seander77

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I made a Belgian Abbey ale via All-Grain Brew in Bag method. I kept it in the primary for two weeks, three weeks in secondary, and two weeks in bottles.

When I broke out the beer, it was overly carbonated. One of them almost blew the top off as I started to open the cap. Also the beer has a strange metallic taste. I used the same amount of priming sugar as I have for my other five batches.

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on what might be wrong with my beer.

Thanks for their thoughts and advice.

Six_O_Turbo

Recipes 

With regard to the overcarbination, it is possible it just wasn't quite done fermenting and rousing it while bottling caused fermentation to kick up again. The yeast may have eaten through the priming sugar and any residual sugar. Did you take hydro readings? Could have also been an infection. Does it taste OK?

The metallic taste is often caused by water issues, do you adjust your water at all? Do you know what your water chemistry is? If it was your water, it should have shown up earlier, though some recipies bring out metallic flavors more than others.

Bach7210

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I'm thinking water is the issue to for the metallic taste. I have that same problem with my house water and have been forced to get water from a water station at the grocery store.

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thorongil

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Carbonic acid from the overcarbination could also give it a metallic taste.

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ajf

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I've also had a metallic taste with green beer. Letting it mature for a few more weeks cured that problem.

-a.

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seander77

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Thanks for the thoughts. My OG reading was about 0.002 high and the FG reading about 0.003 higher than the recipe estimated. I have awful well water so I double Brita filer it and add back components to be right for the type of beer I am making.

I have read somewhere else that highly over-carbonated beer can taste metallic. I guessing that even after five weeks the beer could still have not completed fermentation. The overall taste is pretty good, but it hard to get a truely accurate taste given the crazy level of carbonation.

KingKegII

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I had the same problem with 2 batches in a row and it turned out to be an infection. Wild yeasts and/or bacteria will ferment every last sugar in your beer, resulting in overcarbonation. If you're double-Brita-filtering it seems like your water shouldn't be the problem, unless the minerals you're adding back in are being added in the wrong concentration. I recommend double-checking the concentrations of these minerals. I would then go back and thoroughly clean all of your cold-side equipment: hoses, funnels, fermenters, bottles/kegs, etc. In my case I traced the problem back to my primary fermenter not being spotlessly clean before I sanitized it. I did a long soak w/ Oxyclean then scrubbed the heck out of it. My next batch after this had no more metallic flavors and no more overcarbonated bottles.

You can hold onto a couple of bottles to see if they'll attenuate a bit more over time and lose the metallic taste, but BEWARE: store them in a place where you wouldn't mind if they spontaneously exploded ("bottle bombs") because, especially if it's an infenction, they'll continue to make CO2 and the bottles will only get more pressurized over time.

It might not be an infection, just giving you advice based on my own experience. For additional diagnostic help on the metallic flavor see this thread: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/metal-taste-61938/

Revvy

Recipes 

+1,000,000,000

If it's over carbed and tastes off, and it is a big beer, then then the only thing wrong is that you are impatient. That abbey is a big beer.Around 8%, right?

And at only two weeks it's not ready yet. It's fizzing because it has fully integrated the co2 into solution, the metallic taste is more than likely all the co2 not in solution that you are tasting.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer. Like beers around 1.060 OG

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Lazy Llama came up with a handy dandy chart to determine how long something takes in brewing, whether it's fermentation, carbonation, bottle conditioning....



More info can be found here....Revvy's Blog, Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, patience.

Check out the video, more than likely your beer is exhibiting the same thing that poindexter's beer did at only one week. The carbonation hasn't "locked in" yet.

I would walk away from your beer for at least a month minimum, if you leave it above 70. When you come back to it, it will be fine.

Tasting it @ two weeks? I don't even look at my til I am coming to the end of my thrid week, and STILL I am not expecting much with them....You're not making coolaid here.

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