drummer4gc

Recipes 

hey everyone,

i've brewed maybe 7 partial mash beers, and i'm just jumping into all grain. all of my beers have been tasty, and they have all had a period of about 2-3 weeks in bottles (after 3 weeks in a fermenter) where they tasted green before they started tasting good. most people say this is typical. however, i have been reading the forum a lot and come across people that are fermenting their beers in 10-14 days, force carbing for 3-5 days, and then drinking their beer.

my questions is, how is this beer not green? can you reduce the "greenness" in a beer with better brewing/fermenting technique? i haven't experimented with making yeast starters yet, and i'm wondering if this would help.

any ideas about ways that i can improve my skills and technique to pump out better tasting beer in a shorter time would be much appreciated. i am especially interested in improving this for my IPAs, since I want the hops to taste as fresh as possible without any of that greenness. thanks!

DMartin

Recipes 

A lot of what you taste as "greenness" is under-carbonation and undissolved CO2. This is not a problem when kegging the beer. Even kegged beer tastes better after a couple weeks, though.

drummer4gc

Recipes 

i've kegged my last few beers though, and even after two weeks of carbing, my amber ale still tastes really green, enough that i took it out of the kegerator and put it in a room temperature closet to speed up the process. any idea why that is? this is also the first time i've done three weeks in the primary without using a secondary fermenter...but my results are turning out less than stellar so far...

chumpsteak

Recipes 

How's your fermentation temp control? Are you able to hold the beer at a steady temp while it ferments? Maybe what you are detecting as "green" is some off flavors from stressed yeast?

drummer4gc

Recipes 

it started a bit rocky (pitched a little too high, cooled off a little low the first night) but maintained 68ish after that. i used safale-05. but my temp control is not what i would like it to be....i could improve on that. thanks.

dzlater

Recipes 

Yea, a starter would probably help.
as well as temp control.

RM-MN

Recipes 

If possible, ferment at 62 to 65 instead of 68 and try to chill a little more before pitching. after the fast ferment is over in about a week, warm the beer up to 70 to 74 to help the yeast with the cleanup. Leaving the beer on the yeast cake seems to make the beer mature faster. Instead of a week in the fermenter and 6 weeks in the bottle, try 3 weeks in the fermenter and 2 weeks in the bottle.

trent

Recipes 

Pitch the correct amount of yeast.

Always pitch below 70 (I go for 65).

Use temp control / ferm chamber.

If you brew the beer correctly in the first place then the beer is way less "green."

samc

Recipes 

Do the steps mentioned, however you will still always have age requirements. So the answer is build a pipeline and have patience.

OldWorld

Recipes 

Hoppy beers like IPA and Double IPA are better forced carbonated to preserve hop freshness. But other beers like holiday spiced beers and barleywine do better with aging.

If the gravity remains the same after three weeks then it is probably stable and ready to keg off.

IPA is always better fresh...If the beer tastes green then it probably needs more time in the fermenter...2 weeks primary, 1-2 weeks dry hop then rack it off.

Be sure to properly purge the beer with CO2...and don't be affraid to wait a day after carbing to let it go into solution...Purge it good let it rest and chill for at least a day or 4 48 hours.

Undercarbed beer tastes off...and sometimes it will oxygenate.