Membership questions? Log in issues? Email info@brewersassociation.org

Author Topic: New Carbonation Issues For Me  (Read 9258 times)

Offline patrickswayze

  • Cellarman
  • **
  • Posts: 43
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #15 on: May 14, 2012, 01:35:49 pm »
How can contamination have that much of an effect?

Wild yeasts/bacteria can ferment out more complex sugars than brewers strains can. It doesnt take much brettanomyces or whatever else to ferment out beer from 1.010 to 1.001. Thats quite a bit of co2 being generated in that little bottle.

But brett would put off specfic flavor i assume right? My beers don't have any off flavors besides being over carbonated.

Offline jmcamerlengo

  • Brewmaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 625
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #16 on: May 14, 2012, 01:46:08 pm »
How can contamination have that much of an effect?

Wild yeasts/bacteria can ferment out more complex sugars than brewers strains can. It doesnt take much brettanomyces or whatever else to ferment out beer from 1.010 to 1.001. Thats quite a bit of co2 being generated in that little bottle.

But brett would put off specfic flavor i assume right? My beers don't have any off flavors besides being over carbonated.

Not necessarily. Time is a factor here. How long have they been in bottles? It can take months before you notice any real distinguishing characteristics from Brett. Also considering that its such a small amount of sugar its fermenting there may be negligible flavor effects, especially after a short period of time.

Say you do an all Brett beer, no yeast introduced, the beer will have Brett character at a young age, however the character of that can be more or less pronounced, or a completely different type of flavor all together, depending on the pH of the beer/wort.

If you do a beer fermented with a primary yeast strain then add Brett to the secondary intentionally the character of the Brett will be much more subtle.

Also consider that Brett is only one of many "bugs" and one of the more flavor pronounced ones at that in most cases. Other things like Lactobacillus dont have much flavor at all, they just sour the beer over time for the most part...taste a Berliner Weisse thats a month old and one thats 3 months old, big difference!

If I were you I would keep a bottle or 2 of this beer and tuck it away for a couple months, then try and drink some. You may notice an off flavor that isnt there now.

Jason
-Head Brewer, Brewtus Brewers in the Shenango Valley. Hopefully opening a brewpub/nano brewery in the next couple years.

Offline patrickswayze

  • Cellarman
  • **
  • Posts: 43
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #17 on: May 14, 2012, 01:52:04 pm »
Thanks i really appreciate it, so what would be the best approach to cleaning my equipment. All i have is star san and i would like to ensure that i clear off any infection from my equipement. By the wasy i use plastic buckets but i usually leave them with star san in them for a day before i use.

Offline jmcamerlengo

  • Brewmaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 625
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2012, 02:14:51 pm »
Thanks i really appreciate it, so what would be the best approach to cleaning my equipment. All i have is star san and i would like to ensure that i clear off any infection from my equipement. By the wasy i use plastic buckets but i usually leave them with star san in them for a day before i use.

Plastic buckets are fine, but they do scratch easily. So be very careful when cleaning.

I know of a lot of brewers who replace plastic buckets every so many brews to protect against this.

Also cleaning and sanitizing are different! Star San is useless if youre equipment isnt clean. I personally use PBW to clean, and Star San to sanitize. Oxi Clean also works well for cleaning. Things like valves on bottling buckets should be disassembled and soaked in a warm(110-140F) cleaning solution to remove any debris. Then that should be soaked in Star San. Star San works quickly, recommended contact time is 3 minutes, but 30 seconds is actually enough to kill.

Make sure your stuff is clean before you sanitize. You saying all that you have is Star San is making me sway toward thinking infection is indeed your issue. and youre very welcome, being a homebrewer is all about helping out fellow brewers!
Jason
-Head Brewer, Brewtus Brewers in the Shenango Valley. Hopefully opening a brewpub/nano brewery in the next couple years.

Offline nateo

  • Brewmaster General
  • *******
  • Posts: 2336
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2012, 02:31:04 pm »
I'll use a bleach-water-vinegar solution every fourth or fifth batch, to minimize risk of developing star-san resistant bugs.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/fratermus/experiment-bwv-bleach-water-vinegar-no-rinse-sanitizer-262/
In der Kürze liegt die Würze.

Offline patrickswayze

  • Cellarman
  • **
  • Posts: 43
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2012, 02:50:27 pm »
A couple last questions, is PBW alright to use with plastic? Also if say i wanted to reuse my bottles from that batch would you soak those in PBW also then sanitize, or would you recommend using completely different bottles?

Offline Slowbrew

  • I spend way too much time on the AHA forum
  • ********
  • Posts: 2857
  • The Slowly Losing IT Brewery in Urbandale, IA
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2012, 03:06:20 pm »
A couple last questions, is PBW alright to use with plastic? Also if say i wanted to reuse my bottles from that batch would you soak those in PBW also then sanitize, or would you recommend using completely different bottles?

PBW is fine on plastic. 

As long as your bottles and clean and sanitized (I'm assuming glass) there should not be any infection carryover from one batch to the next.  If you are using plastic bottles of some kind you should still be able to use them unless they have scratches that could harbor an infection.

From what I've read in this thread it doesn't sound like and infection to me though.  To me it seems like a keg I have on tap right now that servers all foam.  I can guarantee my problem is too many sugars available when I kegged it.  I was rushed and made assumptions about it being done and SWAGed the amount of priming sugar.  The beer tastes great it just takes 10 minutes to pour a glass.  8^(

Paul
Where the heck are we going?  And what's with this hand basket?

Offline nateo

  • Brewmaster General
  • *******
  • Posts: 2336
Re: New Carbonation Issues For Me
« Reply #22 on: May 15, 2012, 05:13:57 am »
From the description the OP gave, I don't think it's likely that it's just overcarbed. Are any of your bottles exploding? At 5 volumes, my beer will foam slowly and creep out of the neck like the OP is describing. The more clear the beer, the slower the creep. At 5 volumes, in normal bottles, one of them probably would've exploded by now. At 5 volumes the CO2 being released when I open the bottle frosts the lip. Do you notice that happening?

My conjecture is that infected bottles, in addition to increasing the CO2 volume, also have increased turbidity, which creates nucleation sites, which creates foaming over.
In der Kürze liegt die Würze.