CrystalShip

Recipes 

The last three brews I made have a distinctly boozy and phenolic taste and I cannot explain why this happened. The only thing I did differently was the use of Maris otter malt. I mashed correctly and hit the appropriate finishing gravity. Can anyone explain this to me?

CrystalShip

Recipes 

I'll also add that the fermentation temperature was steady at about 62-64 degrees and I believe that my yeast pitch rate was enough for the starting gravity

jvlpdillon

Recipes 

With the limited info here about style and recipe. I would think you underpitched your yeast (did you make a starter?)

CrystalShip

Recipes 

The first bee I noticed it in was a recipe I created, an English India brown ale, the second was a nut brown ale recipe from this site that I secondaried on some toasted coconut. I used a rehydrated pack of Nottingham dry yeast which should contain enough to get the job done correctly. I recently started using plastic buckets as primary fermenters, so maybe it is that?

dcp27

Recipes 

was that ferment temp ambient or wort temp? notty can throw off some funky flavors if it gets over 70F

CrystalShip

Recipes 

It was the reading of the stick on thermometer on the side of the bucket... I actually increased the temp in the room to that temperature because it was around 58-60 before and I was worries the yeast would go dormant

Lennie

Recipes 

I think cold can stress a yeast just like heat. You also might need a little nutrient blend, maybe the nitrogen in that particular batch of malt is lower than normal.

CrystalShip

Recipes 

I always use yeast nutrient at the end of the boil. I wasn't aware that a ferment temperature being too cool could cause off flavors. If that is true, that could have been the problem

Bsquared

Recipes 

What temp did you pitch? I have found (I know different strain of yeast) that if I pitch belgian ale yeast when the wort is between 70-80ºF, I get hot solventy flavors, even if I control the fermentation temp in my freezer chest at 64ºF for the rest of the fermentation. Now with all my beers I chill to at or bellow my target fermentation temperature before pitching.

GlenF

Recipes 

Did you use special roast malt?

Alpha Klaus porter and a darker beer I made had a similar flavor. Maybe it's just the way the dark malts are interacting with other malts.

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.