When does the beer start tasting good?

I just racked mine to secondary (didn't fill the five-gallon carboy, unfortunately) and I tasted a little. It was pretty potently awfu! I had never imagined a taste such as that. Is it supposed to taste bad at this point?

it won't be at it's best until a few weeks to a couple months after bottling. don't worry about it.

If it's only a week old it'll taste beer-like but be very "green" and yeasty. You don't need to worry unless it's sour like vinegar or "ropey", which would imply an infection. My first batch, when I racked a little over a week ago (it was four days old at the time), tasted very bitter and practically undrinkable due to the huge amount of suspended yeast and strong flavors that haven't had a chance to mellow out, but it did smell like beer and have a basic beer taste to it. Higher alcohol beers will need several weeks before they're at their best, and really strong ones can take months.

When I bottled my very first batch, a fairly bitter ESB, it tasted like minerals (copper, really) and was just plain overwhelming. I thought it might not be drinkable. Now after almost six weeks in bottles, it is absolutely fantastic beer! It is very similar to my favorite commercial ESB, the Fuller's ESB.

Just give it time and don't judge it harshly yet.

It starts tasting good when you're drunk enough not to notice that it doesn't. Or in a few weeks.

Five weeks from the end of the ferment is a good guideline.

I advocate tasting the brew along the way & keeping notes.

In my experience 3-5 weeks is a good guideline, but as others mentioned there's nothing wrong with sampling along the way. Personally, I'm too damn impatient to wait the whole time period before trying it. Just don't be disappointed if it's not everything you'd hoped for right away.

Maybe it's because I'm an alcoholic, but all my beers taste good going into secondary. Just flat. I taste/drink all my samples at the various stages in
which I take them. I get a feel for how my brew is progressing.

But like the guys have said, let it go for a while and it will melow out into
a great brew.

boo boo said:

Maybe it's because I'm an alcoholic, but all my beers taste good going into secondary. Just flat. I taste/drink all my samples at the various stages in
which I take them. I get a feel for how my brew is progressing.

But like the guys have said, let it go for a while and it will melow out into
a great brew.

Click to expand...

Hahaha, I too love the taste of my beers along the way. I am also an avid airlock sniffer

Wow, me too. What are the chances that there are two people on this
site that sniff their airlocks, lol.

I guess we are one-of-a-kind.

I have found that if it is god aweful in the secondary it will generally be god aweful in the bottle. But my sense of god aweful and yours sense of god aweful may be different. Give it some time.

Did I really just use god aweful 5 times in the same post on a Sunday? Alright!

boo boo said:

Wow, me too. What are the chances that there are two people on this
site that sniff their airlocks, lol.

I guess we are one-of-a-kind.

Click to expand...

Haha, I have started doing that as well, especially with the christmas ale I've got fermenting right now.

I'd be more surprised if there were two people on this site who DON'T sniff the airlock...

I'm a sniffer. And I agree that I generally like the taste of my beer at pretty much every point in the process. It does improve a lot with conditioning and carbonation, but I usually look forward to my secondary sample.

BTW, when I saw this thread before clicking on it, I though "Hmmm, probably around 17-18 years old..."

the_bird said:

I'd be more surprised if there were two people on this site who DON'T sniff the airlock...

Click to expand...

I agree, lol. Perhaps they'll come out of the closet.

Hi, my name is Boo Boo, and I'm an airlock sniffer, lol.

I sniff...
...a lot.

fellow sniffer.

i don't have a problem, it's everyone else in the world with the problem

Ok, I admit it too...

If you're not sniffin' you're not addicted yet....

If you get part of your 3 piece airlock lodged in your nose, you're sniffing too much!

I like my beer at every stage as well. Just pitched one tonight and it is nice and tasty already. I also just opened my first bottle of my first batch in my second life of brewing. It was a good night.

I do it first thing in the morning, then again right before going to bed.

Wait a minute, are we still talking about sniffing the airlock?

Just wash your hands and don't talk about it in public.

Anytime I open 1.

I'm trying to sniff, but this damn cold!

My scottish ale had a dominate sour apple syrup flavor at the end of the primary.

My peach cream ale tasted good enough to drink right out of the secondary. The mouth-feel was like water though.

