Seconnd AG brew has run into some problems. Some advice please

Hi Folks.

A friend and I have just completed our second AG brew and we’d like a little help/feedback on how it’s gone. Our first AG brew was a recipe we followed from here and went very well (except for a dead yeast issue to begin with), this second brew was our own recipe which we’ve put together based on our own tastes as well as seeing what other people have done for their recipes.

The brew day went very well and the colour was spot on but the gravity was a little higher than expected (we got a better efficiency than the 70% we based our recipe on). After the first week of fermentation (we got a nice quick fermentation which was over in about 4 days) we transferred to a secondary fermenter. At this point the beer was amazing, there was plenty of hoppy aroma and the taste was good, immature, but good.

A week later we transferred to a pressure barrel and tested the beer again… the hoppy aroma had completely gone and to taste there was quite a harsh, sharp flavour. I would describe the flavour as an astringent/acetone sort of flavour. We were a little worried but put it in the barrel and went on our Christmas holidays.

It’s now been almost three weeks since we put the beer in the barrel which has been stored at about 5°C. Today I have sampled the beer again. The aroma is still completely missing, the beer appears cloudy and much of the taste as described earlier is present. The taste isn’t as prominent but it’s still very much there.

Our recipe is given below. We’d really appreciate any feedback or advice as to what may have gone wrong and how we may be able to avoid this sort of problem in the future.

Wessex Warmer
Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)

Recipe Specs
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Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 6.227
Total Hops (g): 90.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.056 (°P): 13.8
Colour (SRM): 13.5 (EBC): 26.5
Bitterness (IBU): 33.7 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 75

Grain Bill
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4.979 kg Warminster Maris Otter Premium Pale Ale (79.96%)
0.726 kg Warminster Crystal 140 (11.66%)
0.261 kg Biscuit (4.19%)
0.261 kg Carapils (Dextrine) (4.19%)

Hop Bill
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50.0 g Fuggles Leaf (5.4% Alpha) @ 75 Minutes (Boil) (2.2 g/L)
20.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
20.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.9 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 70°C for 60 Minutes. Batch Sparge
Fermented at 20°C with Safale S-04

Is the beer really sweet and lacking in alcohol or just the opposite?

Here is a thread on Fusel Alcohols. I am not sure the beer can be saved, but MAYBE it can. I have never experienced this problem but I had a friend who did. He fermented at 82F accidentally. The beer was tossed after 3 months of cold conditioning.

Try just leaving the beer in primary for a month next time, then going straight to the keg. I believe you didn't give the yeast time to make the beer taste sexy. Seems like you rushed it quite a bit.

By the way there's no such thing as a secondary fermenter. It's just called secondary. You wouldn't rack the beer to secondary before it was done fermenting, so therefore no fermentation ever takes place in secondary, so it's not called a fermenter.

If you were going to have a beer from pitching the yeast to a keg in 11 days, there's no reason to even use a secondary, unless you just like cleaning up more carboys. You're just adding another chance to infect your beer. Autolysis doesn't take place in 11 days, and is the main reason people ever even racked to secondary in the first place. Not that there's anything wrong w/secondary.. I just wanted you to see how it's totally unnecessary if you are kegging within 11 days.

Honestly I'd recommend skipping secondary altogether unless you're dry hopping. Unless it's a hefeweizen or maybe a light stout or something, I wouldn't rush it to keg/bottle. In fact I'd wait a minimum of 2-4 weeks after pitching before I'd bother kegging.

Once you chill that beer down the yeast is done. My guess is if you would have given it the proper amt of time to do its job it would taste better. Warm, freshly fermented beer with hops still in the carboy will taste/smell hoppier than racked, cooled beer. That type of beer should be served relatively warm I believe. Try that and see if the hops stand out any more.

Good luck!

beerman1957 said:

Is the beer really sweet and lacking in alcohol or just the opposite?

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No, the alcohol as expected. the slightly higher SG meant that it's just short of 6% ABV. (we decided that rather than dilute to reach the target SG, we'd just have a stronger beer).

There is a thing called secondary fermentation: when you add fruit to a beer, there is more fermentation that occurs in the second vessel.

Aside from that, I think you just racked off the yeast too soon. After fermentation is complete the yeast are still working to cleanup after themselves and remove some off flavors, so I generally leave beers of that gravity in primary for at least 2 weeks.

cvstrat said:

Seems like you rushed it quite a bit.

