Disgusting Batch - Help What Went Wrong

[gmc]

These things can be hard to track down, I'm 200 brews in and had a bad one recently and I'm struggling to work out what went wrong: all the brews before and after were fine.

What temp did you ferment at, could it have been too high or low and stressed the yeast?

This was actually the first beer where I paid proper attention the the temp. I pitched at around 23 and it fermented at room temperature with gv12 yeast. (around 18 degree)

At least you comment about doing your first dud batch after 200 odd brews gives me some confidence. I was thinking before this that I am some brewing super hero that never makes mistakes or rubbish beer. After this one, I started thinking maybe all my future batches will be doomed to taste like toilet duck and I will never make a nice beer again.

I am sure reality is somewhere in the middle of those to statements.

 

[gmc]

I use thin bleach at 2.5ml per litre, dunk everything in that for 30 mins or so, give it a very good rinse, let it dry and spray with star san.

Quite like that idea. Might fill the bathtub with bleachy water and submerse a ton of bottles and all my gear

 

[gmc]

Just a thought, but if you are bottling and all 40 pints have the same off flavour then my money would be more on cleanliness or an infection at the FV stage or even your syphon tube.
Statistically it seems less likely that the cleanliness on all 40 bottles failed at the same time and all individually got infected at the same level with the same spoilage organism delivering exactly the same end results.
That is unless you are introducing some common factor across all the bottles eg dunking them all in the same contaminated solution.

I was thinking something along these lines. Maybe my bottling bucket was to blame. I store the chemsan in it for a few weeks so I can clean after the last bottling so I can clean everything for the new batch to go on. I then dump it after cleaning and do a new batch for sanitising, which I then keep for 3 weeks again. Maybe I will stop doing that and just make new chemsan solution when needed.

Not sure yet if all 40 have the same taste but the first 2 of 40 certainly did so I am not expecting good results from the rest.

 

[Dads_Ale]

I was thinking something along these lines. Maybe my bottling bucket was to blame. I store the chemsan in it for a few weeks so I can clean after the last bottling so I can clean everything for the new batch to go on. I then dump it after cleaning and do a new batch for sanitising, which I then keep for 3 weeks again. Maybe I will stop doing that and just make new chemsan solution when needed.

Not sure yet if all 40 have the same taste but the first 2 of 40 certainly did so I am not expecting good results from the rest.

I do think part of your problem is that you have been using chemsan for cleaning. It is only a sanitiser so you need to use something else for the cleaning before using the chemsan on brew/bottling day. Also if you are making up bulk quantities of chemsan you need to keep an eye on the PH (>3 I believe) as over time it will absorb moisture from the air which may render it not a very good sanitiser as the PH is too high. Worth investing in some PH strips.
For cleaning I now use Chemclean which I find really good.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

When I got 2 bad batches I figured that I was probably either chlorine or infection, I narrowed it down to thinking it was my tap in the bottling bucket, sure enough i got rid and it's been fine since.

 

[gmc]

I do think part of your problem is that you have been using chemsan for cleaning. It is only a sanitiser so you need to use something else for the cleaning before using the chemsan on brew/bottling day. Also if you are making up bulk quantities of chemsan you need to keep an eye on the PH (>3 I believe) as over time it will absorb moisture from the air which may render it not a very good sanitiser as the PH is too high. Worth investing in some PH strips.
For cleaning I now use Chemclean which I find really good.

I think this is probably sound advice. I had been using a product that was a cleaner/sanitiser combined before so I guess thats where the habit came from. When I switched to chemsan, I just carried on the same. I hope I have gotten away with the beer thats currently conditioning and the beer in the fermenter currently because I won't be able to change my ways to save those.

Fingers crossed

 

[CD]

I think the clue might be something to do with those bubbles appearing in the tube as you syphoned, which you say doesn’t usually happen. This suggests something very wrong with the fermentation to me, rather than with contaminated bottles.

 

[gmc]

I think the clue might be something to do with those bubbles appearing in the tube as you syphoned, which you say doesn’t usually happen. This suggests something very wrong with the fermentation to me, rather than with contaminated bottles.

I don't like the sound of this. The batch afterwards had troubles with syphoning as well. After they got to the bottling bucket, they syphoned fine but both a royal pain from FV to bottling bucket

 

[CD]

How long had it been in the FV, and how long in the bottling bucket?

 

[gmc]

3 weeks in FV, less than an hour in the bottling bucket

 

[gmc]

the second batch with the poor syphoning as only 1 week, but I was experimenting with fast turn around times with Kviek. I just assumed that was not enough time to let the dissolved co2 escape.

This first batch should have been long since ready at 3 weeks though

 

[CD]

I may be wrong then. Did the fermenter smell ok?

 

[gmc]

No problems with the smell. Can't remember if I tasted it pre conditioning

 

[CD]

The only sterilising agent I use is Antiformin, diluted at 30cc per gallon of water. Leave anything likely to come into contact with your beer soaking in it, then give it a quick rinse. I’ve mentioned this before on this forum, but people seem to insist on using all sorts of other chemicals and then having problems.

