First Brew Been Bottled 12 Days...specks Floating In It

[Truman42]

My first brew a Cascade Mahogany chocolate Porter has been bottled for 12 days now and I lifted one up to have a look at it and noticed all these particles floating around in it. They looked similar to what the yeast actually looks like straight out of the packet. Or small grains of sand.
Another explanation would be when your kids throws back after having a sip of your drink and you end up with floaties in it. Well you get the picture anyway.

Is this normal or do I have problems? I opened one after a week and although still flat tasted very good, even the missus liked it.

 

[MaltyHops]

Do they look like the photo below? (from THIS post).

 

[Truman42]

A little bit like the one on the right. In my larger 700ml plastic Coopers bottles they seem really clear, its only some of the stubbies that seem to have these specks.

 

[Truman42]

I opened a stubby and tried to get a picture of it in a glass. My beer doesnt have much in the way of carbonation and also seems very bitter, but at the same time doesnt seem to tingle on the tongue if you know what Im talking about? Is that just due to the lack of carbonation?

Here's a photo that sort of shows the particles.

Heres a shot of my brew in the glass. How does it look???

 

[bob58]

Looks like the yeast is still settling down

 

[MaltyHops]

Your second pix looks like the beer has a fair bit of carbonation - or
did you pour with a lot of sloshing in the bottle? (which would stir up
a the bottle conditioning yeast).

> its only some of the stubbies that seem to have these specks.

How did you clean these stubbies? Do you remember having cleaned
them until they were spotless? Perhaps I tend to the paranoid side but
I wonder if there may have been some deposits in these bottles that
didn't get cleaned off and are now flaking off? This could mean the
possibility of bottle infection - you mentioned the beer tasted very
bitter - is it more bitter than the other bottles that don't have these
floaties?

With bottle infections, bacteria may be present that can ferment sugars
in beer that are not fermentable by yeast. Bitterness can be balanced
by sweetness so if your kit was designed to have a certain amount of
sweetness remaining (after the yeast has fermented all the sugars that
they can ferment) to balance the level of bitterness, then a bottle
infection will take out some of the remaining sugar, making the
bitterness more noticeable.

As well as not tasting good, bottle infections will cause "gushers" where
the bottle will just gush and gush when you open it and worst of all
generate a lot more CO2 in the bottle than intended and create bottle
bombs.

I think if the affected beers don't taste too bad or off at the moment,
might be good to either drink them now or store them in strong water
proof boxes in an out of the way location (wear safety glasses when
handling them) h34r: .

T.

 

[Truman42]

When opening the bottle it created that familiar hiss you get from normal beer and a slight vapour rising out of it. No gushing at all.
It poured really well and the large head was created by me lifting the stubbie too high out of the glass. When I hold the glass up to the light I can see one or two tiny bubbles rising but nowhere near what you usually see in a glass of beer.

I washed and rinsed every stubbie after drinking it and then sanitised each one before bottling. I didn't use a bottle brush but made sure I couldn't see any deposits in the bottles.
I've only opened the one so cant compare taste.

When I brewed after a few days my temps got down around 14-16C maybe rising to 18 during the day and the fermenting slowed right down. On days 11-15 I had the same SG 1014 so I decided to just bottle. Could I have been to hasty?

It tasted alright apart from the lack of carbonation. Theyve been bottled for 13 days now, should I wait another two weeks?

 

[Shed101]

Theyve been bottled for 13 days now, should I wait another two weeks?

Very light looking for a porter, but looks tasty enough.

Waiting another couple of weeks won't hurt at all, especially if it's cool where you are.

What did you carbonate with - drops? Sugar?

 

[bignath]

When opening the bottle it created that familiar hiss you get from normal beer and a slight vapour rising out of it. No gushing at all.
It poured really well and the large head was created by me lifting the stubbie too high out of the glass. When I hold the glass up to the light I can see one or two tiny bubbles rising but nowhere near what you usually see in a glass of beer.

snip...

It tasted alright apart from the lack of carbonation.

This is gonna sound really stupid, but hear me out....

