Beer Brewing Troubleshooting

These are some of the issues that can occur in a batch of beer, along with the potential issues that could be causing the underlining issue. Use the list below to find the issue with your beer.

• Not enough yeast pitched
• Wort too hot (yeast stunned/killed)
• Wort too cold (yeast dormant)
• Fermentation is fine, but the bucket is not sealed (so you can’t see bubbles in the airlock)
• Fermentation already complete (look for a ring of “crud” around the inside of the fermenter)

• Not enough yeast pitched
• Inadequate aeration
• Wort temperature too low
• Yeast strain flocculated early (rousing yeast may help)
• Fermentation is finished, not stuck (take specific gravity to check)

• The yeast did not absorb diacetyl
• Contamination
• Racked beer too early
• Yeast strain

• High fermentation temperatures
• Inadequate pitching rate
• Yeast strain

• Contamination

• Contamination. Specifically contamination in conjunction with exposure to oxygen

• Running off wort too quickly
• Grains crushed too finely
• A high percentage of wheat or rye

• Crush too coarse
• Collecting wort too fast
• Collecting too little volume of wort per unit of grain
• Poor lauter tun design
• Water chemistry was not conducive to good mash (check calcium levels first)
• The pH outside of the 5.2-5.6 range

• Maybe the beer was supposed to have a high FG
• A high percentage of specialty malt in the recipe
• Yeast strain
• Any of the causes listed under “Stuck fermentation”

• Use Irish moss (at a rate of 1 tsp. per 5 gallons)
• Boil too short or not vigorous enough

• Glassware dirty
• Weak fermentation
• Too little protein in wort (esp. when high amounts of adjunct are used)

• It may be yeast, not mold (different yeast strains can behave differently)
• Wort is exposed to oxygen, which encourages surface growth

• Move bottles to a warmer location for conditioning
• Give beer more time to condition
• Beer and priming sugar not adequately mixed in the bottling bucket
• You forgot the priming sugar
• Not enough yeast left in beer to bottle condition (this rarely happens)

• Contamination
• Beer and priming sugar not adequately mixed in the bottling bucket
• Too much priming sugar

• Hops are old and stale

• Wort cooled too slowly when certain very pale malts used
• contamination

• Fermentation temperature too high
• Inadequate aeration
• High original gravity

• Beer exposed to light (especially due to bottling in clear or green bottles)

• Beer exposed to oxygen during late fermentation or conditioning

• Beer exposed to oxygen during late fermentation or conditioning
• Long aging of high-alcohol beers (appropriate in some cases)

• Some sediment is always present
• Let beer fall clear before bottling

• Be sure all valves are closed before transferring liquid to a vessel
• Check to make sure that the rubber grommets are not worn around your valves

• The fermentation lock was clogged (use a blow-off tube next time)

If you are using a malt extract when brewing, then make sure to check if these are your issues if you are noticing these qualities of your brew.

• Steeped grains in too much water (over 3 quarts water per pound of grain)
• Steeping water too hot (over 170 °F)

• Concentrated wort boil
• Scorching of malt extract (stir in thoroughly)

• Wort and topping up water not mixed thoroughly

If you are using an all-grain brewing process, then make sure to check if these are your issues if you are noticing these qualities of your brew.

• Excessive volume of sparge water (collected wort less than SG 1.008 or above a pH of 5.8)
• Excessively hot sparge water (over 170 °F)

• Mash sat overnight and the temperature dropped to 120 °F (or below)

• Overly-long rest at 122-131 °F

• Poor extract efficiency