 

[JohnB]

Hi GMC, I'm a bit late to this thread, initially when I read the thread, I saw 'chemically' and this can be DMS, chlorophenols, mixture of, etc. - or it can be chlorine left in the bucket/bottles. If it smells like cooked cabbage (sulphorous) it can be infection, musty, dirty bottles, lines, etc. But then reading on, did you mention experimenting with Kveik? and quick turnaround? If you could expand on this it may help. I wonder if 3 weeks in the fermenter may also have something to do with this. Kveik wants to ferment at around 30-35 DegC. I've heard of fermenting with Kveik at 42 DegC. Much higher than many folks would assume. If this was a standard batch you have brewed many times before, then I can understand your concerns, but if (big IF) it was an experiment, then I'd not be unduly worried and take copious notes for next time.

If you are a bit worried it may be an infection, and if you feel safe using chemicals, then try hot caustic soda solution at about 3%, [[[ take every precaution you can with this stuff - wrap-around safety glasses, gauntlet gloves ]]], take everything apart, buckets, pipes, taps, bottles, bottling spike - everything just before use, it needs about 5 minutes soaking. Then give everything a rinse with tap water, and finally a soak in Chemsan, drain and use. Then for the future I'd take Coffin Dodger's advice and go down the route of Antiformin - it's clean, easy to use and inexpensive.

A commerical brewery in Colorado had an infection. They took everything apart, three times! cleaned and sterilised the sh 1 t out of everything. Finally they found a wild-yeast infection living in the main water inlet pipe. It took a year of broken-down brewing to locate the source - so stop at nothing, and trust nothing.

 

[Sandimas]

Thinking about this a bit more, a few of us have ditched bottling buckets / secondary FVs and now bottle/keg direct from the first FV. I had a series of infections 5-6 years ago and it seemed to coincide with using a secondary FV, there's got to be more risk transferring the beer twice unless it's in a closed system.

 

[MarconiBrew]

I tend to soak everything in Milton for a while then a good rinse, just before using.

 

[Gerryjo]

Out of curiosity before transferring did you take a taste sample and if so was the taste present then as you mention a chemical taste as you described as toilet duck which I've never tasted but is it like a solvent taste similar to nail varnish/acetone which would indicate stressed yeast more so on the high side.
Did you take a hydrometer reading and if it was ok and in range and stable this may rule out an infection in your fermenter but not totally.
Your Syphon seal is leaking too and needs replaced as this is why you're seeing bubbles and this would be more and indicator of induced oxidisation and as your bottling from a bucket it would effect the entire brew.
The tap on your bottling bucket,do you strip it down and clean thoroughly as these are notorious for infection breading passing into every bottle you fill.
If all your bottles taste the same the problem is more likely pre-bottle stage and likewise with everything else but you need to be sure what your up against.
Personally I would strip every piece of equipment down and disassemble to give it a good clean,soak in thin bleach though I use hypochlorite for such things,clean gain and a damn good rinse.As mentioned above beware of garden hoses.
I hope you find your issue.

 

[gmc]

Hi GMC, I'm a bit late to this thread, initially when I read the thread, I saw 'chemically' and this can be DMS, chlorophenols, mixture of, etc. - or it can be chlorine left in the bucket/bottles. If it smells like cooked cabbage (sulphorous) it can be infection, musty, dirty bottles, lines, etc. But then reading on, did you mention experimenting with Kveik? and quick turnaround? If you could expand on this it may help. I wonder if 3 weeks in the fermenter may also have something to do with this. Kveik wants to ferment at around 30-35 DegC. I've heard of fermenting with Kveik at 42 DegC. Much higher than many folks would assume. If this was a standard batch you have brewed many times before, then I can understand your concerns, but if (big IF) it was an experiment, then I'd not be unduly worried and take copious notes for next time.

If you are a bit worried it may be an infection, and if you feel safe using chemicals, then try hot caustic soda solution at about 3%, [[[ take every precaution you can with this stuff - wrap-around safety glasses, gauntlet gloves ]]], take everything apart, buckets, pipes, taps, bottles, bottling spike - everything just before use, it needs about 5 minutes soaking. Then give everything a rinse with tap water, and finally a soak in Chemsan, drain and use. Then for the future I'd take Coffin Dodger's advice and go down the route of Antiformin - it's clean, easy to use and inexpensive.

A commerical brewery in Colorado had an infection. They took everything apart, three times! cleaned and sterilised the sh 1 t out of everything. Finally they found a wild-yeast infection living in the main water inlet pipe. It took a year of broken-down brewing to locate the source - so stop at nothing, and trust nothing.

Lot of great input from people here. Start from the start.

The solvent tasting batch which I was describing was done with gv12, not kviek. The following batch was done with kviek. I was pointing out that both had issues with syphoning. I haven't tasted the kviek brew yet as its is presumably still too green.

I don't really have the space and wherewithall to deal with hot caustic soda, but i will definitely be giving everything I own a very serious cleaning next batch. If 2 people are now recommending Antiformin as a cleaner, then that sounds like the trick for me.

 

[gmc]

Thinking about this a bit more, a few of us have ditched bottling buckets / secondary FVs and now bottle/keg direct from the first FV. I had a series of infections 5-6 years ago and it seemed to coincide with using a secondary FV, there's got to be more risk transferring the beer twice unless it's in a closed system.

This is interesting. I am not using a secondary vessel. I am, however, transfering from the FV to a bottling bucket to to bottle from. I do this to try to leave behind as much yeast and sediment as possible and so I can mix my priming solution with the beer to get better consistency in terms of carbonation from bottle to bottle. Going direct from the FV to a keg sounds like it has advantages, but I don't have a keg. Just old fashioned bottles for bottle conditioning.