06gixxer600

Recipes 

I am very new at brewing, in fact this is my first batch. I have had my beer bottled in a dark room at 65-70 degrees for 4 weeks now. I decided to try one of my beers tonight (I should probably add that it's a porter) and it had a fairly good head on it but it smells a tad sweet and taste sweet, flat and there isn't much, if any bite to it. Just wondering what anyone's suggestion might be as to why it is like that. Maybe it just needs more time to age? Just curious I guess

Homebrewtastic

Recipes 

If it's too sweet then the yeast didn't finish fermenting and you ended up with an under-attenuated beer.

Was it an extract kit? If so what did the instructions say you would end up with on a F.G.?
Also did you take a F.G.? It's highly possible your beer just may not have finished.

If it's a stronger style porter then that could explain the under carbonation. All of my bigger beers take at least 6 weeks to properly carb up in the bottle.

__________________
On Deck:
Primary: Lambic-ish
Kegged: Das Funken Weisse, Un Poquito Wylde
Bottled: Epik Barleywine, Chocolate Chili Pumpkin Porter, EKG Amber
Adventures in Zymurgy - Homebrewing and Sour Beer Blog

binaryc0de

Recipes 

What was the OG and FG?

06gixxer600

Recipes 

It's docklands porter kit. I used a hydrometer during the fermenting stages and bottled it when the reading was at what the box said it should be at in order to siphon it to a bottling bucket (1.014). It took about 8 days to reach the specified reading and the bubbles in the air lock had also stopped. I tasted it again and it taste more flat than sweet and there's no bite to it at all. I hope I don't have 40+ bottles of bad beer. Is there anyway it could get better the longer it sits?

06gixxer600

Recipes 

My first hydrometer reading was 1.042 and my final was 1.014

binaryc0de

Recipes 

14 days is really the shortest I would siphon off from the fermenter and start to bottle. I'm not sure what the OG was but with an FG of 1.014 it was probably finished. You did prime the beer with sugar? If so it's probably just not finished carbonating.

jonmohno

Recipes 

how much priming sugar?looks like a very good FG.

Legin

Recipes 

Your problem is probably that it is a kit. Maybe it just needed more hops to mild the sweetness and a little more carbonation for the bite.

Edit: or maybe it's a brown porter. (shrugs)

06gixxer600

Recipes 

3/4 cups corn sugar

06gixxer600

Recipes 

I guess I'll give it a few weeks yet, hopefully it gets better. Thanks for the suggestions though