Tiny to small white particles in homebrew

Do you pour your whole bottle into the glass?

 

Generally speaking, when you carbonate in the bottle, you will get sediment so you need to pour slowly and leave the last ounce or so in the bottle.

It also helps, once carbed, to chill the bottles overnight and not disturb them. This will give the sediment a chance to drop out as the beer gets colder. Any time you agitate the bottle, you will rouse up some of the sediment.

 

The sediment you see is the dead/dormant yeast that was used to carbonate the bottle.

 

One of your pics shows some head foam on the beer, but is the beer adequately carbonated? If you bottled the beer at 38 degrees the floaties could be some of the corn sugar that has not been consumed by the yeast because they likely have gone dormant at that temp. Carbonation should be allowed to occur when the bottles are at room temp.

 

Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like yeast and possibly some break material to me. A couple tips...

- Make sure attenuation has finished and yeast have dropped reasonably clear before bottling.

- Be careful to minimize trub pickup when racking. Sacrifice some of the beer at the bottom if necessary.

 

This is absolutely true. Which is why I think people who try to "lager" in the bottle are misguided. As soon as you start pouring, you get back some of the stuff you went to great lengths (time) to get rid of. Nobody can pour well enough to avoid some of it. It's just physics.

Disclaimer: I know someone once recommended bottle lagering in BYO or Zymurgy.

 

It could be dead yeast or protein trub from your fermenter. Follow @VikeMan's advice above and do not greedily rack every last oz of beer. Adjust the height of your racking cane so it is a good inch or higher from the bottom of your fermenter. As you rack, gradually lower it, observing the tube for yeast pickup. If you start picking up trub, adjust higher.

It could be the yeast from bottle conditioning. How long have your bottles sat, and are they refrigerated? Yeast will floc out with time, cold temps may speed it up. Depending on the strain, the yeast may floc into dense, compact sediments that will stay put, or not. English yeasts are often really good floccers whereas the California ale yeast strain is not so grear.

Control the sediment when you pour. Tilt the glass gently toward your glass, as it pours, observe what the sediments are doing. If they are mobile, you'll want to shorten your pour, leaving the last oz or so in the bottle. Yeah, no one likes leaving beer behind, so you'll have to decided whether you like yeast seds in your beer even less.

 

I used to lager in the bottle before I had a kegging set-up. I recommend it to any bottler who wants to lager but doesn't want to invest in kegging equipment. You can get pretty good at avoiding the yeast. Not perfect, but adequate. Maybe these beers never win a homebrew comp because there is an easily recognized flaw, especially if judges and stewards are not careful about pouring. However, this does not have to diminish one's personal enjoyment of the style. I love a crystal clear beer that tastes great, but I love it only maginally more than a beer with floaters that tastes great.

 

It's probably not too late to take some bottles out of the fridge for 7-10 days, then re-chill and see if the carbonation is better. The floaties may drop out of suspension in the meantime too.

EDIT: your post above was written while I was composing my above response. Now I'm confused whether you added priming sugar at that 38 degree temp.

 

what temp did you heat the gelatin too.

 

Just saw this and it made me think of this thread. How long before this becomes a trend and we start getting questions about how to increase floaters in the glass?