josh18t
Active Member
Hey guys been on here for a while and never felt like I needed to ask a question with the amount of knowledge already on here. But I’ve been having some issues since Jan this year and to be honest Im near giving up on hoppy beers as Its costing me a lot of money and is a bit soul destroying.
Sorry in advance for the long winded post.
I only seem to get this problem with very hoppy beers where Im adding huge amounts of dry hops or at least thats when it seems like an issue.
I’ll give an example, I recently made a double IPA using Imperial citrus yeast (the first time using my fancy new stainless conical) and it came out beautifully. The best beer I’ve ever made and, the colour was like orange juice and everything I hoped for and the hop charge was just right.
After one week in the bottle I decided to sample the beer, I was surprised that It was fully carbonated but not concerned it was still exactly what I was hoping for.
After the first week though things went downhill, the colour started turning dark, the beer became over carbonated and after 10 more days It was gushers, every bottle (admittedly opening these at room temp not from chilled). The beer became thin with grassy notes and I guess I’d describe a bit of lingering acrid bitterness and lack of hop taste/aroma. I made this beer with only about 35 estimated IBUs so it shouldn’t have been very bitter.
This has happened with the last 5 IPA style hoppy beers I’ve made recently with the latest literally turning from lighter than orange colour to a greyish brown in 3 weeks. Only some of my current batch are gushers but the flavour of the beer has defiantly changed and become less hoppy. I also see that when I open some of the beers even if they aren’t gushers the sediment instantly gets drawn up the sides of the bottle from the carbonation.
Usually these beers are fine for I’d say two weeks before I get some gushers but they do darken which I always thought was just a downfall of bottling oxidisation rather than using kegs which I don’t really have room for.
The odd thing is that I made a saison In March and its perfect. I’ve had one a week since bottling and its great, nothing wrong at all.
Im pretty certain this is an infection from what I’ve read everywhere and not just tasting beers too early or over carbonating due to the change in flavour and massive change in colour.
If anyone has any pointers on how to track down the culprit that would be a huge help. I’ve been thinking that it has to be something to do with my bottling procedure but the only part of my brewing process that hasn’t really changed is hot side and transfer into fermenter.
My process is:
Make a starter boiling DME for 15 mins, pour into a clean flask (cleaned using oxi then stars), cool, pitch yeast and let it sit on a stir-plate for 2 days covered with sanitised foil (sometimes this gets krausen on it). If I make it further in advance I will chill the flask and decant the beer otherwise I pitch the whole starter.
On brew day I fill my kettle with tap water, treat with a campden tablet and any other mineral additions. I use the BIAB method and a regular 60 min mash/boil.
I chill the wort using a copper immersion cooler and get it chilled to 20C in about 25 mins.
I now use a SS 5 gallon conical fermenter with stainless immersion cooling coil, cooled by a maxi 110 cooler. I transfer the wort to this from the tap on my kettle. I then oxygenate the wort with pure oxygen, pitch my starter, close everything up and fit the blow off.
After I reach my final gravity and it sits there for a couple of days I dump the trub out of the bottom of the fermenter. I’ll usually let it sit for 5-7 days. Dry hop at about 3 days then I’ll cold crash for 1-2 days.
On bottling day I lift my conical onto a table and transfer to my bottling bucket with my dextrose and water solution in it (corn sugar has been boiled lightly for about 15 mins prior). I then bottle .
The bottles have been stored at room temp which obviously fluctuates (particularly in recent months).
Because of the frequency of these issues I’ve been having my cleaning process I believe is pretty intense. Everything that touches the beer post boil is boiled for 15 mins, soaked in oxi and then in starsan (and regularly sprayed whilst attaching tubing etc). The only thing I don’t boil is the whole fermenter without attachments but I scrub that, soak overnight with oxi then spray and soak with starsan.
I have replaced my bottling bucket once now and that is the only plastic that my beer comes into contact with. My bottling wand is stainless and I boil that to. The only other plastic parts are the bottle rinser and tubing which I rinse after use, hang up overnight and then soak in oxi and starsan before use.
My bottles on my last 3 attempts have been brand new as I wanted to eliminate the variable of any past infections. I still fill each with a small amount of oxi then pour boiling water into each and let them soak for at least 2 hours. I then rinse them out and use a bottling rinser full of starsan on bottling day to rinse them out before filling. I also soak my caps before putting them on.
