First brew complete.... really disappointed

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Moshmeister

Active Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2013
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
Hi all,

I've just tasted my first brew, a Coopers Stout kit. I fermented at 22-23c for 3 weeks then carbonated in bottles for 4 weeks. I was very careful with sanitising etc. and followed all the advice from this very site.

The beer has carbonated but there's a very strong taste that is hard to describe that ruins the beer. To try and describe it... you know that smell when you're touring a brewery? It tastes like a strong version of that. It's like that distinct smell of the wort (beer, but something extra in there).... but stronger. It's almost like red wine in a way.

Could anyone please shed some light on what I might have done wrong? I know the fermentation temperature is a bit higher than ideal but it's still within the guidelines so can't imagine it caused such a strong effect.

The beer is barely drinkable sadly. :(

Mosh
 
Did you check gravity readings to make sure the beer fermented?

Water quality may have been an issue as well, Chlorine. But the strong wort smell makes me think the beer didn't ferment out fully.
 
Yep the beer definitely fermented - I took gravity readings and left it for 2 weeks after the FG was stable to 2 days in a row. I also used bottled water so that shouldn't be an issue.
 
You might also think about letting it sit a while more. Seven weeks from the start of fermentation is not very long for a stout. Let it sit for another month, then try another one. Aging will probably do it some good.
 
My dad did a couple of Coopers batches and those seemed to have a wine like taste to them as well. I've heard some people mention that the instructions given by Coopers aren't really the greatest and that there are better ways to brew it. Maybe try other extracts from other companies and see if you get the same results.
 
I feel your pain. The same feeling of dread washed over me last year after tasting my st. patty's day stout. Bleck! Gross! Give it time. Dark beers can take a while to develop in the bottle. In my case, it took a good 6 months + for the beer to really get good. Put your young stouts aside for the moment and move on to your next brew. Try them again in a few months. You may be surprised with how their flavor evolves.
 
Also, did you use the yeast that came with the Cooper's kit? Those kits are pretty notorious for shipping with fairly substandard yeast, which can definitely have an impact on your finished product. Next time around, try a kit from Northern Brewer, or Austin Homebrew Supply, or one of the more well known Internet homebrew supply shops - they tend to have high turnover, so their ingredients are fresher, and they also use a much higher grade of yeast than you'll typically find in a Cooper's kit.
 
Several things are common for new brewers using extract kits:

1. Fermenting at too high a temperature = off flavors
2. Bacteria contamination = off flavors
3. Extract kit "twang" flavor. Every one I did from kits had this, I noticed the difference right away when I went all grain.
4. Old yeast = underpitching can lead to off flavors in beer. I brewed a brown ale that didn't have enough healthy yeast used and the yeast stressed and produced some nasty chemical cleaner type off flavor that made me pour out 90% of that batch!

Practice makes perfect! I wasn't happy with my first beer either but now I make a couple recipes that are truly worthy of a tap handle at the local pub!
 
Sorry, not good at immediate recognition of metric temps. 22 - 33 C is a pretty huge range. And you are already at the top of a good temp at 22. If it got up to 33 during fermentation, even just getting a degree or more above 22, that would be my first guess as to you main problem.

Try to keep it below 20, optimally you'd want it at 18 C for best results.

Once you get up in that 22 and above, (72F and above) temps yeast start throwing off odd flavors.
 
That's a real shame, hang in there it's a terrific hobby, get another one going ASAP . There are too many things to speculate on what has gone wrong, only you can reflect on your whole process. That's unless it's supposed to taste like that and it's just not your taste.
 
Great advice again, much appreciated guys.

Sounds like I should leave it a while longer and see how it develops, but I did use the yeast that came with the kit and fermented at around 72f so it will probably never be great. :(

Next time (I have a strong IPA in waiting!) I'll ferment at a lower temperature and buy some better yeast to use.
 
Once you get up in that 22 and above, (72F and above) temps yeast start throwing off odd flavors.

Very much so. I never ferment ales over 68F which is around 20C.

