[denny]

A whole week in oxyclean?  Does oxyclean continue to work after a few days?

I'd be a bit concerned about the possibility of mold forming after that long.

[thirsty]

Replacing all your equipment probably can't hurt but... When I bottle I frequently notice different levels of carbonation as time goes by. The beer tastes the same, but sometimes a batch will be more foamy for the last few bottles. The thing with bottle carbing is that it's usually not quite the exact science that kegging kind of is. I find this happens more often in winter when the inside temperature swings around a bit more and the bottles take longer to carb. There are so many variables to bottling that you may want to think about. How did you measure the sugar, How much yeast got into the bottling bucket, the ambient temp of the room where the bottles are stored etc etc. All I'm saying is that it may be a carbing quirk and not an infection.

[Steve L]

The batch in question didn't have what I considered a 'blatantly obvious' infection. It just seemed to go crazy on the carbonation at a point (2 months post bottling) that I did not expect. It also gained what I considered an off, somewhat metallic flavor that wasn't the flavor I had ben getting. Interestingly enough, it was the 2nd in a series of 3 test batches of the Northern Brown style. The first was an extract w/specialty grains, second was all grain and the third was bottled today, an all grain with a bit higher amount of specialty grains and liquid yeast. The first 2 used the same fermentation, yeast (notty) and carb level. Batch one turned out nice and has not exhibited any unusual activity. the second one started out OK up to 6 weeks post bottling but then started the excess foaming. I still have a few bottles of batch 1 that are good. If anything has come of this, it has pushed me to a new cleaning/sanitation regime. If it touches my wort/beer on the cool side, it gets PBW/oxyclean post use and a good soak in Starsan prior to use.

[reverseapachemaster]

I vote for clean and sanitize the equipment. I use my bottling equipment for sour and non-sour beer and do not have crossover infections.

Ok, then advise as to your cleaning and sanitizing routine - prolonged PBW soak?

Really nothing unusual, except maybe a longer soak.

As soon as I finish bottling whatever I'm bottling I immediately get in and start cleaning. It's far easier to get everything clean while it's still wet. There's no time for brett to cough up a biofilm and hide itself. Hot water rinse and if there is visible debris on/in the equipment then I scrub with a soft sponge or for my one gallon glass jugs I use a bottle brush. Soap is used if there's a lot of debris. Then rinse several times, fill with hot water and mix in oxyclean. I let it soak for a week and then dump, rinse several times and let dry. Then I sanitize with starsan before the next use.

Some comments above discussed possible infections in the bottles. That is certainly likely although I would compare infected bottles side by side and see how similar the infection is in taste and aroma. I would be surprised if an entire collection of 40 or whatever number of bottles had the exact same wild yeast or bacteria.

A whole week in oxyclean?  Does oxyclean continue to work after a few days?

The company that produces oxyclean says it stays effective for six hours but from watching it remove stains in buckets I find it takes more than six hours to remove the stain and seems to continue to work for several days. I might be overdoing it with cleaning after bottling sour beer but I haven't had a problem letting the bottling bucket and bottling equipment soak that long. Definitely no mold problems.

[flbrewer]

We takes zee money.


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