First Batch Aftertaste

Just tasted my first homebrew. A nut brown ale. It came out pretty good, but there is a slight hint of an aftertaste. I think I followed the procedure pretty carefully. Any clues as to what may have caused this?

1 week in primary
2 weeks in secondary
3 weeks in bottles

Can you post more info.

Recipe, temps/times, etc........most importantly describe the aftertaste.

Try and keep decent records, and for the next batch you'll make an even better beer.

Cheers.

I kept pretty good records. I'm in the middle of moving to a new house, and the records are there but I can try to piece it together

Recipe
8 oz Brown malt
8 oz caramel 40 L
8 oz chocolate malt
6 # amber malt extract
1.5 oz Willamette hops (bittering)
.5 oz Willamette hops (finishing)
Munton's dry yeast packet

procedure: I steeped the grains in a grain bag for 35 minutes at 155 F with 2 gal water, removed the pot from the heat. Stirred in extract while heating to boil, add hops at boil, boil 60 minutes, add finishing hops for last 2 min. Cooled to 75 F in about 10 minutes with a wort chiller, then added to an ale pail primary with water up to 5 gal. Pitched the reconstituted yeast, sealed and airlocked.

Fermentation was pretty much done after 2 days, left in primary for 1 week total. Racked to secondary for 2 weeks, then bottled. The bottles are now 3 weeks old and the carbonation and head retention are good.

As far as describing the aftertaste, it's pretty hard to do. It's not at all a bitter taste, I guess if I had to describe it I would call it a syruppy coffee tasting flavor. And it's very mild but it's definitely there.

You might try checking MrGoodBeer.com. It has troubleshooting information for flavor, aroma, and other issues.

I also, I have noticed a specific aftertaste in all the brews I did with LME that I did not like. Oddly, it doesn't seem to be aparent in the brews I did with DME, and I haven't had it in any of my AG batches. There have been some discussions about a LME "twang". I don't know if thats what you get, but its a distinct, hard to describe flavor that definately becomes present after most of the beer flavors are passed.

Don't know man

That's quite a bit of amber extract. Amber has a distinct "ring" to it. The after-taste might not work with your palatte/tastes.

I've noticed that any beer I have that calls for amber extract has a certain flavor to it. It's almost similar to a belgian beer's fruiti-ness...but nasty"ier".

What temperature where you fermenting at in both the primary and secondary?

Syrupyness could be dextrins or unfermented sugars. Did you take an FG reading?

8 oz caramel 40 L - syrupy, sweet, complex sugars, sometimes toffee
8 oz chocolate malt - bittersweet, coffee, roasted

david_42 said:

8 oz caramel 40 L - syrupy, sweet, complex sugars, sometimes toffee
8 oz chocolate malt - bittersweet, coffee, roasted

Click to expand...

I can second the syrup taste. A lot of by buddies all extract brews have it, it just kind of tastes un finished. If you have tried the LME in its raw state it has that flavor. Not over whelming but it is there. I assumed it was just incomplete fermentation or something. His newer brews with more specialty grains do not have that.