What Does "Young Beer" Taste like?

My last three batches have had a strange off-flavor - metallic, maybe bitter? You can really tell in the aftertaste and after a good burp. It seems like it mellows with age (a little), but I really don't remember previous batches tasting like this, even early.

I just pulled my first pint off my new kegging system, and it has it also. It's only 4 weeks after brew day, so it's young, I know. Is this "young beer" I'm tasting, or do I need to check other things?

One more thing....I used OLD hops in this one. They are probably 2 year old Hallertau as my bittering and fresh Goldings for flavor/aroma.

I thought since they were for bittering, the Hallertau would not bitter if they were bad and it would be cloying - it's not at all. It smells great, too.

Thoughts?

What temp and yeast strains have you been using. Also, are you using tap water? This sounds like a water or fermentation temp problem.

Tap water, yes. 3 different yeast strains. This one is WLP002. My water profile is OK. I have RO, which I used to use, but I read RO was a no no. Thoughts on RO? Temps have been 65-75.

One ESB, one wheat beer and one Munich based beer (like a fall ale) All AG's.

What ferm temps would cause this, high or low? I could go back to RO (now that you say that, I think it was better before I changed to tap), but where I live north of LA Calif., our water tastes OK - not like the mountains, but OK. Here is a link to the water profile - http://www.valenciawater.com/quality/QualityReport.asp

Pretty standard without any glaring chemicals.

It is probably acetaldehyde. Would you describe the taste as green apples? To me it tastes bitter, but not like a bitterness caused by hops but more astringent.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Green_apples

My brown ale still has it and it is taking a long time to attenuate the acetaldehyde. I also used WLP002 for that one. I know some yeasts are more prone to produce it, but I couldn't give you a list. Maybe this yeast is more susceptible.

One thing you can do is give it a couple weeks in the secondary at colder temps like 50F to help condition it. I normally use a fermenting fridge for this, but with my brown ale, I couldn't because my wee heavy scotch ale was in there, so I am sure this is adding to the situation.

I am interested in which yeast you used for your wheat beer. I used WLP300 for my dunkelweizen and although it has only been bottled for 2 weeks, I am getting acetaldehyde pretty strong.

As far as RO goes, it is great if you are trying to exactly duplicate a water profile. With RO you remove everything and then add the minerals in the correct proportions to match the profile of the region your beer is famous for. If you are using RO and not adding back minerals, that is not good. Yeast need minerals such as calcium, zinc, magnesium .etc. You can call these minerals the yeast's vitamins.

Hmmmmm. It's possible. I had it in the primary for almost a month. The munich beer still has a small taste of it 6 months after bottling and I actually had to dump the wheat beer after 4 months because it was so strong. I have the keg of ESB (newest one with the off flavor) in the fridge to carb. As far as RO, I have no idea what to add since my water profile shows what 'I think' it should. I am comparing it to what Jamil's chart shows and nothing stands out.

The flavor is really weird....no me it's like licking metal braid or maybe rust. My wife says like licking a nickel.


what would I add to RO to make regular, good water? Could I just buy mountain spring water?

Could it be my old aluminum pot?

RO water IMO is fine. I do add some minerals, most notably Gypsum & Calcium Chloride. Read the Sticky on Water in the Brew Science forum section, in which AJ Delange lays it out in simple terms. However I brewed many a fine beer using RO water before I knew about adding minerals, which certainly improves the beer. You can of course screw up a beer if you don't know what you are doing with mineral additions, in which case straight RO is better.

What are you using to clean your kegging system? Also investing in a sanitary filter for you CO2 line is a cheap safeguard against impurities from the gas tank (think rust, etc.) http://www.williamsbrewing.com/IN-LINE_2_MICRON_FILTER_P440.cfm

This is my first keg I've ever done and the 3rd beer with this off-flavor. That is a cool filter and I actually have one in my cart for my next order.....

I have had the same problem, with that flavor, and I think its my bottling bucket. I've also considered some of my mash tun fittings, that have been recently switched out, but mine seems to happen after bottling. I never would notice the off-flavor before(pre/post-ferm). Maybe its an equipment thing. Does your alum pot have any cracks or anything? How about your racking cane? Could that be the source? Have you been soaking in PBW or Oxiclean before sanitizing?

I agree - I don't taste it before carbonating. It can't be bottling bucket, though because I didn't use one this time to keg!