Also keep in mind that if the air temp is 22C the beer temp might hit 25C because fermentation is exothermic! The fermentation temp is the temp of the beer, not the ambient air!
 
My first beer was an extract kit from "brewers best"
it was their "milk stout"
per the directions on the box it said it was `ready` 2-weeks after bottling..................................................................................
it wasn't...
it didn't taste like a stout at all @ the 2 week mark
i let it sit for another 2-4 weeks and something magical happened.
the beer gods came down from the heavens and turned this absurd tasting beer into a mighty fine tasting milk stout.
appease the beer gods with patience and they will bless you too with tasty brews.
 
Great advice again, much appreciated guys.

Sounds like I should leave it a while longer and see how it develops, but I did use the yeast that came with the kit and fermented at around 72f so it will probably never be great. :(

Next time (I have a strong IPA in waiting!) I'll ferment at a lower temperature and buy some better yeast to use.

I would suggest that you start with trying to make simpler beers until you are comfortable with the entire process. Stouts and IPAs are both something I would consider intermediate to advanced in terms of difficulty. I have 5 batches under my belt and I'm still a little scared of doing these varieties yet.

I do recommend the Austin Homebrew kits. They have extract and mini-mash as well as all grain. I found the mini-mash quality a considerable step up in good taste. I have now moved to all grain and I expect I'll see even more of an improvement.

Prost! and good luck.
 
Several things are common for new brewers using extract kits:

1. Fermenting at too high a temperature = off flavors
2. Bacteria contamination = off flavors
3. Extract kit "twang" flavor. Every one I did from kits had this, I noticed the difference right away when I went all grain.
4. Old yeast = underpitching can lead to off flavors in beer. I brewed a brown ale that didn't have enough healthy yeast used and the yeast stressed and produced some nasty chemical cleaner type off flavor that made me pour out 90% of that batch!

Practice makes perfect! I wasn't happy with my first beer either but now I make a couple recipes that are truly worthy of a tap handle at the local pub!

Completely onboard with everything but the bold. In my experience, extract twang is oxidized and stale extract. That is quite possibly the case here. However, there's no overarching "twang" inherent in extract. I only had it in one of my extract batches. And if you brew all-grain with stale mishandled grain, you're gonna get off flavors there too.

OP, make sure next time you use fresh extract, and you won't have to worry about "extract twang"

Sorry, not good at immediate recognition of metric temps. 22 - 33 C is a pretty huge range. And you are already at the top of a good temp at 22. If it got up to 33 during fermentation, even just getting a degree or more above 22, that would be my first guess as to you main problem.

Try to keep it below 20, optimally you'd want it at 18 C for best results.

Once you get up in that 22 and above, (72F and above) temps yeast start throwing off odd flavors.

He said 22-23 in the original post. Still not ideal, but not as high or as wide of a swing.

Very much so. I never ferment ales over 68F which is around 20C.

Also keep in mind that if the air temp is 22C the beer temp might hit 25C because fermentation is exothermic! The fermentation temp is the temp of the beer, not the ambient air!

I don't often go above 68, unless I'm brewing Belgian beers. Those I start in the high 60s, but I crank em way up there.


That said, I agree with most of the comments here. Let it age a while and see what happens.

Another possiblity, OP, how much sugar was added? "Alcohol booster", anything like that? Cheep kits like Mr. Beer and Coopers are notorious for em, and they can create some really unpleasant flavors which may or may not age out.
 
Most likely your beer was impacted by the following:

1) Fermented at way too high of a temp, and the temps swung considerably.
18° C is a good rule of thumb for most ale yeasts. And it's important to keep temps steady, or to gradually ramp them up from cool to warmer.

2) Under-pitched the amount of yeast needed
Most beer kits give you one packet of yeast, and who knows how old that yeast is. That's woefully inadequate if you want excellent beer. Go to online yeast pitching calculators like mrmalty.com and find out how much yeast you should actually be pitching.

