idigg
Well-Known Member
Howzat sound?
Ron :cross:
Sounds like you be a trollin'
Howzat sound?
Ron :cross:
I gotter say...that was one heckuva op, thot it was
a trole...
So lemme get this straight...you STARTED OUT with all-grain,
with 17,439 a them there variables, and now you wanna
figger out whuts wrong?
I figger mos peeple like me start out with malt sugar in
a alumanum pot, and lern to make it gud that way. Than
grajeeate to the big-boy stuff, jes fer fun.
I would take 2 cans a malt sugar, boil 'em with a small
amount of hops (like no moore than say 1 oz a low
alpher hops like hallertwo) and see if that comes out
ok, if not weel work it from there. Howzat sound?
Ron :cross:
I'm still concerned about the tennis ball in the better bottle to help mix/aerate the wort. Some funky off flavors could result from that tennis ball being in there. It has gas inside it to make it bouncy that could be leaching into the wort.
But I can tell you that at bottling time,my IPA's hop load did have a bitter citrusy sort of bite to it. But it's mellowing nicely with age. It was bottled on 7/27,& will be served for our 34th anniversary tomorrow. They've been in the fridge since Tuesday.
So the hop bitterness could be averting your taste buds. Especially if you boiled them longer than,say,late additions of 30 minutes or less. I did my 3 1.5oz hop additions from 25 minutes on down at 8min,30sec intervals. Then dry hopped one week with a total of 1.5oz of the remains of the 3 hops boiled. They were Columbus>Nugget>cascade.
But I'm still concerned about chemicals in the tennis ball. Eliminate that & see if it helps any...
i assumed the tennis ball is UNDER the better bottle so he can roll the bottle around easier. i don't think a tennis ball could fit through the neck of a better ball.
I gotter say...that was one heckuva op, thot it was
a trole...
So lemme get this straight...you STARTED OUT with all-grain,
with 17,439 a them there variables, and now you wanna
figger out whuts wrong?
I figger mos peeple like me start out with malt sugar in
a alumanum pot, and lern to make it gud that way. Than
grajeeate to the big-boy stuff, jes fer fun.
I would take 2 cans a malt sugar, boil 'em with a small
amount of hops (like no moore than say 1 oz a low
alpher hops like hallertwo) and see if that comes out
ok, if not weel work it from there. Howzat sound?
Ron :cross:
i assumed the tennis ball is UNDER the better bottle so he can roll the bottle around easier. i don't think a tennis ball could fit through the neck of a better ball.
I'm still concerned about the tennis ball in the better bottle to help mix/aerate the wort. Some funky off flavors could result from that tennis ball being in there. It has gas inside it to make it bouncy that could be leaching into the wort.
But I can tell you that at bottling time,my IPA's hop load did have a bitter citrusy sort of bite to it. But it's mellowing nicely with age. It was bottled on 7/27,& will be served for our 34th anniversary tomorrow. They've been in the fridge since Tuesday.
So the hop bitterness could be averting your taste buds. Especially if you boiled them longer than,say,late additions of 30 minutes or less. I did my 3 1.5oz hop additions from 25 minutes on down at 8min,30sec intervals. Then dry hopped one week with a total of 1.5oz of the remains of the 3 hops boiled. They were Columbus>Nugget>cascade.
But I'm still concerned about chemicals in the tennis ball. Eliminate that & see if it helps any...
Sorry no. I started out with extract. The only real variable is the mash.
Opps, let me rephrase
Sowwy nah, I starts with some xtract n da only real varyable is da mash man.
Howzat?
=) Thanks for the bump at least hehe.
Ok you didnt start out with allgrain but you did go to it
afore you figgered out what the problem was right?
Ron
Pissgarn - cute, but gets old fast. Hard to read. Consider going back to normal English. jus' sayin'...
Slash - I'm with Yooper on this - you've been critical in all your processes but temp control. That's the ONE THING I did that made the most positive impact to my beers.
I ferment at 62F, in a water bath because...I've measured the temp of my beer in a cold chamber, and it was 10F higher than ambient. I switched to water bath, developed a glycol system, and I park it at 62 for three weeks. My beers have never been better.
FWIW, I did a SweetWater IPA clone and can hardly tell them apart, so YES, your beer should be as good as a microbrew!
...time to throw a temp controller on that thing!!!
P.S> Yooper, I made 2 trips to the UP on my bike this year. Girlfriends family is in Manistique. That bridge is scary on a little sport bike.
If you're a handy guy may I suggest the Ebay Aquarium Temp Controller? I've got 2 and they work great!
Just read/scanned thru this beast. I'm going with two possible answers and I'll skip the science.
I think I know the taste you are talking about, and it was apparent in my first couple brews I did over a decade ago. I have since eliminated this taste but I still remember it and it is very unappealing. I think the taste you describe happens often in "homebrew" and is something that people that dont drink good homebrew, or have just had a couple buddies from college try to brew beer and drank the results, come to expect from homebrew and accept it. It should not be there, but many people make these same two mistakes and it is very common in beginner homebrew. I think you are referring to the flavor of under-attenuated overly estery beer. So I'm voting that you are;
A: Not controlling your temp properly. I don't know what yeast you are using, but there is a huge difference between "my wort is fermenting at 64 degrees" and "my thermometer on my carboy never goes above 72".
