All Grain Belgian Blonde - off taste

**brumer0** · 10-13-2011, 02:47 AM

Howdy everybody,

While this is my first post in this forum, I have used it extensively in the last year to learn learn and learn some more. Thanks for all the help!

So anyways, after 10 months of doing kit beers (including all grain) I just started doing my own recipes and the first one ended up in the keg last week. I had it in primary for 12 days and secondary for another 15 days (Ive been doing this for the wheat beers Ive brewed and theyve been turning out great). Below is the receipe that I brewed.

I dont have a large vocabulary when it comes to explaining different beers, so the only way I can describe this beer is that it tastes like a bad Keystone beer. Originally, it was insanely fruity and had a weird hop taste, but after several days of trying it I can only describe it as tasting like a bad Keystone. What could I have possibly done wrong with this beer? Im about to pour it out...

Thanks everybody,

This is the brew:
11.0 lb (84.6%) Belgian Pils
1.0 lb (7.7%) Candi Sugar Clear
1.0 lb (7.7%) 2-Row Carapils® Malt; Briess
1.0 oz (50.0%) Saaz (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 oz (50.0%) Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5.0 min
1.0 ea WYeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II™

**mrk305** · 10-13-2011, 03:51 AM

Most likely a temperature issue. What temp did you pitch at and at what temp was this fermented?

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/off-flavors.html

**brumer0** · 10-13-2011, 11:15 AM

Hm, thanks for that link. I was looking for something like that but didnt find that.

I dont do anything special with the temperature. We keep our house at 76 from 8PM-6PM, and 73 other times. Would 76 affect this beer that much? This is nothing different then the other kit brews Ive done. I also used my own grain mill instead of my local homebrew store. Any chance I over crushed the grains (they looked good though).

Thanks

**944play** · 10-13-2011, 11:25 AM

Next time, use a water bath to take some control over the fermentation temperature. Keep it stable and under 70ºF for the first few days, then you can let it rise (but don't let it drop until it's done). A fermenting beer without a heatsink can be ten degrees warmer than ambient -- fermentation is exothermic.

**brumer0** · 10-14-2011, 01:36 AM

Thanks guys. After doing more reading and listening to what you are saying, I think its very likely that the temperature of the fermentation was too high. Hopefully the two beers that I have in primary, and secondary, wont be too much affected by what has happened so far. If it tastes the same, though, then I will definitely know it was the temp. Another thing I read is that the grains might be milled too much. I thought this might have been a possibility, but wasnt sure.

I might re-try this beer this weekend (I was going to do a triple) and make sure the temp is lower, check the crush, and then see if that makes a difference on the final product.

**GuldTuborg** · 10-14-2011, 03:22 AM

An ambient temp of 76 with that yeast may end up tasting weird. The general consensus is to keep that particular strain on the cool side, as in 72 or lower.

While I do use that strain periodically, I can't say I've ever used it in a light beer, always a stout or dubbel or something like that. I don't even know what it would taste like in a light beer.