Another possibility is chlorine or chloramine in your water. Chlorine can get boiled off during the boil, but chloramine sticks around and it will definitely make your beer taste bad. If your municipal water is treated with chloramine, then you need to buy some campden tablets and use 1/2 of a tablet per 10 gallons of water. Campden tablets also work on dissipating chlorine.
 
Qhrumphf - I used only the Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 (dextrose, maltodextrin and Light Dry Malt) which was recommended, nothing else.
 
+1 on the warm temps (both pitching and fermenting) being the most likely culprit. If 23*C (73.4*F) is your room temp, it's possible that your beer made it up into the 26*C range when it was actively fermenting.

You'll do much better for the next batch if you:

1) Get a quality kit from MoreBeer, Austin or Northern Brewer that contains a good 11g packet of dry yeast (Safale or Fermentis)

2) Find out if your water supplier uses chloramine. If so, treat your water with 1/2 a campden tab per 5 gallons

3) Get the wort chilled to around 60-62*F before pitching yeast and keep the ferment in the mid-60's (beer temp, not air)
 
As said, keep the temps towards the mid to low range of the yeast. Also, what did you use to sterilize? Bleach works, but you must be very careful to rinse.

The brewery smell makes me consider excessive chlorine.
 
It's definitely not a chlorine smell. It smells/tastes like the wort really.

I used VWP.
 
at least you are able to say, 'this is not good beer.' a lot of brewers struggle with that.

:p Good point. I've had a few homebrews from fellow brewers in which the brewer was proud of the beer but it made me pucker on the first sip from the off flavors and the green taste.
 
I completely feel your pain. I brewed 2 batches of Mr. Beer and all of them had this gnarly cidery taste to them. For this past Christmas, I got a 5 gallon kit from my wife and went out and bought a Brewers Best Milk Stout kit. However, I didn't brew it until September! I refer to the product as "Sphincter Stout" because it, well, you get the idea.

As I reviewed my process, I realized that I had fermented way too warm (ambient temp of room between 70-72). I had also used the yeast that came with the kit. I pitched at 80*. Lastly, I have no doubt the kit was old, given that I bought it in late December and didn't brew for another 9 months!

I recently brewed and bottled John Palmer's Lord Crouchback Special Bitter. I am almost dreading opening the first bottle for fear of "the funk". However, this time around, I bought fresh extract, liquid yeast, pitched down more like 68* and fermented in a swamp cooler at about 63-64*.

Good luck and keep brewing!!!
 
Thanks guys. How did you use a swamp cooler for the fermentation exactly?

I bought one of those keg tubs ($8 at Lowe's) - basically looks like a big bucket with rope handles. After pitching the yeast, I put the fermenter (Ale Pail) in the tub and poured in cold water around it until it was at roughly the same level as the beer inside the fermenter. Then, I took an old towel and soaked it in the water and draped it over the top of the fermenter (but not blocking the airlock.) keeping both ends of the towel down in the water. Then, I took a table fan and pointed it at the towel. I have one of those Polder probe thermometers which I kept submerged in the water of the bucket. That thermometer gave me the reading of the surrounding water - it got down as low as 61. When I kept the fan off, it stayed around 63.

I figured (hopefully correctly) that the beer in the fermenter would roughly match the temperature of the surrounding water.
 
Photo of my swamp cooler set up. Resturant bussing tray almost filled with water. Cotton towel to wick water. Fan to provide extra cooling power if it is needed. The thermo strip is uncovered and away from the fan to provide accurate wort temperature readings.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/swamp-cooler-61314.html
Right now my swamp cooler is holding a terribly over pitched Dry Irish Stout at 63° degrees, without the fan, in ambient temperature of 68°.
 
Great, I'm definitely going to try a swamp cooler set up next time. Looks simple, cheap and (hopefully) effective!
 
Great, I'm definitely going to try a swamp cooler set up next time. Looks simple, cheap and (hopefully) effective!

It works quite well. After reading HBT I bought one of the 6$ rope handle buckets at Wal-Mart. Works awesome and my beer is always very happy. :)

Swamp Cooler.jpg
 
Back
Top