Bad batch

[dannyboy58]

@grainbelt

[quote=“dannyboy58”][quote=“grainbelt”]cracks in auto siphone and racking canes are tough to see, you have to hold up to light look closly and turn it while you are looking. Everyone I have seen that people say there are no cracks are FULL of hairline cracks. Not saying this is your issue but it could be

There were without a doubt cracks in my auto siphon. I bought a new one yesterday and a new length of tubing as well. Better safe than sorry(er).

If this turns out to be a sanitation issue due to my auto siphon then I just fixed it and I’ll be happy. Otherwise I’m stumped.

I have two beers in fermenters right now and I’m a bit anxious over whether they’ll show the same off flavor.

Obviously I’ll be examining if not adapting my processes in the next few brews with regard to sanitation, yeast harvesting, starter building, and hot side aeration. Not sure I’ll be storing starsan for as long as I have been.[/quote]

you could have yeast issue to, but if this is happening to all beers I would think sanitation first[/quote]

My current belief is that I was using some old star san that may have outlived it’s usefulness when I kegged the first of these now 3 “brews gone bad”. Not only did I use it when keggng that ESB but probably also used it when saving yeast slurry from that and 1 or 2 other beers including the denny’s fav 50 I saved for the amber ale I just dumped.

So when I question the viability of the yeast it’s more from a sanitation perspective.

Yesterday I checked the OG of a porter I brewed 1/4. This was fermented with a new smack pack and everything was sanitized with new star san. It has none of the green apple odor and it tastes fine. I’ll likely keg it in a week or so. I’m in no hurry at this point.

I have a red ale in the fermenter that used one of my slurries to ferment so I’m interested to see how it turns out. That slurry was probably harvested around the time of the questionable star san.

Has anyone ever heard of a bad bottle of star san? I looked for an expiration date on my bottle and didn’t see anything. Can’t remember if I got this bottle from NB, LHBS or amazon.com…

SilentKnyght, No reason not to wait longer except that those were timelines that had worked for me with those beers in the past and I was trying to get some in the keg for a family event. I usually agree patience makes the best beer.

Good suggestion regarding bottling half except that I hate bottling. haha…and as you can see above I’ve kind of ruled out the original idea that this was a kegging issue since the amber was bad coming out of the fermenter.

[beersk]

[quote=“Silentknyght”][quote=“Beersk”]If I were you I’d stop quick carbing by rolling the kegs and check your gas lines to see if any beer got up in there, to be sure. Otherwise, cracks in the autosiphon might be your culprit.
My issue was beers turning butterscotchy. But I imagine it can show its ugly head in many forms. Silentknighty was having dms infections from a nasty gas disconnect.[/quote]

Yep. Mine was my QD. My autosiphon was blamed, but I still use it, and it’s fine. (It has no visible cracks, though).

I cleaned the inside of my kegs each time, but also hadn’t ever cleaned the lid PRV before. That was new, and something I’ll continue to do in the future.[/quote]
Really? Does beer ever get up into the PRV? I don’t know why that’d make any difference. I was thinking today that I never really clean my lid o-rings, just rinse them after each keg and spray with starsan before sealing the keg. I figure it doesn’t make a difference since the beer never touches them.

I just ordered all new gas side equipment. Tired of always wondering if an off flavor is from my gas equipment and took as an opportunity to upgrade to a 4 way manifold and dual pressure regulator.

[dannyboy58]

Kegged the porter that I brewed 1/4. OG has been constant at 1.016. No sour apple odor, tastes good, looks clear.

If it were hot side aeration as Pietro suggested this one should begin to exhibit the same symptoms soon because I began stirring as soon as the chiller was started and the flame was out. Still something to keep an eye on I guess.

My beers are pretty clear. I use irish moss in most and try to chill rapidly. I use well water and it’s usually in the low 50s but stirring significantly reduces the time it takes to get below 100.

That’s one thing I noticed with the 3 bad batches. They all looked very cloudy/hazy. My beers generally drop clear after a couple days in the keg.

I used a fresh batch of starsan when sanitizing all my equipment on the porter and pitched with a 1.5L starter of a new Wy 1272. Any required sanitizing was done with the same new starsan.