New racking cane and tubing this batch, alum pot is for boiling, so cracks shouldn't really matter. I do have brass fittings. Next batch will be on my new keggle. I'm going to change out my mashtun braid, too. This sucks.....

Posted my water profile to the science section of the forum and it sounds like that's the problem. Super hard water and very high in Na. I'm going to try diluting it with RO water something like 5:1. We'll see.....

That makes sense, considering its been consistent with water sources, but it still seems odd you don't get the flavor before carbing. That's what made me think it was something between post ferm and racking to the keg. Good luck! I'm sure between these things, you'll have it resolved soon.

jitteringjr said:

My brown ale still has it and it is taking a long time to attenuate the acetaldehyde. I also used WLP002 for that one. I know some yeasts are more prone to produce it, but I couldn't give you a list. Maybe this yeast is more susceptible.

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Wlp002/1968 is known to sometimes cause off flavors after bottling/kegging. There has been some discussion about it in the English yeast thread. I even made a short post about it in my blog. I've used this yeast a lot and have never had it produce any discernible acetaldehyde flavors. Cidery, tart, metallic, and thin describe this off flavor pretty well.

What causes the metallic flavors in beer's not brewed with this yeast, I don't know.

bierhaus15 said:

Wlp002/1968 is known to sometimes cause off flavors after bottling/kegging. There has been some discussion about it in the English yeast thread. I even made a short post about it in my blog. I've used this yeast a lot and have never had it produce any discernible acetaldehyde flavors. Cidery, tart, metallic, and thin describe this off flavor pretty well.

What causes the metallic flavors in beer's not brewed with this yeast, I don't know.

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Thanks for the heads up on the British ale yeast thread. It is a long but interesting read. I really like your idea of using wlp005 for carbonation. If you said it in the thread, I missed it, but how much do you recommend adding to a 5 gal batch?

My brown ale could definitely defined as cidery, tart and thin, but I wouldn't call it metallic. Acetaldehyde by the why is often described as a Cidery flavor.

I have used wlp002 as my go to yeast for my porters and I haven't had off tastes with it before. The brown ale is the lightest beer I have put 002 in so maybe the darker malts helped hide it before. It didn't show any off tastes at bottling. FYI I have always used DME for priming in bottles with it. It sounds like from the British ale thread, that using corn sugar and other light priming sugars also caused this issue. The one difference I have done with those porters that I didn't do with the brown is a 50F crash for 2 weeks in the secondary. I am going to start doing longer primary ferments in my next few batches to see how this affects this and the next time I use wlp002 I am going to try the wlp005 for priming.

Kayos said:

Posted my water profile to the science section of the forum and it sounds like that's the problem. Super hard water and very high in Na. I'm going to try diluting it with RO water something like 5:1. We'll see.....

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That is interesting. So too high of a mash PH causing tannins to come out. Its definitely a possibility. Have you had all bad batches since you stopped using RO?

Kayos said:

Posted my water profile to the science section of the forum and it sounds like that's the problem. Super hard water and very high in Na. I'm going to try diluting it with RO water something like 5:1. We'll see.....

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So I never heard whether you're an extract or all grain brewer. If you're all grain, it's more important that you start working on water chemistry. If you're extract, RO water is definitely something to start with. Since the off taste is metallic, water profile is a likely candidate. The styles which you say give you this off flavor are also ones that don't need water that is hard or high in sulfate.

jitteringjr said:

That is interesting. So too high of a mash PH causing tannins to come out. Its definitely a possibility. Have you had all bad batches since you stopped using RO?

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I was trying to remember this today....and I think YES! It definitely goes away with age, but takes long time to dissapear. I am brewing again next week with 9:1 RO and some salts, so we'll see! I really don't think it was the pH, but more the minerals in my water.

davesrose said:

So I never heard whether you're an extract or all grain brewer. If you're all grain, it's more important that you start working on water chemistry. If you're extract, RO water is definitely something to start with. Since the off taste is metallic, water profile is a likely candidate. The styles which you say give you this off flavor are also ones that don't need water that is hard or high in sulfate.

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AG - see sig.

I would love this to be a thing of the past...

Keep us updated on how that one goes.

Kayos said:

AG - see sig.

I would love this to be a thing of the past...

