Keg beer good bottled beer bad

[Andrew Phillips]

Thank God my brewing journey began with with kegging! If I'd started with bottling my career would have been still-born.

Why does bottling give such poor results as opposed to kegging?

Essentially my bottling experience come from bottling the remains of the fermented wort after having first transferred the bulk into a corny keg.

The bottles are prepared by boiling and rinsing with starsan or Sodium metabisulphite so I'm guessing that they are clean.

I add a quarter teaspoon of sugar (store bought, refined) to assist with the secondary fermentation and I'm picking that this is where the problem lies.

The bottled conditioned beer is over gassed and generally sour to the taste.

Any suggestions? Should I leave out the additional sugar or with the beer just die in the bottle?

[Des Ross]

Hi Andrew. A couple of points.....from my experience, and like you I bottle the 5-6L that remains after transferring the majority to my keg, there is only a very subtle difference in flavours between the too products when dispensed. There are some provisos however...first, bottle or cap sanitation ( you seem to have this covered) second, contamination of the bottle filling apparatus or hands when bottling, third, too much splashing or agitation when filling the bottles (causing oxygen pickup = oxidation issues.) if using 745ml bottles , 1/4 t.sp sugar would give you an under carbonated beer unless there were still unfermented sugars remaining ..eg the beer hadn't completely fermented. You might not notice this in the keg except for cloudiness in the first few pints! Over carbonation sounds to me like the beer was bottled a little early. Hydrometer readings generally need to remain stable over 3-5 days and the beer showing obvious clearing before safely bottling and for the 745 bottle size, I never go above 1 level tea spoon...never had a problem with over carbing.
With some high abv and highly hopped beers, age in the bottle definitely can alter taste but this does not seem to be the situation in your case. The sourness does sound like a contamination or oxidation issue. Make sure you have your filling tube/wand right on the bottom of the bottle when filling to avoid splashing, try not to introduce yeast sediment and don't shake it after capping. Hope this helps.

[Andrew Phillips]

'morning Des

Thanks for your prompt response...I think you nailed it in your final paragraph, re oxidation and shaking after capping. I'll be more careful next time.

[Julian Melville]

I rack to a bottling bucket and stir in the priming sugar there, boiled in a bit of water to make sure it's sanitised. Needs a good stir too, to guarantee mixing. If you check out one of the priming sugar calculators such as http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/ and play with the temperatures a bit, the amount of sugar required varies wildly, so that might be part of your problem? I don't keg but I've never had a bottle with obvious problems (well, problems from bottling, anyway...).

[Andrew Phillips]

A good point about sanitising the priming sugar...I've often wondered if that could be considered as sterile without even thinking about pre-boiling...thanks.

[Druid]

I only keg but I've often wondered about bottle infections from dumping sugar in for priming without making a boiled solution out of it first to sterilize it. I know the low pH and alc content of beer make it less vulnerable than unfermented wort but I would be removing any chance of infection if I was bottling.

[Andrew Phillips]

Good point...thanks for your suggestion.

[Peter Smith]

I think the biggest risk is increased oxidisation, just getting my kegging fridge up and running I am so sick of cleaning bottles  ...

[Andrew Phillips]

:=)

[Greig McGill]

Two hints in your description lead me to believe contamination ("infection") rather than oxidation. Oxidation presents in many ways, but not usually as sour.

Boiling bottles doesn't clean them. Nor do sanitisers. Sanitisers... well... sanitise! :) If there's bits of caked on dirt, or chips in the internal surface of the bottles, these could be harbouring bacteria leading to overproduction of CO2 during conditioning as the contamination takes hold and eats far more sugar than standard brewers yeast would, and leaving you with a soured and very gassy beer.

The other possibility is that your bottles are clean, and the contamination is present in all the beer - kegged and bottled, it's just that perhaps you drink the kegged beer before you notice the symptoms taking hold? That's pure speculation of course, just wondering.

[Andrew Phillips]

Thanks Greg, both good points to consider except, one of the bottles was a new PET bottle and the beer out of the keg was at least three months old when drained and, as far as my taste buds were telling me, it was at its best.

When it comes to sanitation, I'm pretty anal...I'd hate to spoil a potentially good beer by overlooking or being slap-dash...part of my Scottish heritage I guess.

[Greig McGill]

Interesting. Maybe it is the sugar. I actually missed that bit above, but I agree with the others pointing at it as a possible source of contamination.