I brewed a clone of Civil Society Fresh. Very clear after fermentation. Typically hazy after heavy dry hops. Two weeks of bottle conditioning and beer was noticably “purple” with a bitter finish. Any thoughts? Contaminated?
Before Bottling - before bottling.jpg - Google Drive
After Bottling - After Bottling.jpg - Google Drive
My first thought is oxidation. Doe it taste stale or like wet cardboard?
I agree it sounds oxidized but oxidation doesn’t always taste like wet cardboard.
Thanks Guys
Not wet cardboard. Somewhat of a sour / bitter flavor. Aroma is a little “stale”. Beer tasted great with great aroma before bottling.
Silly question - what would cause oxidation during a typical bottling process? I have never had this issue in 8+ years.
J
I’m not so sure about oxidation, because it was bottle conditioned, right? I think it’s yeast still in suspension. I’d wait a couple more weeks and try it again.
The purple color is suspicious to me. I had a keg of pils that was badly oxidized do that. But no way to tell for sure without seeing and tasting it.
Bottle conditioned beer is less prone to oxidation than any other beer because when done well, it starts with zero oxygen.
This said, if kept warm for a long time or cold for a much longer time, oxygen ingress through the cap will eventually oxidize the beer.
Of course, if not bottle-conditioned properly, it can happen, but that’s another topic.
I vote for contamination.
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” - Sherlock Holmes (A. Conan Doyle)
To me, the purple color and stale aroma sound like oxidation. But the sour/bitter flavor doesn’t. I’d call it an even split between the possibility of being oxidized vs being contaminated. (That way, I can’t be wrong.)
Did you guys look at the pictures? Did you see purple color? I didn’t.
I see brown, which is a very similar color I had with an oxidized NEIPA. I my case, it did have a wet cardboard aftertaste
one of you asked for the receipe.
i will agree that the color is “puplish brown”. Nothing special about brew day, dry hopping, transferring to secondary or bottling day. Some of the bottling sugar was from an open / older pack and some was newly opened. Carb level in bottles was great after two weeks. FG was on target. Beer looked and tasted great before botling (although it was uncarbonated). Everything was sanitized as usual and yes I have sucessfully bottled many NEIPA’s.
I did use a different local supply house who may have had some older products (grains and yeast).
If it did oxidize, any ideas on where / how that could have happened?
Thanks to everyone for the help
J
Did you purge the bottles with CO2 prior to filling?
Ambient air will still mix in even if you purge with CO2, just because they’re gasses and they’re constantly moving. I’ve been experimenting with capping on foam by injecting CO2 into the beer. The bubbles are filled with CO2, and the bubbles hold the CO2 in place while you cap.
I’m sure there are opportunities to do something more elegant, but I just picked up a Harbor Freight air gun which has a rubber tip. https://www.harborfreight.com/blow-gun-with-safety-tip-and-rubber-tip-63577.html
I found a coffee stirrer (basically just a thin, stiff straw) that I can fit into the nozzle. Hook the gun up to CO2, fill the bottle with beer, stick the sanitized stirrer into beer and produce bubbles, then cap.
This makes large bubbles which disappear fairly quickly and would probably work tons better with an air stone. But as a proof of concept, this has been effective on the two beers I’ve tried it with so far.
Can Brewtan B be introduced just prior to dry hopping to chelate metals?
All Columbus hops? That seems to be an generalization
I’ve done this a few times after reading about the possibility of dry hops adding metal ions to solution. I didn’t notice any difference, so I stopped doing that. Either the problem didn’t exist in my beers, or the effects are too subtle to notice.
FWIW, BTB can actually be the cause of purple coloration. Gallotannin picks up a blue or purple tint when it reacts with metal ions (iron gall ink is an example of this). I see it pretty commonly after my treated mash water sits for the night. Thankfully, that coloration has never carried through to my final beers, but it is pretty strange to see.
I am not sure whether this is related to your problem, but monophenols can also contribute to a greyish purple color, astringency, and premature oxidation, even in bottle conditioned beers. See the following article: Fear of Phenols | MoreBeer. The article highlights many sources for monophenols in the brewing process.
Our problem seemed to be our water. We use carbon-filtered municipal (river-sourced) water that is very alkaline (pH ~ 10) and early in homebrewing I found that many of my lighter beers became quickly oxidized after bottling and developed a “purple haze.” I always pH’ed my mash and adjusted accordingly, but never adjusted my sparge water. After some troubleshooting, I suspected that the high pH was at least part of the issue and started adding acid to my sparge water, and this problem largely went away. My two cents…
Chalk one up for the old advice to acidify the sparge water to less than a pH of 6 to minimize tannin/polyphenol extraction in the sparge.
Did I just say chalk? 