My Porter/Brown ale tastes like bum liquor...

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Downhillfromhere

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I brewed my 1st AG about 12 days back, it was suppose to be an Imperial Porter (appx 7-7.4%), but I forgot .5lbs of Chocolate Malt so it ended up as a Imperial Brown Ale!

After 12 days of fermentation and still the occasional bubble coming out of the airlock, I decided to just rack it over to 2ndary because I was getting suspicious of my yeasts. Racked it over, took a reading and a taste. Reading is 1.011-1.012, quite a bit lower than I really wanted with a Brown Ale and it literally tastes like I'm drinking fire. It's pretty bitter and it flat out stings my tongue. It has a harsh bum liquor type quality to it, like a $8 bottle of vodka.

Did I finish way to low for the style and it's just drier than it's suppose to be? Or is there something else going on here?
 
My crystal ball says... post your recipe and process, please!
 
I've got a similiar situation going on with my Sarsaparilla Imperial Porter but I'm just blaming it on being warm (70 F) when I sample it and also being very young.
 
2.75 Gallon Batch

6 1/3lbs Organic 2 Row
1lbs Munich 10L
.5 lbs Crystal 60L
.5 lbs Chocolate Malt (which was omitted....)
.25lbs Special B
2oz Flaked Oats
1oz Black Patent Malt
and .25lbs Brown Sugar after I realized I forgot the Chocolate Malt to just mix something into it.

The Hops Schedule was
2/3 oz Tettnag (3.7AA) @1st Wort
1/2 oz Columbus/Tomahawk (14.6AA) @60min
1/2 oz Cascade (8.1AA) @10 min

Yeast Wyeast 1056

OG 1.074
FG Estimated 1.017
ABV 7.2%
SRM 20.5
IBU 58.8

Actual OG 1.072
Actual FG 1.012
 
Fermentation temps generally held between 64-70. Much better temp control than past batches and it was held at 68 with most fluctuations erroring cooler
 
I've got a similiar situation going on with my Sarsaparilla Imperial Porter but I'm just blaming it on being warm (70 F) when I sample it and also being very young.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. That's why it's going to hang out in the secondary for a while. It's a fairly big beer
 
Going from 1.072 to 1.012 is 83% ADF which is above the range Wyeast suggests for 1056 of 73-77%. i.e., It did ferment lower than one would expect for that yeast.

Your temperature range sounds fine. Was it in that range for the first two days also?

Did you use a $hit load of pure O2 by chance--like 3-5 minutes? A serious hot alcohol taste like spirits is usually from a hot fermentation or a serious OD on O2.

Only being 12 days wild yeast or bacteria couldn't have so quickly fermented the long chain dextrins.

The brown sugar is only 3% of your total grain bill so I don't think that is the problem. If it were a lot higher that could be a contributor.

What was your mash temp? Did you mash in the 140s? I wonder if you made a really fermentable wort?

That is my thought process. Maybe that will jog some ideas in what you might have done that you didn't think to mention. Hot alcohol doesn't usually mellow out much but give it time. You never know. Good luck! :mug:
 
Or you could just wait until it is not GREEN anymore. You say that you brewed this less than 2 weeks ago. Did you really expect it to taste good already? If so, then use the search function for green beer.
 
It was definitely in range for the 1st 2 days, and I mashed at 155 which should have given me plenty of body out of this beer. No O2 additions either. Definitely did help jog the whole chain of events though! What I could come up with though is possibily my pH is out of whack. Overly bitter, harsh tannin taste, it usually goes along with a high pH. I adjusted the water based on the fact I was using quite a bit of dark malt and in forgetting half a pound of Chocolate Malt, the pH never adjusted out?

Either way, it's going to hang out in that secondary for a few weeks to see if it fixes itself.
 
Either way, it's going to hang out in that secondary for a few weeks to see if it fixes itself.

You are not giving it nearly enough time. This is an imperial, a big beer, 1.074 which takes much more time than a normal sized beer to become palatable. You are worried now for no real reason - its simply too early for a beer of this size. Put it away for two months and see how it develops.
 
Difficult to say whether what you are tasting are hot alcohols or phenols, or simply a green beer. 1056 doesn't usually produce a lot of phenols. Neither should be produced in excess at your fermentation temperatures, unless they fluctuated a lot.

The beer is still very young. Leave it in secondary for a few weeks and do another taste test. It was a mistake to take it off the primary yeast, since that yeast would have cleaned up the beer quite a bit given more time. Still, the hot flavors should mellow somewhat even in secondary. It is possible, however, that you are looking at an extended aging period of several months. For example, I did a vertical tasting of 15-month old homebrews, including some that I considered undrinkable last year, a few days ago. All but one of the "undrinkables" had developed into very pleasant beers!

If the beer still tastes thin after a few weeks in secondary, you can add some maltodextrin to boost the body. It's a non-fermentable sugar that adds very little sweetness.
 
Good input, I'll let this beast age out for a while and give it another shot. Now that I think about it I've had some beers that tasted pretty bad right out of the gate (my 1st brew, a Belgian Pale Ale) that hid in the back of the fridge for a couple months and ended up turning out great.
 
For future batches, you may want to measure the mash pH to see if your water modifications were successful.
 
I brewed my 1st AG about 12 days back, it was suppose to be an Imperial Porter (appx 7-7.4%), but I forgot .5lbs of Chocolate Malt so it ended up as a Imperial Brown Ale!

After 12 days of fermentation and still the occasional bubble coming out of the airlock, I decided to just rack it over to 2ndary because I was getting suspicious of my yeasts. Racked it over, took a reading and a taste. Reading is 1.011-1.012, quite a bit lower than I really wanted with a Brown Ale and it literally tastes like I'm drinking fire. It's pretty bitter and it flat out stings my tongue. It has a harsh bum liquor type quality to it, like a $8 bottle of vodka.

Did I finish way to low for the style and it's just drier than it's suppose to be? Or is there something else going on here?

You're about 2 months early to be drinking a beer that big.
 
tried it again today after 3 weeks in the secondary, and wow, still can't tough this one yet. Looks like I'm going to have to let it hibernate. Should I just bottle it and let it bottle condition to age out or leave it in the secondary? What difference would I notice between the two?
 
I would bottle this and let it sit for a good while. Though there is no harm in leaving it in the secondary either. It's your choice. You would not notice a difference either way.
 
I've been trying to taste this beer weekly, seeing how it's developing. Today was the 1st time I tried it and wasn't completely disgusted with it! The taste is actually mellowing, and while I wouldn't call it pleasant yet, some of the real flavors are starting to cut through the BOOZE taste. Still smells like a bottle of Skol Vodka, but seems like it's improving. Looks like I'm going to bottle it this week and let it condition for about a month and half before I check it again :)
 

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