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Ah, OK...now that you pointed that out, I see OK, for your next batch I'd just try bottled water with mineral salts. You won't need that much to get to your desired profile, and then if you have great results....then you can decide how much tap water to add to get desired hardness.

** Update **

2 more 10 gallon batches and the culprit was the water! Zero of that off flavor now.

I experienced this same metallic taste. For me it was my beer line that needed to be cleaned. All i did was run some star san through it...Worked for me.

I know this has been out of works for a while, but just started kegging and is my problem. Thread has helped and going to check my water levels. Kayos??? Did it go away with aging in the keg? Do you remember how long it took?

Nope Got worse with time. It ended up narrowing it down to my terrible water. When I got into kegging, I also read a lot on AG and that my RO water alone was no good for it. So I went back to tap. That's what the prob was. Now I use the water primer by AJdelange and all is well. 3 dumper batches first though with a stronger and stronger metallic taste.

Love to resurrect an old thread! I have a pale ale with Wyeast 1272. I pitched the yeast 13 days ago and fermented at 63f. The krausen finally dropped but it has some heat to it. I’m thinking this is due to the beer being so young. Would I be fine to move this to a secondary to free up the primary fermenter or should I just wait to see if nature runs it’s course?

rtstrider said:

Love to resurrect an old thread! I have a pale ale with Wyeast 1272. I pitched the yeast 13 days ago and fermented at 63f. The krausen finally dropped but it has some heat to it. I’m thinking this is due to the beer being so young. Would I be fine to move this to a secondary to free up the primary fermenter or should I just wait to see if nature runs it’s course?

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If it's at final gravity you can package it and let it condition more there.

marc1 said:

If it's at final gravity you can package it and let it condition more there.

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I keg so that's why I was thinking of secondary for a bit. I wouldn't be opposed to warm conditioning in the keg with priming sugar at room temp either

rtstrider said:

I keg so that's why I was thinking of secondary for a bit. I wouldn't be opposed to warm conditioning in the keg with priming sugar at room temp either

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Use your keg as the secondary to reduce unnecessary transfers.

I've never primed a keg, but it seems that it can work if you want to.

Kayos said:

Hmmmmm. It's possible. I had it in the primary for almost a month. The munich beer still has a small taste of it 6 months after bottling and I actually had to dump the wheat beer after 4 months because it was so strong. I have the keg of ESB (newest one with the off flavor) in the fridge to carb. As far as RO, I have no idea what to add since my water profile shows what 'I think' it should. I am comparing it to what Jamil's chart shows and nothing stands out.

The flavor is really weird....no me it's like licking metal braid or maybe rust. My wife says like licking a nickel.


what would I add to RO to make regular, good water? Could I just buy mountain spring water?

Could it be my old aluminum pot?

Click to expand...

It’s hard to tell without tasting and smelling it myself. But honestly if you think it is anywhere close to tasting like metallic it is for sure the aluminum kettle. I would never use aluminum for any portion of a brew system. Stainless steel all the way. Aluminum I have heard tends to give a metallic flavor especially when the coating starts to break down and especially with lighter beers. What also probably contributed to more leaching of the aluminum is if your mash is of high acidity.

rtstrider said:

Love to resurrect an old thread! I have a pale ale with Wyeast 1272. I pitched the yeast 13 days ago and fermented at 63f. The krausen finally dropped but it has some heat to it. I’m thinking this is due to the beer being so young. Would I be fine to move this to a secondary to free up the primary fermenter or should I just wait to see if nature runs it’s course?

Click to expand...

Damn!!! I was reading this and even posted as if it was a new thread! I fell for the necropost again!

Well the heat is definitely subsiding on this brew. The alcohol smell on the nose has gone way down also. Going to pop this in secondary for a week or so and test it again. I have a kegged beer with the same issue. It’s already carbed but I’m going to yank that out of the fridge and let it sit at room temp for a few weeks to see if that helps. I have an inkling both beers may have been an under pitch so the yeast is taking it’s sweet time cleaning up lol

I don't know if it's just me, but I have noticed that when I skim the top of the wort early in the boil, use protafloc/irish moss and let it sit a while after cooling to let the cold break clump together before straining it into the bucket.
Ie keep as much crud as possible out of the fermenter, the fermentation seems to produce much less green beer flavours and much less chill haze and is ready to drink after 3-4 weeks of carbing and a week in the fridge.