Due to various things that tend to come up in life, and a good dose of laziness besides, I just kegged (and bottled a bit of) an Irish Red ale that I put into the fermenter about 9 months ago.
I was prepared for it to be horrible and to just give up on it, but I decided it wasn't going to cost me anything but an hour to keg/bottle it and see what happened.
I bottled 12 bottles and kegged the rest of it. (Also my first attempt at kegging, which went fine.)
I tasted the hydrometer sample (1.011 FG) before I kegged it, and it tasted okay. So I was thinking at that point that maybe it'd be okay after all.
I chilled the keg to about 40F and force carbed it.
After it was carbonated, it had a background flavor of old stale bread, which from what I've read is a sign of oxidation.
Given that it was not oxygenated while it was hot, or after fermentation was done, and that it was fermented in a glass carboy (no oxygen coming through any plastic), where did the oxidation come from? The airlock on the carboy had liquid in it for the whole time it was in the fermenter (I topped it up a few times).
I didn't use a secondary for this beer, so it was on the yeast the whole time.
I was fully expecting autolysis and an accompanying rotten meat taste (which thankfully it does not have), but the stale bread flavor, I'm not sure where it picked up.
Is stale bread also a flavor that can come from sitting on the yeast (way) too long?
I was prepared for it to be horrible and to just give up on it, but I decided it wasn't going to cost me anything but an hour to keg/bottle it and see what happened.
I bottled 12 bottles and kegged the rest of it. (Also my first attempt at kegging, which went fine.)
I tasted the hydrometer sample (1.011 FG) before I kegged it, and it tasted okay. So I was thinking at that point that maybe it'd be okay after all.
I chilled the keg to about 40F and force carbed it.
After it was carbonated, it had a background flavor of old stale bread, which from what I've read is a sign of oxidation.
Given that it was not oxygenated while it was hot, or after fermentation was done, and that it was fermented in a glass carboy (no oxygen coming through any plastic), where did the oxidation come from? The airlock on the carboy had liquid in it for the whole time it was in the fermenter (I topped it up a few times).
I didn't use a secondary for this beer, so it was on the yeast the whole time.
I was fully expecting autolysis and an accompanying rotten meat taste (which thankfully it does not have), but the stale bread flavor, I'm not sure where it picked up.
Is stale bread also a flavor that can come from sitting on the yeast (way) too long?