A work buddy of mine lost his racking cane, and couldn’t get his siphon going without it, so he decided to decant his beer out of the fermentor into the bottling bucket. He gave me a couple of bottles to sample. It’s a raspberry ale of some sort. It is cloudy, but it doesn’t seem to hurt the taste - would this cloudiness be cold break proteins or just gunk from the trub? Also, the beer is overly fizzy. No bottles exploded, but it makes a head in the bottle when you open it, and creates quite a head in the glass. What would be the cause of this? Too much priming sugar? Incomplete fermentation prior to bottling?
EDIT: Forgot to mention the beer tasted somewhat strongly of alcohol, but I don’t think his gravity was off.
Yeah, the oxidation will cause the beer to go bad very soon. Not due to infection, but due to oxidation and staling. Drink it quick! And always rack the beer, never “pour”. That’s a really bad move.
From the thread title I thought he was in the fermenter. Yeah it’s generally considered a bad move to “pour” your precious brew and aerate it a second time after fermentation.
However, if it tastes good then drink it up quick! It’s not one for cellaring now.
Overcarbonation will cause haziness when the bubbles drag yeast off the bottom. Could also be a wheat beer, raspberry beers are commonly done on a wheat style and wheats are typically cloudy. Strong alcohol taste might come from fermenting too warm. Not sure decanting is going to destroy the beer either.
