Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer!

This give me great hope...

I brewed a Bell's Two Hearted Ale clone recently and everything seemed spot on, or so I thought. I started off by adding a little hot water to my MLT to increase the temperature before adding the grains since it was really cold out, snowing in fact. Then I added in all my grains and poured in my hot water. I mixed for awhile and measured the temperature in several spots to get a good reading. Once I was satisifed I closed the lid and brought the MLT into my house. After maybe a half an hour I opened it up only to find that the temperature had dropped by over 5deg! I stirred the grains for a minute and took several more readings only to find the temperature was still falling. So I panicked and added in several large glasses of hot water. Yet the temperature continued to drop. Frustrated I flicked the thermometer only to find the needle jumped to a higher temperature and continued to do so with each flick.

Long story short, I have no idea what temperature I truly mashed at. I seemed to hit my OG of 1050 right on the dot. I let it ferment for almost two weeks, crashcooled in the primary, and then racked to the secondary and dry hopped for another two weeks. After racking over into the keg, the beer tasted delicious. I decided to take a sample 3 days into carbing to see how things were coming along. Which is when I noticed a huge off flavor that came right after the initial tease of the centennial hops dominating my taste buds. I am going to take your advice Revvy and just hide the keg in the back of my fridge for atleast another month.

At the request of Revvy, this is reposted foir the worriers out there...

"My first batch...lot's of things went right, lot's of things went wrong. For one, I racked to secondary only three days into primary. Three days! The beer wasn't too great. It was drinkable, but not great. I left it alone for about two months. Then, I took some to the lake and left it in my trunk for three months. The summers here don't get really hot(about 85 or so most days), but still...it was in my trunk where the temp probably gets to about 110 or so daily. It had a long hard journey in there, that's for sure(I drive like a nut!).

I cracked one yesterday and it was awesome. Has nice flavor, easy to drink, great carbonation and head retention, and best of all...it picked up some sort of light fruit flavor...sort of grape-ish, but better.

Do not dump...unless it tastes like battery acid with a cat pee twist."
__________________

+1 on this thread.

Last may I brewed my first batch of beer. It was a Muntons IPA kit and I fermented 14 days in primary and bottled it. Waited 2 weeks after bottling and chilled some bottles. Didnt taste good at all, definitely not an IPA.

So, it is now January and I decide I would dump it so I could re-use the bottles for something else. They have been in the cellar around 50-60 degrees for the last almost 7 months. I thought I would chill some for a few days and see if they were any better. What a difference! Still isnt hoppy like an IPA, but it is beer and doesnt taste too bad. Not perfect, but drinkable! Glad I didnt dump it now.

I am still somewhat of a noob, but I can offer this advice. If you followed the directions and it doesnt taste right, put it in the cellar and forget about it! Buy some beer from the store to keep you busy while your homebrew matures.

Eric

Don't dump it. If it's awful even after waiting, give it to your neighbor. Mine loved my diacetyl lager.

I hate to admit it, but I dumped my first batch. I do think it was some extenuating circumstance though..

I just got done cooking and got it all into my carboy. I didn't know about a thief at the time, so I was trying to figure out how to take a hydro reading. So I dropped the hydrometer into the carboy, and was going to just leave it in during the fermenting.Once in fell in, I realized I couldn't read the scale with the foam in the jar. So I grabbed a piece of 3/8 hose and was able to fish it onto the end of the hydro and get it out. Being the creative person I am, I decided to try to jam the hose onto the top of the hydro just a bit further so I could retrieve it after getting a reading. I didn't realize how delicate the glass was, and I shattered the hydro into the carboy. It took a lot of self control to keep myself from putting a fist through the wall. I dumped the 5 gal down the drain and walked outside to cool off. My garbage can was sitting empty in the driveway, so I gave it a good kick across the lawn. A couple of buddies on another site have since dubbed my brew as Kick the Can Ale.

With my replacement ingredients, I ordered a new hydro and beer thief. I also used a bucket this time for primary...

BubbaK said:

I hate to admit it, but I dumped my first batch. I do think it was some extenuating circumstance though..

