I cracked open a bottle of hefeweizen I bottled 10 days ago after quickly chilling it once in the freezer. Since it was a hefe, I swirled and poured the entire contents of the bottle into the glass. It was carbonated but had a gooey moth feel and it looked like there was some loosely amalgamated mass hanging out under the head. I know i should wait another week but was curious. This is my first batch. Was it chill haze? Dregs? Is this the priming sugar and yeast still not completely consumed? The recipe was 1 can of muntons LME wheat and 3 lbs dme wheat and wl-300.
Goop in beer?
- Thread starter Fat_Maul
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kiwibrewer
Active Member
What color was it?
If it tasted good I would say that it just needs time. If you have bad or sour flavors, would agree with norrisk66.
Gooey mouth feel? Can you try to be more precise? It sounds like the dregs stayed in flakey bits & floated under the head.
feinbera
Well-Known Member
Probably just yeast.
Bottle-carbing produces a lot of it, more than you'd find in a commercial hefe, and keeping it at freezer temps encourages it to drop out of the beer and settle in a thick mass at the bottom (this is called "cold crashing" when you do it on purpose to your whole primary or secondary, to get the yeast to settle out before you rack a clearer beer into your bottling bucket).
Bottle-carbing produces a lot of it, more than you'd find in a commercial hefe, and keeping it at freezer temps encourages it to drop out of the beer and settle in a thick mass at the bottom (this is called "cold crashing" when you do it on purpose to your whole primary or secondary, to get the yeast to settle out before you rack a clearer beer into your bottling bucket).
I personally don't cold crash my hefes (haven't tried, but always figured it would make it harder to re-suspend the yeast). As long as the beer doesn't taste/smell off then it's fine--try chilling one in the refrigerator or just giving them all some more time and your problems will probably resolve themselves.
A clear goey mass?...did you actually use gelatin? If no,I've never seen anything beer fermentation produces that'd look like that.
How long did you have it in the fermenter before you bottled it? You may not have let it have enough time for the yeast to settle out and got a larger amount of yeast than you should have. My early batches were like that with a quarter inch of yeast in the bottle. Now its hard to see that there is yeast because most of it has settled in the fermenter and very little is produced when carbonating.
Just a thought? How do the other bottles look? In the past, Ive had some used bottles that did not get cleaned very well and had all kinds of wierd "mystery" junk in the bottom. This may be just in the lucky bottle you opened.
No I did not use gelatin and this was subtle, like I could only see it if I tipped the half empty glass way over (tall hefe glass)
Exactly two weeks, it actually took 12 days for the krausen to fall, had some serious blow off in the first few days.
Brand new bottles, I used an avinator to spray star san into the bottles right before bottling.
I was also wondering, should I be pouring this like a normal hefe or should I treat it like normal homebrew and leave the dregs in the bottle?
MasterKBrewery
Member
So the krauesen fell 2 days prior to bottling? Did you check SG? Sounds like you did not let the beer finish. Surprised you don't have bottle bombs.
Why cool in the freezer? Sounds like you are impatient. This hobby requires a lot of patience. Let the beer finish. Bottle and chill appropriately.
If you have a *lot* of sediment then I would suggest you leave some behind (especially if this "gunk" sinks to the bottom). Basically, just pour them so they taste good
Thanks guys, I like to cook and usually a day or two is the longest you have to wait for something. I am also curious so I wanted to know what an unfinished beer tasted like. Lots of other posts said two weeks in the fermenter was plenty for WL-300. I did take FG and it was fine (even before krausen fell.) I suppose putting it in the freezer was a bad move. My expectation is that sediment looks like light brown goop similar to what was in the fermenter not a transparent, loose jelly. Next one will be chilled slower and I wont pour it all out and see if it's there and then if it's not, pour in the rest and check again.
