Brewed a Southern English Brown Ale with some repitched yeast from a previous batch. I only primed it enough for 1.5 volumes of CO2, so it should be pretty mildly carbed. I tried some bottles after two weeks in priming and they had some floaters and an odd flavor I blamed on oxidation (I could have described it as cardboard, but I've never had a reference for certain), but they were appropriately carbed. Now after 4-5 weeks, the bottles are gushers (not immediate or particularly violent; I open the bottle and about 3 seconds later it swells up from the bottom and half the bottle flows out around the sides) and there's a peanut-butter like flavor. I get peanut-butter and cardboard moreso than butterscotch or popcorn - does that still sound like it could be diacetyl or is there something else that would be more peanutty? If it is pedio, will star-san deal with that or do I need to bleach everything? (I have a PET better bottle for fermenting)
Cardboard is definitely oxidation. Pictures also help, but it definitely sounds like an infection. 1:10 bleach to water is always a safe bet. Rinse excessively.
Can oxidation cause gushing? That's what I figured until gushing started. Does oxidation often accompany infection? Like the excess oxygen helped the bacteria go nuts? Does the fractal-ish fizz mean anything? I opened another to get a video of the gush. When it's warm instead of from the fridge, it's definitely a geyser.
http://morebeer.com/articles/brewing_with_lactic_acid_bacteria Bacteria (at least Pedio and Lacto) prefer lower oxygen levels, so oxidation shouldn't be a link to increased bacteria activity. How did the batch you harvested the yeast from turn out? I would definitely sanitize the carboy thoroughly in any case.
That batch tastes fine, though it's sort of cloudy (it's Burton Ale Yeast WLP023). I didn't acid wash it, just pitched it to a starter and then to the new beer (first time reusing yeast). As it happens, I had saved a portion of that starter from in between beers, and it doesn't have the off taste in it, so I don't think I introduced it that way. Is there any way to tell if the infection occurred in the carboy vs during bottling? If I had to pick a culprit, I'd be inclined to blame my racking setup, I soak my fermenter pretty thoroughly in star san but have some issue with the autosiphon, tubing, and wand.
1.7 oz brown sugar boiled in a cup of water and added to the bottling bucket with the 5 gallons of beer. It was the least priming sugar I've ever added to a batch.
It just hit me! I brewed a beer 7 years ago that even after 6 months of bottle conditioning would not rid the bad taste. My issue in this beer was the use of oxiginated hop pellets. I was very new to brewing and bought an ounce of Whitbread Goldings to finish off my ESB. I thought they smelled different but with my limited experience I thought that mabe that is what this varity is like and tossed them in. My rule of thumb is if it dont smell good it does not go in my beer! I hope you find the root of your problem! Take care.
I want to lean more towards pointing a finger at process. Premierpro mentioned oxidized hop pellets, which may be a contributing factor, but hops generally have antimicrobal properties. While I can't vouch for them when they're stale, I think that there's at least one more culprit here which lead to your infection. I'll reiterate that you should set these bottles aside and make sure you kill this stuff off before reusing these bottles. Some people rinse well and put a batch in the oven at 350 for a little while and let them cool. I'd consider this, and definitely bleach before you sanitize the bottles for your next batch. Every last one of them. 1.7 oz of brown sugar isn't much at all. There's definitely something up. It's either an infection or you didn't hit FG before bottling. If you're getting funky flavors then I'd lean towards an infection. As for oxidation, this is your wet cardboard flavor. oxygen entered the equation after your beer was mostly done fermenting or totally done fermenting. Shaking, stirring, splashing, or just too much time after fermentation can contribute to the wet cardboard. It doesn't necessarily have anything do do with your infection. I'd keep the two issues separate until you either pinpoint what you did wrong or start consistently making batches of beer that don't do this. Gushers are caused by over pressurization in the bottles. Too much fermentation by yeast or bugs while in a closed environment. Infections in bottles tend to cause this, as well as miscalculating priming sugar (not the case here) or not hitting final gravity before bottling. As for peanut butter, I'd say diacetyl. It can have a nutty flavor, but I've not tasted this first-hand. Diacetyl can be cured in the fermenter if you just let the last 10-15% of your fermentation warm up from the mid 60s to the upper 60s. If this doesn't work, and you hit final gravity, you can mix a quart of fresh wort with some of the yeast. When it hits high krausen, you can add this to the fermenter. Keep in mind that you don't want to dump, splash, slosh etc because of oxidation. So this wasn't your best beer, but I'd pull a 6er off and let them hang out for 6 months and see if it gets better. The rest is for friends, hobos, or your drain if it were me. If you're that desperate for something to drink and you can choke them down, then by all means. If you aren't enjoying them then you'll know what to do. I consider myself snooty and want my beers to be at least really good to great, elsewise they're looking at the sink or a dedicated tree out in my back yard.
I guess part of my problem is that I'm not certain it was cardboard-y oxidation and not just my brain trying to label something I couldn't identify. I've had ~10 batches that weren't oxidized and I didn't change anything in my bottling procedure. Is there a way to force oxidate a beer for comparison? If I just leave a mug of it out for a day? This was actually the first beer I did this for, I had an aquarium thermometer in a cooler full of water around the carboy. Worth a shot, maybe it will eventually sour.
Compairson would be having one in your batch not be oxidized. Keep with the controlled fermentation and check your thermometer against ice water (32F or so) and if it will read up to boiling water, do that too. (212F or so). I use frozen 2 liters along with the water and I don't try to go TOO cold with them. They get unstable around 62F and lower, so I tend to ferment around 63F and stop after about three days. A couple of 2 liters are good for about 10 hour intervals.
