Noob question on Green Beer!

What does Green beer taste like? I just got my first batch of stout into the corny keg after 3 weeks in the primary with stable gravity readings took a little sample as I was syphoning in and wow was it bitter. It also followed with a hint of metallic taste, but I used well water, so I am assuming that is the culprit for my metallic taste as I purchased this kit. Temps never went above 68 during fermentation and remained constant for the 3 weeks it sat.

It smelled like beer, tasted like beer, but was more bitter than I had anticipated. My guess is time in the keg will mellow and balance it out, and this is in fact green beer, but as it's my first batch, just thought I would check in with folks with a little experience of these tastes!

I'll be starting my next batch this weekend of this but will be using filtered water this time around.

Excellent, that is what I hoped and thought, was just looking for a little re-assurance

I'll go back to chilling and relax and wait for it to do it's thing now..... It gives me time to build the Keezer project anyway!

There are two things about green beer. First, green beer almost always has acetaldehydes, a tart flavor, that mellows pretty quickly with sufficient conditioning.

Second, with green beer, you can almost always tastes the characteristics of the beer - the malt, hop bitterness, hop flavoring, and any other flavorings - in separate places on the palate. With sufficient conditioning, these flavors meld into a much more cohesive unit of flavor, if that makes any sense.

One thing to note, your 68F fermentation temp is a little high. Remember that yeast produce exothermic heat during their reproduction process, so a 68F ambient temp outside the fermenter is closer to 3-8F HIGHER in temp inside the wort/beer, or more like 71-76F. If you used a standard ale yeast for that stout, you should have ideally kept the fermentation temp closer to 58-60F to get a clean fermentation. Remember a SLOWWWW COOOL fermentation is always a CLEAN fermentation. At a 68F ambient temp, you likely produced some off flavors that are contributing to the slight off-taste of your batch. You can fix those off flavors by just allowing an EXTRA 4-6 weeks of conditioning time, but in the future, you can get it right the first time by fermenting at the LOWER end of the optimum range listed on the yeast packet.

Exceptions this rule would be Saisons or Weizens, where fermenting at the higher end produces off flavors that are desireable for the style.

If I were making that stout kit, I'd go about 3-4 weeks in primary, transfer it to a corny at room temp, purge the O2 with CO2, then just let it sit at room temp in the corny for about another 4 weeks, throw it in the kegorator, and slow carb for 2 weeks before serving. So I'd be drinking the beer about 8-10 weeks after brewday.

Hope that helps your future brews! Good luck!

Like these dudes said, there's still lots of yeast and hop particulates floated in suspension. If you want it conditioned faster, you can filter it. Or just let it lay low for a bit.

I'll just let it ride for a bit now. Thanks for the tips guys... It's all a learning experience!

I'll take note of the temps to keep it lower for this weekends brew session.

I've now had my first taste of green beer, so it'll be fascinating to see how it changes over time!

Ok, but harsh bitterness is coming from the yeast and hop particles. Force them out of suspension and yes, that flavor will be removed faster.

So I put it in the Keg on Sunday night, and gave it a shot of CO2 to purge the O2. The only thing I need to do is move it to a room in the house this evening and set it there and forget it for another month.

That works for me as the primary is free for the next beer and it gives me time to put my Keezer together over the next month.

two_hearted said:

Ok, but harsh bitterness is coming from the yeast and hop particles. Force them out of suspension and yes, that flavor will be removed faster.

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Harsh bitterness is also green hop flavors in the beer when they're still green. som harsh funk/yeastiness can be removed with trub. Just not all of it,as some is attributed to green beer.

I agree with Union. Post-fermentation filtering is generally not a good idea unless you are trying to make a flavorless light lager. There are much better ways to clear a beer.

Besides conditioning, the carbination in the final beer will also cut the perceived bitterness, so this one should turn out just fine once it's done.

So just had another taste of it, not ready for consumption yet, but the bitterness has dropped off a lot and the metallic taste has also eased....., still quite cloudy at this point though, I figure the yeast hasn't dropped out yet, or I swirled what had back up dragging the keg over to my kegerator.

Just going to let it ride some more.

Thanks again!