It’s quite possible at one stage or another I harvested and saved slurry, made starters and/or began fermentation with unsanitized equipment on 3 beers.

I’m sure some people will say they’ve used starsan for a long time without problem. Mine was about 5 months old, my water has a high pH to begin with and I’ve never tested the pH of the star san. It’s pretty cheap insurance so I’m making fresh starsan more often and getting some pH test strips.

Now I have to look at my yeast harvest dates and determine which ones I should toss…maybe I’ll just toss them all and start over.

Thought I had my processes dialed in and I was making good beer…the devil as they say is in the details…

[pietro]

[quote=“dannyboy58”]

I’m sure some people will say they’ve used starsan for a long time without problem. Mine was about 5 months old, my water has a high pH to begin with and I’ve never tested the pH of the star san. [/quote]

Not sure how I missed this the first go-round. My understanding is that if mixed/diluted, Starsan starts to lose efficacy after about 3 weeks.

[loopie_beer]

Star San will actually remain effective as long as the pH remains at 3 or below.

[grainbelt]

@Loopie Beer

Star San will actually remain effective as long as the pH remains at 3 or below.

Always use distilled with star San. It will last for quite a while.
If your water is bad the normal required amount may not even bring the ph down far enough to effectively sanitize with your first use.

[dannyboy58]

So this sad saga continues…

I thought I had isolated the problem to a bad batch of starsan back in the first weeks of December. I just dumped a red ale after a week or so in the keg and I thought it was the last victim due to it’s yeast having been harvested and stored using the bad starsan.

I have been drinking a porter that I brewed after replacing the starsan and using fresh store bought yeast.

Yesterday I took a gravity reading from a batch of Denny’s Amber Ale, brewed with new starsan and store bought yeast. I expected this one to be fine. I was surprised the reading was no lower than 1.022 after almost 3 weeks in the fermenter. One whiff and I knew it was not good. The taste confirmed it. Little to no hop aroma, musty odor and taste and astringent aftertaste. All confirmed by the BJCP certified judge at my LHBS. After talking about my process he feels like it may have sprung from an airborne bacteria since I’ve been so careful with my cleaning and sanitation.

I have been having issues with a sewage ejector pump and have had sewage odors in the basement off and on for a few months but I never suspected this odor could be contributing to my brewing issues. The pump is being replaced and my septic tank is being pumped out this Friday.

So my brewing is on hiatus until I can somehow regain confidence that the air in my basement is not going to infect future brews.

I’ll definitely replace all my tubing and plastics before I go back to brewing. This has been really frustrating. This is the 5th batch I’ve dumped since mid-December and I have 2 fermenting that I brewed in the last week.

Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this before?

[cain]

Dannyboy,

I tried to PM you this question, but I don’t have a clue if I did it correctly, so please forgive me if I am repeating myself…

Did you ever figure out what the cause of your green apple odor was? If so, what was the remedy? Thank you.

[grainbelt]

You probably just have scratch infected equipment replace all soft stuff. Wveryhing not just this or that everything

[dannyboy58]

[quote=“Cain”]Dannyboy,

I tried to PM you this question, but I don’t have a clue if I did it correctly, so please forgive me if I am repeating myself…

Did you ever figure out what the cause of your green apple odor was? If so, what was the remedy? Thank you.[/quote]

At my age remembering what I had for breakfast is hard…You’re asking about almost a year ago… :lol:

In retrospect I still believe all the bad batches were traced back to the use of old cloudy dirty starsan on a day when I brewed, kegged, harvested yeast, etc. Then I think it infected an auto siphon, tubing, funnel and perhaps even a double mesh strainer.

I replaced all the plastics as others recommended. Then I think I may have contaminated the new auto siphon with a batch I thought would be clean but had been pitched with yeast that was infected. I replaced that auto siphon and a funnel and since that time have no issues.

If I recall correctly these were all fermented in glass so a scratched bucket could not have been the culprit.

I also at this point believe I may have prematurely tossed one batch due to a green apple aroma. I think it would have been fine if I’d let it age out. Never dump a beer before giving the benefit of a little conditioning. Sometimes we taste what our mind thinks is there when it’s really just a young beer with yeast still in suspension.

edit: BTW…I didn’t receive the PM or I would have responded.