The Moment of Truth

Well, here we go. Time to open the first beer of the first batch.

b-d-b-d-b-d-b-d-b-d-b-d-b-d-b-d (simulated drum roll)

Pull the swing top... LOUD pop... cool!

Pour. Oops, slow down, too much head. The bubbles, however, are not so dense.

Color looks good, lighter than I expected, maybe a bit cloudy.

Now for the taste...

TaWANG!!!!

Yowza. Initial taste is a bit like a something you'd get from a poorly run microbrewery. Not a bad flavor, just twangy.

The recipe is a pale extract done with a 3 gal. partial boil. The wort was dumped into 2 gallons of ice. Cascade hops, 1/2 package at start of boil, the other half into the primary. I had a problem with the dry yeast from the brew shop; I think I killed it. The brew shop was closed so I ran to the local grocer and picked up a couple packages of Fleishman's. I racked after three weeks with one cup of boiled sugar then bottled.

My roomie says it would taste better with lemon so he went out to get a few.

More later...

arturo7 said:

I had a problem with the dry yeast from the brew shop; I think I killed it. The brew shop was closed so I ran to the local grocer and picked up a couple packages of Fleishman's.

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Wow, I've never heard of anybody using bread yeast for their beer. Well, not outside a penitentiary anyhow.

A cup of sugar seems like a bit much for priming 5 gallons. How long has it been in the bottle?

3 weeks in the bottle. I'm guessing it will get better as time passes. With the next batch I'll try 3/4 cup on the sugar.

As for the baker's yeast... "when ya ain't got ya make do"

sorry, double post

arturo7 said:

As for the baker's yeast... "when ya ain't got ya make do"

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I feel you! I'm just a bit surprised the beer turned out as good as it did. Of course you're right, a little more bottle conditioning can only help.

I keep a couple packets of dry ale yeast in my fridge as backups, it's cheap insurance.

Also, you are cooling those down the carefully pouring into a glass and NOT getting the sediment from the bottom mixed into the beer right?

And oh my God..did you say bread yeast? <<shudders>>

Next time just wait it out and get beer yeast the next day.

Three problems.

You probably picked up some hot side aeration by "dumping" the hot wort into the ice.

The ice might not be sanitary. Did you sanitize the ice tray, fill, then cover with plastic wrap or did you take it right out of the fridge's ice maker?

Bread yeast. You'll get slammed by the EAC's (I'm in the club too) around here for using a BEER yeast that's wrong for a particular style, nevermind a bread yeast. Buy yourself a couple packets of dry yeast and keep them in the fridge. You'll never have an excuse to use bread yeast again.

and when you primed it with sugar, you meant corn-sugar right?

Call a local brewpub, homebrew club, etc and send out an SOS that you need yeast. Someone will hook you up.

arturo7 said:

I had a problem with the dry yeast from the brew shop; I think I killed it.

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What did you do that made you think you killed it?

pfranco81 said:

and when you primed it with sugar, you meant corn-sugar right?

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That doesn't really matter. That whole, it has to be dextrose, thing has for the most part been disproven.

My bet is on improper pours and Bread Yeast.

Oh, and what the hell is "EAC"??

Thanks for the comments everybody. Lots of good insight. I think I'll start keeping a spare packet or two of brewer's yeast in the fridge. How long does it last?

The dry brewer's yeast I had didn't foam up or do anything outside of falling to the bottom of the measuring cup. I assume I killed it because the water I dumped it into was just short of boiling.

The hot wort was definitely aerated when dumped into the ice. I thought this would be a good thing. Now I know better. For batch #2 I dumped the ice into the brew pot, cooled the wort, and then splashed it into the primary for aeration. I used bags of ice from the market, definitely better than my frozen tap water.

Corn sugar, what's that? I used C&H.

you can get corn sugar at any brew shop. It wont leave an off flavor like regular sugar will.

Here's some instructions on how to hydrate dry yeast.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html

Dry yeast will last a very long time in the fridge.

I used to believe the corn sugar for bottling story. But it really makes NO noticeable difference.

arturo7 said:

...the water I dumped it into was just short of boiling.

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That would do it....

Ale yeast is cheap and will keep for a very long time.
Corn sugar is cheap and the preferred brewers sugar for priming.
Rehydrating yeast should be done with water that has been boiled and then cooled down to room temperature.

All extract homebrew will exhibit some of that "twang" flavor you mentioned when it is green. It will mellow with time.

I've actually tasted beer fermented with Fleishman's bread yeast before and only one word can describe it: Vile. It was my brother's first batch back in 1974 with off the grocery store shelf malt. Took forever to ferment and was drunk directly out of the fermenter after about a month. No sissy bottle priming then. It had the desired effect (and how!), however the hangover the next day had to be experienced to be believed. Ice picks to the eyeballs would have been a relief.

Today I racked and bottled my second batch. This one used brewer's yeast. Preliminary tasting indicated a much better effort.

What did you make?

Same thing, another pale with cascade hops. This may sound strange, but I'll probably make 8-10 batches of pale before I move on to something else. As a beginner, I'm trying to learn by making only one or two changes per batch. This will, hopefully, give me an idea of how changes in the recipe and process affect the end product.

For the second batch I used the correct type of yeast and racked with 3/4 cup sugar instead of a whole cup. For the next batch I'll do everything the same except use DME instead of liquid. After that maybe change the hops.

I'm just happy that I can drink the first batch. If I were served something similar at a brew pub I'd probably send it back and order a Budweiser (not really). But it seems a bit of lemon masks the twang. I just give a squeeze and slurp away!

arturo7 said:

Today I racked and bottled my second batch. This one used brewer's yeast. Preliminary tasting indicated a much better effort.

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Funny stuff!

..."If you are not making mistakes you are not trying hard enough!"

It is good to experiment

Keep up the good work.