crown codes

I've posted about bottling before, and in that post I mentioned the idea that each bottle can become its own world, with the contents of that bottle following a unique path that won't necessarily replicate the path of the other bottles. For example, in every batch of beer I bottle, I seem to end up with varying levels of carbonation--some fizzier than others, no two exactly alike. It's likely that these differences result from different amounts of priming sugar entering each bottle--I add a specified amount of priming sugar to the fermenter just before bottling, but that sugar doesn't necessarily disperse perfectly evenly. It's also likely that different bottles end up with different amounts of time to condition--I keep my bottles in an 75 degree Fahrenheit basement, and throw them in the fridge a half dozen at a time, so the last half dozen to leave fermentable temperatures for the yeast-numbing fridge temps might have had an extra month or two of time for the yeast to build CO2.

Recently I finished bottling another batch of my Southern Breakfast Stout, and I realized that I've developed an esoteric sort of coding system for the crowns, in hopes of giving me a hint of how the beer in the bottle will turn out. I think it's interesting when new information--like the meaning of the marks I put on a bottle's cap--sort of develops out of its own volition. In the picture above you get a hint of what I mean by coding. Every bottle in the shot comes from the same batch, but you've got three different types of cap markings:

SB: On every bottle, stands for Southern Breakfast. Most homebrewers probably initial their caps, in order to tell the beers apart once you've got selections from several brews sitting side by side. I certainly do.

SB underlined: I didn't sanitize enough crowns for the batch--I had a second pile of crowns that I forgot to throw in boiling water for a quick pasteurization. I could have left the bottles open while I brought more water to a boil, and threw the extra caps in, but I didn't bother. I just capped the bottles with unsanitized crowns, and marked those crowns by underlining the SB. If something goes wrong with those bottles, I'll have one possible reason why.

SB starred: Usually, at the end of a bottling session, you end up with a bottle that isn't completely filled. Oftentimes I'll try to top this bottle up by pouring some of the dregs from the bottom of the fermenter into it manually. Extra yeast and sediment, more potential oxygenation, and an abnormal level of liquid. I drink it anyway, but I mark it with a star to know which bottle it is.

wild yeast infections

I've lived in Hawaii for about a year now, and during that time I've brewed about a dozen beers. Of those dozen beers, at least three started out lovely, and then developed problems after a few months in bottles. The most persistent problem I've had has been extreme overcarbonation, leading to gushing when the bottles are opened, or even reaching levels that cause the bottles to explode. I brewed a few dozen batches of beer back in San Francisco before moving here, and never had this problem there, so I started thinking it must have something to do with the climate in Hawaii.

My thoughts about the cause of this over-carbonation have developed over time. The first beer to over carbonate was my Lilikoi Amber, and the first theory I came up with was the addition of lilikoi juice in secondary fermentation shocked the yeast into temporary inactivity, and then, when the beer had gone into bottles, the yeast recovered from its shock and started fermenting the new lilikoi sugars. For a while I was convinced this was the answer. But then a bottle of a different beer--without lilikoi--exploded.

The next theory I came up with was that the priming sugar I was using--regular old table sugar--was resulting in more vigorous bottle-conditioning than the refined dextrose sugar you buy at the brew shop. And so I switched back to dextrose for a batch... and had the same problem develop.

Another thought was that the warm fermentation temperatures were responsible. A lot of the beers I brew use English style yeasts that prefer fermentation temperatures in the mid 60s. The coldest I've been able to keep my fermenters here has been closer to 72 degrees. And so I decided to try a Belgian yeast known for enjoying fermentation temperatures in the mid 70s. The beer turned out great, but the few bottles I have left are turning into gushers too.

So the over-carbonation problem doesn't result exclusively from using lilikoi juice, or table sugar, or from having yeast-strains that react badly to Hawaii's warm climate. All of those things might be contributing, but the crux of the biscuit is probably something else.

My new theory is one of the first ones presented to me, by my friend Danny (of Deeper Roots brewing). It's also the main theory that shows up in the "trouble-shooting sections" at the back of basic homebrewing books, and it's the theory offered by most of the beer judges who sampled my gusher entry to this year's Longshot Competition. Being that it's the first theory often presented, of course I ignored it until now.

What's the theory: wild yeast.

I brew outside, in the open air, at the back of Palolo Valley. Palolo Valley is a lush place, with lots of rainfall and lots of dense, jungle-like vegetation. The air is thick with life, probably literally.

For many of the beers I've brewed here, I finished the process by hand-ladling the cooled wort from the kettle to the fermenter, and I did this out in the open air. On several occasions I had a breeze kick up during this part of the process. Usually the breezes here are a welcome relief, but when you're out in the open with five gallons of highly fermentable liquid, the feel of the wind blowing over you--and the thought of all the invisible yeast spores it carries--is pretty disheartening.

So, in hopes of addressing this problem, I'm trying to limit my wort's exposure to the breeze. With the last batch I brewed I erected a wind-block (as shown in the picture above), kept the kettle lid on during cooling, and transferred the cooled wort to the fermenter while indoors. Chances are I won't know if it worked until three months after putting the beer in bottles--in the experience I've had here so far, all the beers seemed fine at first, and then started gushing after a few months capped--but if I still have overcarbonation problems, I might try using Campden tablets.

Does anybody else have any other suggestions? Feel free to leave them in the comments section.

LongShot 2013 Results

Back in May I submitted one of my Lilikoi Amber beers to the Samuel Adams LongShot Homebrew Contest, and I've finally got my results. As I discovered in July, that batch of beer turned into a bunch of gushers, so I didn't have high hopes for how my beer would measure up. The judges confirmed that every bottle gushed, but I didn't get slammed as bad as I feared I would, and in the end I'm considering this a positive experience. This is the first homebrew contest I've ever entered, and though I don't have plans of entering another anytime soon, I did find it interesting to hear what the judges had to say. Here are some of the highlights:

Judge 1: "Not as bad as I thought it would be considering the explosion out of the bottle. It did have some slight sourness and plastic-like flavors, but not overwhelming. Watch infection especially with fruit... The passion fruit did come through which was nice and a little surprising." Result: 22/50

Judge 2: "Very distant pilsner malt sweetness with no detectable hop. Remote hint of strawberry. Fleeting breadlike malt aroma emerged with warming, as did tartlike acidity. Persistent off-white finely beaded head. Dry lightly tart/fruit character sits on top of a smooth Brett character." Result: 25/50

Judge 3: "Kept fermenting in the bottle and I think the low alcohol made it susceptable to infection from wild yeast from the passionfruit. Try waiting until beer is finished fermenting and add in the passion fruit with higher alcohol or buy passionfruit that is from concentrate to avoid wild yeast." Result: 23/50

Judge 4: "Faint caramel malt aromas. Maybe some citrusy (grapefruity) hop aroma, and a big passionfruit - sweet scented... Light amber color - a little cloudy with a long-standing ivory head of very fine bubbles... finishes dry with a strange heat... This may have been a really good beer--it seems like a good idea anyway, but there is a wild yeast or bacteria in this bottle that is killing the goodness." Result 28/50

Another interesting aspect was the sense of personality revealed by each judge's comments, and the ways those comments differed. For example, Judge 4 described the beer as "light amber" in color, while Judge 3 called it "dark amber"; and Judges 2 and 4 considered the head-retention to be "persistent/long-standing", but Judge 1 thought the head-retention only "decent", and Judge 3 said it "went flat fast" and seemed "lifeless".