I just got done cooking and got it all into my carboy. I didn't know about a thief at the time, so I was trying to figure out how to take a hydro reading. So I dropped the hydrometer into the carboy, and was going to just leave it in during the fermenting.Once in fell in, I realized I couldn't read the scale with the foam in the jar. So I grabbed a piece of 3/8 hose and was able to fish it onto the end of the hydro and get it out. Being the creative person I am, I decided to try to jam the hose onto the top of the hydro just a bit further so I could retrieve it after getting a reading. I didn't realize how delicate the glass was, and I shattered the hydro into the carboy. It took a lot of self control to keep myself from putting a fist through the wall. I dumped the 5 gal down the drain and walked outside to cool off. My garbage can was sitting empty in the driveway, so I gave it a good kick across the lawn. A couple of buddies on another site have since dubbed my brew as Kick the Can Ale.

With my replacement ingredients, I ordered a new hydro and beer thief. I also used a bucket this time for primary...

Click to expand...

you remind me of me

so I'm not the only one to break a hydrometer? That makes me feel a bit better...

I once attempted to invent my own recipe and make a really dry high alcohol beer. So I used what hops and ingredients I was familiar with and YUCK. I don't even think anything went wrong, it was just a horrible creation. I didn't check specific gravity.

And just like most of you, I let it sit for 9 months or so in a cool basement and tried it again. I wasn't really sure if it was my perception and lack of anything else to drink or if it was such an astonishing alteration in the beer. By the time I was done with the pile of cases (not the same day) I was pretty sure that my perceptions were accurate and the beer did actually transform into an extremely drinkable concoction. Not my best ever but very good IMHO.

As far as other things aging for extremely long times, from personal experience I can tell you that champagne does not age well. I saw one opened at some relatives' 30th reunion (that they had been given at their wedding) and some funky stuff had happened to the cork and it was mostly flat. We still drank it though, at least a taste.

I dumped a batch the other day when I was getting ready to bottle. I told myself to just bottle it anyway, but the smell was wine like and all sorts of strange and the taste was nothing I would enjoy. I wish I would have read this before then! I probably would have bottled it and left it til summer. Oh well. Great post!!

Iv been brewing for 20 years or something. Most of my beers taste terrible at first. Especially since iv gone all grain. They taste like green apples or grain husks and crazy after tastes. I have exceptions ones in a wile where they taste great in 6 weeks.

I have to drink my buddy's home brew. Its always very tasty in 6 weeks.

A wile back I had two kegs that I drank half the beer out of before I couldn't take it. Six months later I remembered the kegs of half full beer down cellar. I tastes them and all the crazy after tastes were gone and the beer was drinkable, and even tasty kind of.

The only problem is I dont have enough kegs. I like to brew every other week. My goal is to drinking nothing but home brew. If it takes four months for my beer to become tasty that's a lot of kegs.

So this is my version: I made an IPA with my dad as my second ever batch, extract with grains kit from Listermann.Com - Home Page all seemed well but after 2 weeks it tasted like a cider... WTF, wait another week, still cidery...

Talk to various people and they convince me i have botle bombs waiting to happen because i bottled too early... so i dump it...

Flash foreward 3 months, come across 3 bottles in my father in laws fridge, he never dumped them, i was SHOCKED they had not blown up so i cracked one... crisp, hoppy, smooth... perfect... should have waited...

Revvy said:

Or if it tastes, as Evan says, "like Satan's anus."

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LOL OMG Uncle Revvy owes me a new keyboard, cause im sure the cola that shot outta my nose after i tried to hold in the laughter had prob toasted it (I'm typing on my wifes computer now ) that was too funny..TG i wasn't drinking tonight

-daddy dave

revvy
I wanted to say that I joined simply because of this thread.
I'm attempting my first brew right now (on day 4) I stopped seeing bubbles after a while and decided (after reading through a couple of posts here) that my temp was to warm.
I was sad of course but then came across this thread and that's when I felt SOOOOOO much better.
thank all of you for your responses, they have helped me emensly.
Diggin' the site so far. happy brewing everyone!

Here's my question. Can you age beer to long? Is there a point where it goes bad? I have a friend who brewed a Saison and said that he is going to age some of it five years.