B: (What I think contributes the most to this taste) Underpitching and not properly aerating your wort. I see this time and time again with my brews. When I get too drunk while brewing and can't find my aerator, or lose my fermcap behind the stove so I'm unable to aerate properly with my crappy fishtank bubbler without getting wort mousse all ove the kitchen, my beer suffers greatly from it. I can't stress enough how much proper aeration means to your yeasties.
In summation. Aerate! Dunk yer carboy in some water! Monitor temp! Ice bomb that bad mama and then enjoy "commercial" tasting homebrew.
but on the last 3 brews it has called for 1 packet dry yeast.. which doesn't require aeration, but doesn't hurt.
No problem, man.
Yeast require oxygen to do their thing the best. I don't think i'd ever say that your wort doesn't need aeration. When you boil yer wort, you are boiling out all the o2, which i'm sure you know by how much research it seems you have done. Even session beers that I do get a good dose of aeration.
I simply use a 10 gal fish tank bubbler. I sanitize some tubing for it, sanitize an air stone, sanitize a piece of copper tubing that i slide over the plastic tubing to help sink 'er to the bottom, and drop er' in for about half hour to 45 minutes. If your scared, you can even throw some vodka or something on the cotton filter that covers the fish tank bubbler air intake. I have since stopped vodkaing this filter and have still never had any problems.
If you go this route, you may want to purchase some fermcap (its like 5 bucks for a bottle that will last you a long time) and this will allow you to bubble for a half hour + without the wort foaming up and out of the fermenter. Just drop a couple 5 or 10 drops in before you start aerating.
If this still doesn't solve the issue, you should just give up and send all your equipment to me and we'll go from there
And, yes, probe against the fermenter, set at 65 is a better method than setting the fridge to say...58 in ambient, and hoping you're close.
awesome.
yes, PLEASE keep us posted - this is how we all learn, and share our experiences so others can make better beers as well.
congrats on a successful brew day. Fingers crossed for your finest ever.
Just read/scanned thru this beast. I'm going with two possible answers and I'll skip the science.
I think I know the taste you are talking about, and it was apparent in my first couple brews I did over a decade ago. I have since eliminated this taste but I still remember it and it is very unappealing. I think the taste you describe happens often in "homebrew" and is something that people that dont drink good homebrew, or have just had a couple buddies from college try to brew beer and drank the results, come to expect from homebrew and accept it. It should not be there, but many people make these same two mistakes and it is very common in beginner homebrew. I think you are referring to the flavor of under-attenuated overly estery beer. So I'm voting that you are;
A: Not controlling your temp properly. I don't know what yeast you are using, but there is a huge difference between "my wort is fermenting at 64 degrees" and "my thermometer on my carboy never goes above 72".
B: (What I think contributes the most to this taste) Underpitching and not properly aerating your wort. I see this time and time again with my brews. When I get too drunk while brewing and can't find my aerator, or lose my fermcap behind the stove so I'm unable to aerate properly with my crappy fishtank bubbler without getting wort mousse all ove the kitchen, my beer suffers greatly from it. I can't stress enough how much proper aeration means to your yeasties.
In summation. Aerate! Dunk yer carboy in some water! Monitor temp! Ice bomb that bad mama and then enjoy "commercial" tasting homebrew.
It all started with pitching too warm. The bitter bite I'm tasting is most likely fused alcohols. These are created with warm ferms. Fused alcohols have a "hot" bite. They also destroy head creation, which was probably altering the top fermenting yeast. I had a ton of suspension, not much up top. Probably all the fused alcohols.
I don't think putting the fermenter in my 60 degree closet was the killer. I think it was the fact that I was only cooling to 70-75 area and pitching. Then I would put it into the closet.
So the yeast got going in a 70+ environment, produced a ton of fused alcohols and kept the beer over 70 for the critical 72 hour window because 60 ambient wasn't enough to bring the temp down.
Cooling the wort to 60 before pitching, then raising to a steady 64 has completely, 100% changed the way my fermentation looks, smells, and acts.
If this beer does not have the off flavor, I will brew one with shaking again instead of the o2, just to make sure it wasn't lack of o2. Highly doubt that was it, especially with the dry yeast though.
I will update.
what??? thats awesome. what kinds are they giving away? Not that I'm driving to michigan tomorrow...one can dream tho.Bell's is having their homebrew challenge tomorrow and giving away free wort.
I'm going to have to pull it from the ferm chamber tomorrow though, will try the icebath thing to keep it at 64 in my closet. It should be about done generating heat anyways.
I'm going to have to pull it from the ferm chamber tomorrow though, will try the icebath thing to keep it at 64 in my closet. It should be about done generating heat anyways.
I actually have done some blind taste tests and I've been able to pick it out. I know I'm definitely more picky over it though. And now that I am aware of this flavor I can detect small levels of it in other beers on occasion. Anyone know of another "fusel alcohol" type flavor to test sample?
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