just bleach solution as I was cleaning out the wheelie bin...

[gregb]

I like iodine because it also helps to reduce goitres.

A sprinkle of iodised salt on your chips will fix that also.

Cheers,
Greg

[mikey]

I'd say get cracking on another brew to drink now, but put the suspect brews away for 3 months and reserve your judgment until then.

So you can waste more time and money?

Get some new bottles detox the fermenter and clean the taps is my advice.

I never use 'sterilisers' onmy fermenters or bottles. You're wasting time and poisoning yourself at the same time.

The secret is to rinse the bottles two or three times when you drink and leave them to dry them thoroughly in the dish rack. After that just put them neck down in a container. Nasties will and cannot grow in dry environment.

The fermenter is the same. Rinse it thoroughly after a brew is bottled and then let it dry.

I used to 'sterilise' but after more than 60 brews not doing so I have never had an infection.

[rwh]

You know, over summer I was trying to improve my brews by immersing the fermenters in my big 40L pot, and putting frozen PET bottles into it to keep the temp down. Even though I used a strong idophor solution in the pot, most of the brews that I did using this technique got infected (white skin), either in primary or in secondary.

I'm not sure what caused this, but I did notice that insects would fall into the pot and die, probably lending their own cocktail of bacteria to the water. This may have provided enough bacteria on the inside of the tap (despite spraying with fresh idophor solution) to infect the brew upon racking.

I won't be using this technique again. Next summer I might modify it by replacing the tap with the original bung that came with the fermenter and using a racking cane instead. Or I might just get a brewfridge and try to cram it into my tiny apartment somewhere.