another 'What went wrong?'

Hi

my third brew - Fail.

first brew from kit went well. second extract American IPA rather good bar quite a lot of floaters when poured.

my third. Hefeweizen extract. Mangrove Jack's bavarian wheat yeast. some hops in the boil.

fermented initially ok, 1.055 Og to about 1.026 after a week (target 1.015). I use a water bath with aquarium heater to maintain temp ~21C in a cold room(~16C).

fermentation stuck at 1.026 so i cranked the temp up a few degrees ~23C

after a couple of weeks no significant change so decided to bottle and wait.

took lid of FV to rack, and took a whiff ( first opening of the lid since start) overpowering alcoholic smell almost knocked me over *and the mrs) so i think somethings not right. i bottled anyway after batch priming. bottle conditioning again in water bath at ~23C for 10 days.

i wasn't expecting much and i wasn't disappointed!. no pop from bottle (i use swing tops 500ml), beer poured flat no carbonation. tasted ok, little bit like the wheat beers of germany i was aiming for.

so would i be right to assume infection/comtamination at the wort stage/fermentation? i thought my end conditioned beer might taste like fizzy **** but it was almost the opposite.

sanitisation issue? - i use chemipro oxi. soaking equipment etc probably a little heavy handed on the strength of the cleaner. soak stuff longer than the recommended 3-5mins. mix the granules with warm water. is the temperature critical? i.e. if sanitisation fluid cools is it less effective?

i realise one can't know exactly but any hints or tips much appreciated.

im keen to start an Oatmeal stout extract next so just like to iron out any possible issues.

So if I understand the beer tastes okay but is not carbonated?

If it was infected it would be foaming like crazy - infections tend to produce CO2.

Flat beer suggests that your batch priming has failed. Have heard this a few times recently, personally I don't like batch priming. If you've still got some beer left, re-prime the bottles individually with half a teaspoon of sugar and leave in the warm for another 2 weeks.

I'm also not a fan of those Mangrove Jacks yeasts, seem to do weird things, at least in my experience. Given you're new to this, I'd stick with the dependable Safale yeasts for now, they do a wheat one WB-06
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Fermentis-Beer-Yeast.html

Was the Hefeweizen extract a kit or recipe pack from a know supplier, or one you knocked up?

darrellm said:

If it was infected it would be foaming like crazy - infections tend to produce CO2.

Flat beer suggests that your batch priming has failed. Have heard this a few times recently, personally I don't like batch priming. If you've still got some beer left, re-prime the bottles individually with half a teaspoon of sugar and leave in the warm for another 2 weeks.

I'm also not a fan of those Mangrove Jacks yeasts, seem to do weird things, at least in my experience. Given you're new to this, I'd stick with the dependable Safale yeasts for now, they do a wheat one WB-06
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Fermentis-Beer-Yeast.html

Was the Hefeweizen extract a kit or recipe pack from a know supplier, or one you knocked up?

Click to expand...

I'm the opposite with MJ yeasts, I think they are fantastic. I've only used 3 different ones though. The Cali Lager goes off like a rocket and is very crisp, M44 was just as good as US-05 and the Belgian Abbey gave me the perfect level of esters for my belgian pale.

Doesn't sound like an infection.

What was the recipe?

Was everything indate?

How did you clean you kit? Don't think temp of the sanitizer is an issue.

How much sugar did you prime with? What was it put into?

it was all in date to my knowledge - all purchased within last month or so. LME, hops, yeast.

recipe is an extract from here

the IPA from same site came out great.

The potent aroma/fumes(!) after fermentation seems a bit odd though?

primed to ~2.5 vol/CO2 it was a small 8l batch - calculated using brewers friend tool for 54g table sugar in solution, added to vessel before racking brew into it.

ill probably try to prime the few remaining bottles again and see what happens.


thanks for replies.

so heres what i did...

decided to prime the remaining dozen bottles.

its a bit of a faff opening bottles spooning sugar into the funnel then closing up switching hands etc. so i opened all of them, the last one actually blew of the swing top across to bathroom (good job i thought ahead and did it on the tiled floor).

added 1/2 tsp sugar to each bottle before closing up for another chance to prime. the blower should have been a warning. about 9 remaining bottles were fizzing over. all over the floor.

so i sealed them up , and gave them a wash in the bath, see what gives. maybe an explosion or two?

it would appear my priming was inconsistent. either the batch prime solution that i racked into was not mixed through consistently or theres an issue with my aquarium heater/ water bath set up

i think the ones that were under carbonated were nearest to the heater so perhaps were warmer than the rest. might this explain my variable carbonation. i can't imagine that racking 10l of brew into ~200ml of sugar solution would not mix through.

anyway, i'm wondering now if i should dump the lot for fear of explosions.

does everybody have beer smelling slippers after a brew day?

cheers

as a foot note - tasted the lively one and pretty good. perhaps a tad too much banana - a sign of higher fermentation temp? or could this happen in the bottle? PF was ~21C with FV in water bath with heater in cold room. priming ~23C don't remember such a flavour after PF.

cheers