Qa/qc

[Nealie]

I'm relatively new to brewing (my 4th brew is planned for this coming weekend) and I'm having some problems with quality control seemingly at the bottle level, esp with my most recent batch. It was a kit IPA with steeped grains that tasted good, if strong, when i took a sip before bottling. Having let the bottles rest for 3 weeks or so, I now find that some are drinkable while others are rife with off-flavors. Bottle conditioning has been going on in a relatively well controlled dark room so I'm not really sure what the source of this could be. Is there something I'm not seeing here? Is this variability normal? Thanks.

 

[RichBrewer]

First of all, what are the off flavors? My first guess would be the cleanliness and sanitation of the bottles. Also, how is the carbonation level from bottle to bottle. Different levels will change the taste profile of the beer.
Lets figure this out!

 

[Catfish]

I had a similar problem a bit ago. My collecting of bottles had surpassed my cleaning. The insides were fine, chunk-free, so I think the problem originated with the labels. My theory is that through the bottling session the sanitiser was overwhelmed by organic crap from the labels... the sanitising rinse became unsanitary and infected my bottles. This assumes that you haven't removed all the labels.
Certainly it is a problem on bottling day. No vacuuming, A/C, fans, open windows, baby/ adult diaper changing while bottling.