porter tastes like grape cough syrup?

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EdwardPaulsen

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hi everyone,
i made the all grain fuller's porter clone from a recent issue of BYO and after a bit of conditioning in the bottle it has a definite nose of

grape cough syrup.

the recipe was in a feature on brown malt...never having used it i wasn't sure what it was taste like but i'm guessing NOT this.

the beer is not as roasty as i would have expected either...but i'm wondering where this possible flavor quirk came from and if it (hopefully) will be minimized with aging.

cheers!
 
Not sure where that might have come from, but I'd say let it age. Try it again in a month. Repeat as necessary.
 
the cough syrup taste comes from Cloramate (no that's not spelled correctly) in your brew water. its a kind of Corine. its more stable and wont be driven off by simple boiling. drop a single campden tablet in your brew water and there should be no more cough syrup in your future. sadly your current batch is most likely going to stay the way it is. but age it anyway and see if im wrong. i could be.
 
It could be from chloramines in the water, or it could come from high fermentation temperatures, or even from using bleach to sanitize if not rinsed well. Chlorophenols are detectable in very small amounts, and are likened to a "medicinal taste".

Can one of those reasons be why you have that off-taste?
 
You mean chloramine?

I know it can cause off-flavors, didn't know this was one of them though.

[Yooper typing at the same time as I was again. :D]
 
I get a TON of grape soda smell off of fullers london porter.

just sayin...
 
thanks guys,
i think the temp WAS too high...
never got that before...the grape taste i mean.
and i've never had a problem just using the tap for my other beers...
here's to keeping fingers crossed. :)
 
I get a TON of grape soda smell off of fullers london porter.

just sayin...

+1

I don't think you did anything wrong....I don't think it's fermentation temps nor do I think it's necessarily cloramines either...though chloramines could come into play, possibly.

Certain dark roasted malts can impart what is often called "Dark Fruit" flavors in some beers. Flavors like Fig, and Raisin, especially in the presence of non fermentable sugars like lactose...Add a malt that at a certain level in a graibill is "raisiny" to any residual sweetness and you get something like grape soda. If you do have chloramines combined with dark malts maybe the taste would be a bit medicinal...

My chocolate mole porter tasted like grape soda while it was still young, and green, but that faded with time, more than likely yours will too.
 
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