The hazelnut stout tasted good right out of the brew pot. It will be a long wait until Christmas for that one to finish

I'm an airlock sniffer, and frequent sampler too. I usually grab 3 or 4 thief-fulls while the brew is in the secondary.

Both the Peach Cream Ale and the Hazelnut Stout sound fantastic. Have you got recipes posted?

I just racked my first brew (a wheat) to secondary yesterday and tasted some. I thought it actually was pretty good for being flat and only 7 days old!

Austin

The hazelnut stout is in the extract section titled, "Island Girl Hazelnut Stout".

The Peach Cream Ale was a LHBS kit I bought and added 7lbs of Peaches to the secondary. It was like:
1 can of Coopers Light Hopped LME
2 lb of Munton's Light DME
1oz of Northern Brewer's hops
Safale US-56 yeast

The boil was 45 minutes, hops added at the beginning of the boil.

7lbs of white peaches added to the secondary.

Final clarification in a tertiary.

If I had to do it over again, I'd add a 1/2lb of Carapils for mouthfeel. All the way through the primary, secondary, and tertiary it tasted like beer but felt like water in my mouth. The mouthfeel has improved after 1 week in the bottle. But I'd still like it to feel fuller. The flavor so far is not overly peachy, but it does dominate any malt taste. The hop flavor is still there, but its more of a background flavor.

I'd also add an extra 1/2 gallon to the primary. I lost 6 x 12oz. bottles through the three rackings.

The peach cream ale sounds amazing. I think I will try that this week.

And I'm still drooling over that hazlenut stout. Let us know how it turns out!

I never sniff my airlocks.

Back to the original question. I think the wort tastes great straight from the kettle, but the flavor generally goes downhill for the next three - four weeks, then the flavor starts to improve. I tend to brew with a lot of hops, and it's not unusual to have to wait for eight weeks or so after kegging or bottling for the hops to mellow.

-a.

How could you not sniff? CO2 as a byproduct of fermentation smells delicious. If you start drinking your airlock water, then you've got a problem.

ayrton said:

How could you not sniff? CO2 as a byproduct of fermentation smells delicious. If you start drinking your airlock water, then you've got a problem.

Click to expand...

Uh oh.... :cross:

I've been tempted...

I tell you what, next time I'm filling that thing with vodka and doing a hops-shot in celebration of the rack. We should all celebrate The Rack.

Yeah! Airlock shots!

oooh. that's sounds like it will put hair on the chest.

sounds like a man. a man with a plan.

Pretty funny actually, I was visiting (read drinking) the local meadery the other day and a local distiller came in and we got to talking about their products. It turns out they make a beer schnapps that has a wonderful hoppy aroma and flavor. The guys at the meadery all loved it so now I have to find a way to get some to try. The 3 tier liquor licenses are really pretty messed up in CA so I am not allowed to actually buy it at the distillery.

Yeah they are like that pretty much anywhere. I've heard of beer schnapps before, have yet to try it. Just talk to someone at whatever distillery it was, or someone at the meadery. At the very least someone at the distillery can tell you the name of their distributor and from there you can find out every store they supply in your area.

Taxes = salaries ... no one want's that big of income to slip through.

My 2 year old daughter (almost 3) saw me sniffing my airlocks, so now she does it too. Not sure what to think about that. She also likes to sit with me and watch the yeasties churn in the primary.

boo boo said:

Wow, me too. What are the chances that there are two people on this
site that sniff their airlocks, lol.

I guess we are one-of-a-kind.

Click to expand...

Three

alemonkey said:

She also likes to sit with me and watch the yeasties churn in the primary.

Click to expand...

Man that is one of my most favorite pastimes! It's more mesmerizing than saturday morning cartoons at 5 years old! :cross:

I look very funny laying there watching the little yeast do their dance, in front of the outside door, in the front hall.

I found myself just sitting on my closet floor looking at my fermenter and enjoying the sights/sounds of yeast going at it. I remember thinking "man, I must be a nerd, I'm sitting on the floor watching beer ferment". Glad to see I'm not alone.

-pete-

I'm afraid to watch it for too long because I've heard the light is bad for it. I do it anyway.