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We did, We were leaving for christmas.

cvstrat said:

By the way there's no such thing as a secondary fermenter.

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Thanks, I get that... the secondary container I use is a fermenter... so I called it a fermenter... now I know!

cvstrat said:

Warm, freshly fermented beer with hops still in the carboy will taste/smell hoppier than racked, cooled beer. That type of beer should be served relatively warm I believe. Try that and see if the hops stand out any more.

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We mostly serve our beer warm (we are English after all). It's just been in the cold in a bid to try to make it clear. It's worth noting that this bad flavour was apparent after 2 weeks in the warm before we transfered into the pressure barrel.

The beer is by no means a gonner... we'll drink it.. i've had worse beer in a pub... it's just not great, it's this off flavour and the complete absence of hop aroma. I'm reluctant to dry hop, from what i understand it's not a very British technique (as you can see from our ingredients, we're trying to stick to typically British ingredients, for now at least)

coypoo said:

Aside from that, I think you just racked off the yeast too soon. After fermentation is complete the yeast are still working to cleanup after themselves and remove some off flavors.

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The thing i don't get here though is that after one week, awesome flavour (if a bit young) and really awesome hop aroma.. after the second week.. bad flavour has crept in on top and no aroma.

Try just leaving the beer in primary for a month next time, then going straight to the keg. I believe you didn't give the yeast time to make the beer taste sexy. Seems like you rushed it quite a bit.

Click to expand...

Aside from that, I think you just racked off the yeast too soon. After fermentation is complete the yeast are still working to cleanup after themselves and remove some off flavors, so I generally leave beers of that gravity in primary for at least 2 weeks.

Click to expand...

There is plenty of yeast to clean up any fermentation by products and they don't need the cold break to do it. Moving the beer to another vessel will not stop fermentation or any yeast process. German brewers rack right after high krausen with no problems.

Is it possible your fermenters were exposed to light? Or while you were on holiday, the temp. in the room with your beer spiked up to 75-85? The fact it tasted fine after the initial fermentation, but then developed an off flavor suggests, to me, that something happened while you were away. If the beer is mellowing, it will probably continue to do so with age.

pkeeler said:

Is it possible your fermenters were exposed to light?

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Well the beer is stored mainly in my living room which is maily quite dull but often has light and over the break it was exposed to diffusd daylight every day.

pkeeler said:

Or while you were on holiday, the temp. in the room with your beer spiked up to 75-85? The fact it tasted fine after the initial fermentation, but then developed an off flavor suggests, to me, that something happened while you were away. If the beer is mellowing, it will probably continue to do so with age.

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But the off flavour first developed before we went away. While we were away the beer was stored in a semi-out-house, In winter, in England. The temperature round here has been around -4 up to a maximum of about +5 celsius. the roomdoes get a little heat from the house heeping just above freezing when it's below 0 outside.


Does anyone have any ideas about the clarity of our beer?

Well the beer is stored mainly in my living room which is maily quite dull but often has light and over the break it was exposed to diffusd daylight every day.

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Bingo! Put a blanket or black garbage bag over your fermenter. Beer should never be exposed to light, and sunlight is the worst.

pkeeler said:

Bingo! Put a blanket or black garbage bag over your fermenter. Beer should never be exposed to light, and sunlight is the worst.

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Thankyou, that's very interesting. i already knew this of course because i've made sure to get brown bottles rather than clear bottles for this reason... i've never made the jump to think that the fermenter should be in darkness too.

Does this effect the cloudyness of the beer? or is this still an issue to be resolved?

First of all, secondary fermenter is a completely acceptable term. Secondary is short for secondary fermenter. I don't use one unless I am lagering or I want the beer to clear faster, but I certainly wouldn't use one unless it had been 3-4 weeks already.

The off flavor could be due to infection, tannin extraction, or possibly skunking. Skunking would also cause a loss of hop aroma.

There are a few possibilities for the cloudiness:
1) Could be a dusty yeast strain or a bad batch of yeast
2) Infection is a possibility, especially if it comes with an off flavor
3) Could just be chill haze

Anyway, in the future I think that you should let your beers sit for at least 2 weeks before messing with them; 3-4 wouldn't hurt either. Then you can think about racking to a secondary. If you want to improve the hop aroma you can boil some more hops for 5 minutes in like a cup or two of water and add that to the beer.