"Funky" Flavors from Bottling?

[ddeluca]

So I tried a Brewers Best 1 Gallon Pale Ale. Giving a small taste at the time of bottling, I was like "holy F, this tastes great!". Now that it's been in the bottle for two weeks, I've noticed a slight-but-noticable funk. Taste and smell being so subjective, I'm not even sure how to describe it (which I appreciate makes your advice very difficult). The closest is Diacetyl but I'm not even sure that describes it accurately.

Is there anything particular about the bottling process that I should watch out for, to help prevent off-flavors. Again, going into the bottle it tasted great... Coming out real, good, except for this other thing going on. (Is two weeks enough time, or will the "funk" mellow out with a few more weeks. Of OG/FG/ ABV come into play here?)

Some info... used the Brewers Best priming sugar, which I think is corn sugar. The kit used Safale US-O5. The OG was ~1.050 and FG was ~ 1.020

 

[RPh_Guy]

Could be contamination or could be oxidation.

Maybe you could get a more experienced brewer to taste it?

 

[brewdude88]

what temp have the bottles been conditioning at? I know us-05 can throw diacetyl at lower temps, not sure if the small amount of fermentation during bottle conditioning could do it. An option would be to warm the bottles to 70ish for a couple day to see if the remaining yeast can clean it up, at the risk of making oxidation or infection worse if one of those is the culprit.

 

[davidabcd]

Is there anything particular about the bottling process that I should watch out for, to help prevent off-flavors.

Basic things you can do:
Make sure all equipment that comes into contact with the beer is sanitized. This includes the bottles that should be free of all debris and sanitized properly.
When adding priming sugar mixed with water (or beer), boil it first and let it cool. Put that in the bottom of your bottling bucket. Siphon the beer onto that. If you place the siphon tube along the edge, it will stir the beer for you. The idea is to not splash your beer around.
Bottle quickly and in batches to reduce oxygen contact.
I'm guessing how you bottled didn't cause the issue. Since it was fine after fermentation, it could be something your bottles, or as mentioned, an infection.

 

[bucketnative]

Make sure all equipment that comes into contact with the beer is sanitized. This includes the bottles that should be free of all debris and sanitized properly.

I'd like to add to this. If you use tap water to make up your sanitizer, make sure you treat it with campden tablets to remove chlorine or chloramine. I know that one of the water gurus on this site talked about this once, that residual Star-San in your bottles can contain enough chlorine/amine to hit the taste threshold for chlorophenols. This would be a band-aid, plasticky flavor in the beer.

All the advice to date is good.

 

[bobeer]

3 weeks at 70 degrees is the basic rule of thumb for bottle carb/conditioning. If you're cooler than 70 degrees it'll take a little longer to get fully carbonated/conditioned. The funk could just be a green beer taste that will go away once the beer is fully ready.

 

[Day-Day]

Some hops give off a dank/funky smell and or taste. Dankess (could be described as funky as well) is a desirable quality in some styles and for some brewers.

I've heard some people say that old hops can impart a cheese like quality into a beer... i've def had a funky cheese character in some beers before.

I have a NEIPA on draft right now that has a clear dankness/funk to it.

Some yeasts give off a subjective funk taste... Belgian beers taste like feet to me...

Point being it may not necessarily be an off flavor...

 

[Day-Day]

1.020 final gravity is extremely high for a pale ale... even if it was an extract... that could indicate something went awry... possibly infection... not really sure... but it sounds odd.