A long time ago before i moved into kegging, i was doing a tonne of reading up on it, about carbonation, about balancing systems, line length, pressure etc... and came across a post that indicated that it was completely possible to have overcarbonated beer without any bubbles at all. Not sure where i read it now, or who posted it, but there were four ultimately possible scenarios of carbonation the poster listed.

something like:

Beer can be carbonated with bubbles.
beer can be overcarbonated with bubbles
beer can be undercarbonated without bubbles
beer can be overcarbonated without bubbles

or something like that anyway. I wonder if similar principles are at play here. If you got a good pour, to me that indicates that it may be carbed, but just have a different mouthfeel do to the lack of perceived bubbles - could actually be overcarbed.....

Not saying this is technically accurate, as i'm not really a big technical brewer. I do know that whoever posted it was a technically minded brewer, and made sound arguments to back up the claims. Not sure if it only applies to kegs (quite possibly actually). I have experienced it myself, getting a nice tight 15-20mm head on my glass from a keg and then the bubbles disappear real quick, but the head and lacing stay all the way through the glass. I suspect for this to happen in bottled stock, you may blow bottles before this scenario occurs though...

Just putting it out there so that someone more technically minded see's it and can either shed some more light, or either confirm what i read years ago
(or completely shoot the shit out of it!!!)

Two that come to mind in particular that are good with the tech stuff are Thirsty Boy and MHB. See if they chime in....

 

[MaltyHops]

On days 11-15 I had the same SG 1014 so I decided to just bottle. Could I have been to hasty?

If you're a kegger or you know your brewing really well, probably no but if bottling
in glass, it's a good idea when you think fermentation has finished to check the SG
levels a few time over a few days that they remain the same - doesn't hurt to leave
beer on the yeast for a week or two after fermentation has finished (can be good for
the beer actually but understand the urge to speed things up when just starting out
brewing).

You don't want to bottle beer that still has several SG points to drop along with the
estimated amount of required priming sugar added - you will end up with a higher
CO2 level generated in your bottles. Need to accept that the level of CO2 safely
achievable in bottles wont be as high as kegs or commercial beer makers who have
very high levels of control.

I washed and rinsed every stubbie after drinking it and then sanitised each one before
bottling. I didn't use a bottle brush but made sure I couldn't see any deposits in the
bottles. I've only opened the one so cant compare taste.

Were these stubbies filled with beer near the end of the batch? Probably higher levels of
yeast in that case. If the floaties are just yeast, they should settle, esp when they've been
in the fridge for a while, then just pour from the bottle gently to avoid stirring them up
too much.

T.

 

[Truman42]

Very light looking for a porter, but looks tasty enough.

Waiting another couple of weeks won't hurt at all, especially if it's cool where you are.

What did you carbonate with - drops? Sugar?

Yeh why is it so light for a Porter I only used 20 litres of water instead of 23 and added LME?

I used brown raw sugar to carbonate with and only put in slightly less than the mark on my sugar scoop (The double headed thingy you get from LBS.)

 

[Truman42]

If you're a kegger or you know your brewing really well, probably no but if bottling
in glass, it's a good idea when you think fermentation has finished to check the SG
levels a few time over a few days that they remain the same - doesn't hurt to leave
beer on the yeast for a week or two after fermentation has finished (can be good for
the beer actually but understand the urge to speed things up when just starting out
brewing).

You don't want to bottle beer that still has several SG points to drop along with the
estimated amount of required priming sugar added - you will end up with a higher
CO2 level generated in your bottles. Need to accept that the level of CO2 safely
achievable in bottles wont be as high as kegs or commercial beer makers who have
very high levels of control.


Were these stubbies filled with beer near the end of the batch? Probably higher levels of
yeast in that case. If the floaties are just yeast, they should settle, esp when they've been
in the fridge for a while, then just pour from the bottle gently to avoid stirring them up
too much.

T.

I checked the Sg on days 11, 12, 13 ,14 and 15 not just 11 and 15 and the Sg stayed the same the whole time so thats why I bottled.

The plastic bottles were filled last and they seem to be the ones that are okay and dont have the floaties.
I think all I can do is just leave it for another week and see how it looks and tastes then.

 

[Truman42]

I put all of these bottles into the fridge yesterday and opened one to sample it. I must admit the "Twang" that was there isnt as noticeable and the specks seem to be gone in the ones I looked at. Also it has darkened up and looks more like a chocolate porter than it did before with its orange colour.

Is that normal for beers to darken with age like that if they are supposed to be a dark coloured beer?