Sorry again for such a long winded post, but wanted to try and give the whole picture.
Thanks in advance.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sorry in advance for the long winded post.
I only seem to get this problem with very hoppy beers where Im adding huge amounts of dry hops or at least thats when it seems like an issue.
I’ll give an example, I recently made a double IPA using Imperial citrus yeast (the first time using my fancy new stainless conical) and it came out beautifully. The best beer I’ve ever made and, the colour was like orange juice and everything I hoped for and the hop charge was just right.
After one week in the bottle I decided to sample the beer, I was surprised that It was fully carbonated but not concerned it was still exactly what I was hoping for.
After the first week though things went downhill, the colour started turning dark, the beer became over carbonated and after 10 more days It was gushers, every bottle (admittedly opening these at room temp not from chilled). The beer became thin with grassy notes and I guess I’d describe a bit of lingering acrid bitterness and lack of hop taste/aroma. I made this beer with only about 35 estimated IBUs so it shouldn’t have been very bitter.
This has happened with the last 5 IPA style hoppy beers I’ve made recently with the latest literally turning from lighter than orange colour to a greyish brown in 3 weeks. Only some of my current batch are gushers but the flavour of the beer has defiantly changed and become less hoppy. I also see that when I open some of the beers even if they aren’t gushers the sediment instantly gets drawn up the sides of the bottle from the carbonation.
Usually these beers are fine for I’d say two weeks before I get some gushers but they do darken which I always thought was just a downfall of bottling oxidisation rather than using kegs which I don’t really have room for.
The odd thing is that I made a saison In March and its perfect. I’ve had one a week since bottling and its great, nothing wrong at all.
Im pretty certain this is an infection from what I’ve read everywhere and not just tasting beers too early or over carbonating due to the change in flavour and massive change in colour.
If anyone has any pointers on how to track down the culprit that would be a huge help. I’ve been thinking that it has to be something to do with my bottling procedure but the only part of my brewing process that hasn’t really changed is hot side and transfer into fermenter.
My process is:
Make a starter boiling DME for 15 mins, pour into a clean flask (cleaned using oxi then stars), cool, pitch yeast and let it sit on a stir-plate for 2 days covered with sanitised foil (sometimes this gets krausen on it). If I make it further in advance I will chill the flask and decant the beer otherwise I pitch the whole starter.
On brew day I fill my kettle with tap water, treat with a campden tablet and any other mineral additions. I use the BIAB method and a regular 60 min mash/boil.
I chill the wort using a copper immersion cooler and get it chilled to 20C in about 25 mins.
I now use a SS 5 gallon conical fermenter with stainless immersion cooling coil, cooled by a maxi 110 cooler. I transfer the wort to this from the tap on my kettle. I then oxygenate the wort with pure oxygen, pitch my starter, close everything up and fit the blow off.
After I reach my final gravity and it sits there for a couple of days I dump the trub out of the bottom of the fermenter. I’ll usually let it sit for 5-7 days. Dry hop at about 3 days then I’ll cold crash for 1-2 days.
On bottling day I lift my conical onto a table and transfer to my bottling bucket with my dextrose and water solution in it (corn sugar has been boiled lightly for about 15 mins prior). I then bottle .
The bottles have been stored at room temp which obviously fluctuates (particularly in recent months).
Because of the frequency of these issues I’ve been having my cleaning process I believe is pretty intense. Everything that touches the beer post boil is boiled for 15 mins, soaked in oxi and then in starsan (and regularly sprayed whilst attaching tubing etc). The only thing I don’t boil is the whole fermenter without attachments but I scrub that, soak overnight with oxi then spray and soak with starsan.
I have replaced my bottling bucket once now and that is the only plastic that my beer comes into contact with. My bottling wand is stainless and I boil that to. The only other plastic parts are the bottle rinser and tubing which I rinse after use, hang up overnight and then soak in oxi and starsan before use.
My bottles on my last 3 attempts have been brand new as I wanted to eliminate the variable of any past infections. I still fill each with a small amount of oxi then pour boiling water into each and let them soak for at least 2 hours. I then rinse them out and use a bottling rinser full of starsan on bottling day to rinse them out before filling. I also soak my caps before putting them on.
Sorry again for such a long winded post, but wanted to try and give the whole picture.
Thanks in advance.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