My current keg pretty much sucks. I don't know if it's old EKG or the Blackstrap Molasses but I pretty much hate this beer. I took a 32oz bottle of "simply lemonade" and dumped it in the keg - it's drinkable now, the super bitterness and the overly earthy flavor are softened now by faint citrus. No time to age it, need it this weekend! May have been great in a few months - the world will never know.

-OCD

Pretty sure I'm going to dump the batch I made tonight, but I'll at least give it a week.

Made up a batch of EdWort's Apfelwine tonight, my first attempt. It's so easy, I couldn't fathom anything going wrong. Well, everything was fine until I stuck the stopper into my carboy, then tried to stuff in the airlock. The airlock popped out like a rocket, but I caught it mid-flight. Round two, the airlock goes in okay, then proceeds to pour out it's contents into my brew. Probably 1/4th oz. of Star San straight on top of my yeast.

I remember listening to the Basic Brewing Podcast where the creator of Star San says that sometimes he'll drink a small amount of it to show distributors and vendors how safe it is... hopefully my yeast have similar tastes.

But, I'll give it a week or two, and look for airlock activity. I'll not pour out my first attempt at Apfelwine just because of something small like that.

Certainly don't dump it llama!! even if you don't see much activity you can always check the hydrometer readings to check for change.... or try pitching more yeast in a few days if nothing seems to be happening... (or so I've read anyway)

My buddy and I both started our first batch ever within a few days of each other and he was certain that something had gone terribly wrong as he had no airlock activity two days into it.... then he found that the lid that came with his kit didn't fit terribly snug... he could easily spin the lid around on top of the bucket, so he went and bought a new lid and put it on and within a few minutes his airlock was bubbling like mad!

Heh, thanks for the motivation Corkster. Thinking about it, the amount of Star San that got into the carboy was so small, if I don't get any activity it'll probably be because of the cheapo yeast I used. I bought 10 gallons of apple juice for Apfelwine with the intent of making 5 gallons with my cheap yeast and 5 gallons with montrachet. I'm just waiting on my montrachet yeast to show up in the mail. Heck, I even have an extra carboy set aside for it. I'll have to take everyone's advice and finally break down and buy 5 packs of dry yeast to stow in the fridge for a rainy day. If this batch doesn't take, I'll sure wish I had.

Good luck llama!
I know I had two packs of yeast on hand when I did my first batch up last weekend.... I ended up tossing my first batch of yeast at my brothers advice as he said I rehydrated it too early and it was gonna be infected from sitting out on the counter for too long... so I guess it always pays to have extra on hand... just in case!

btw... it looks like we're playing forum tag here!

One batch that deserved (definitely) was one that i dorked up and used steel shims (not SS) to weight down the dry hops. After i realized it (within a week) I retrieved it but there was a noticable metallic taste that I just couldn't deal with.

Would be curious if anyone else saved any botched attempt like this and if it eventually cleaned up but after a few months (and more dry hopping with different non-reactive weights) it still wasn't acceptable so got dumped.

I have always been a proponent of saving bad beer, mainly due to a double IPA that went from horrible to fantastic in 8 months, but I have recently tasted a beer that really makes me doubt the conventional wisdom. I brewed a belgian dark strong ale that was conventional in every way (Stan would be proud)...only belgian pale malt, pils malt, and dark candi syrup. Read the section on westvleteren from BLAM and decided to let the ferment run wild. Started the 1.100 beer@ 68 degrees and pitched with WL trappist yeast. 4 days later, fermentation had slowed to a trickle. Temperature in the carboy was 84 degrees, and the gravity was 1.016. Waited 2 more days, racked into secondary. Obviously, it tasted like ass at this point, but no worries, right? Waited 12 weeks before next taste, gravity reading stable @ 1.010, tastes like fusel madness. Still, I wasn't worried. Fast forward 13 months post-brew (in carboy, bulk aging). Beer smells absolutely divine: dark fruit, caramel, fig, bread, toffee. Unfortunately, the taste starts out fantastic and finishes with a harsh bitterness and fusel burn. So, would you save this beer? I am incredibly hesitant to pour it out and thinking I may bottle it with fresh yeast to see what happens, but I am very dubious given that I have never heard of having to wait over a year for a beer to become drinkable (let alone good). Even my eisbock only took 10 months to lose the fusel. What do you think?

jtneal111 said:

I am incredibly hesitant to pour it out and thinking I may bottle it with fresh yeast to see what happens, but I am very dubious given that I have never heard of having to wait over a year for a beer to become drinkable (let alone good). Even my eisbock only took 10 months to lose the fusel. What do you think?

