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Weak carbonation & smoky film
We bottled a honey ale 3 weeks ago and the carbonation is pretty weak. Also, there is a smoky looking film at the top of each beer; when held up to a light you can see it drifting down through the beer (looks like smoke). Any ideas as to what this is? I suspect it may be sanitizer residue (though the directions state "no rinsing"). Is this related to my weak carbonation? We are fairly new at this but we were very meticulous with the sanitizing (dishwasher and then One-step). Should we rinse after sanitizing? Beer taste OK, just a little flat. We appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.
i've had beers that took 4 weeks to carbonate. have you tried gently agitating each bottle and then storing them in a warmer area of the house for a couple days (~75 degrees F)?
Are you sure you added the priming sugar? Its often an easy thing to forget sometimes.
Is one step a no rinse sanitizer? You shouldn't rinse out sanitizer that is meant to be used as no rinse.
I use starsan and while their will be some residue in the bottles before I fill them. I just dump out that last bit one last time before I fill. It doesn't hurt the beer any.
So I was jsut poking around on the web... Is One-Step even a sanitizer??? Its labelled as a no rinse cleanser.
Not knowing much more about it, I would say that its not a sanitizer and your beer bottles have not been well sanitized. Clean, but not sanitized. Especially if they were rinsed out after washing.
You're right Brewchez, as far as I know One-Step is just a cleaner not a sanitizer.
Ok if the beer tastes ok you should be fine. If it was going bad you would notice something by now in the taste.Now the matter carbonation. What temp is it at? do you leave it out at room temp or refrigerate it? it needs to be at room temp preferably about 70 degrees. just a few degrees can make it take longer to carbonate. I too have had beers take a month to carbonate in the colder months. Now with the "beer closet" at 70 degrees it takes about a week.
In the future you might want ot use star san or Iodophor for sanitizing. both are nonrinse. the residue in your bottles could be coming from something in the beer. what kind of beer is it? any fruit in it? honey ale. when did you add the honey?
DC
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