Click to expand...

Of course beers that big need a heck of a lot of time...Besides you haven't even bottled it yet...that's a whole new fermentation process with a whole new set of post fermentation cleanup (post carbonation bottle conditioning).That's a whole type of conditioning you haven't even applied yet.

And the most important one to me.

You have to see a beer through the entire process from grain to glass (whether bottling or kegging,) and beyond in the bottle, before you declare one dead in the water and dump it..so you are even near that yet.

Any thoughts on a Chocolate Stout (about 8% ABV) that has soured. To make a long story short before I started brewing at home a little over a year ago my brother and I were going to a local BOP. Last time we went I made a Steam and he made a Chocolate Stout. I took some of the Stouts he gave me and let them age thinking they're a big beer so they'll age well. Well I tried one and it was soured. Hoping it was just one, I had another a few weeks later and it seems to be the whole batch. I have been slowly using them up by blending them with brown and blonde ales - gives the mix a cask quality - but you can only drink so much of it before you burn out your taste buds. I am tempted to sit on the last nine to see what happens with age. What do you think?

Alright guys. I have a beer that is just not... good. It is not a horrible beer, not infected... It is a year old now (been in a keg in the fridge). Oatmeal stout 5% ABV or so. What should I do with it? I don't have any parties where people drink a lot (hardly any at all) and I only have one drink a day (3 on weekend days) and I always want those to be something tasty.

conpewter said:

Alright guys. I have a beer that is just not... good. It is not a horrible beer, not infected... It is a year old now (been in a keg in the fridge). Oatmeal stout 5% ABV or so. What should I do with it? I don't have any parties where people drink a lot (hardly any at all) and I only have one drink a day (3 on weekend days) and I always want those to be something tasty.

Click to expand...

Well brother Con....You've done exactly WHAT this thread is about. You've given it time, you've waited it out...If you are still not happy with it, then dump it...Unless you can think of a place you can get rid of it at...like to another brewer who might like it, and will return the keg when he kicks it...or a communty event.. If there's no way to unload it, and you're not going to enjoy drining it...then there's really no course of action other than committing beer-icide.

Gang, Con exemplifies the spirit of this thread....trying....not jumping the gun and dumping right away....but giving some time to your beer...it doesn't mean it's always gonna turn out OK....that EVERY BEER is going to magically heal in time....BUT I and many of the other posters believe, that if you dump a beer too soon...the beer is a 100% failure....but if you decide to wait...I think the odds rise to 80-20 that your beer will turn out OK...

There's nothing inherently wrong with Con's beer, I betcha I or many of you would actually LOVE it. But he's given it it's chance, given it some time...so there's nothing wrong with after a year, realizing that it is just not going to be something you are going to enjoy...and dumping it...

Because you tried!



Go in peace, Oatmeal Stout!!!!

Finally a hobby where my talents as a procrastinator actually add value.

joety said:

Finally a hobby where my talents as a procrastinator actually add value.

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OH yeah....this is a great hobby for a lazy fu...er I mean procrastinator like you and me...

Leaving your beer in primary for a month= Good brewing practice.
Letting your beer sit in a bottle for a year= Good brewing practice.

Actually it is only surpassed by winemaking for a hobby that benefits from sloth. (I have some beers "lagering" for the very same reason.)

Thanks Revvy! Perhaps I'll BMBF a few bottles and see if any of my friends enjoy it. If so I can bottle up the rest for them, better than letting it go to waste. I have another oatmeal stout recipe that I absolutely love and that'll be ready in a couple months of aging.

Time indeed does heal bad beer. I brewed Edwort's Haus Pale Ale back around Christmas and missed all my numbers and didn't think it would be any good. I tasted it again last night and it was awesome, a little thin (I collected too much wort and didn't boil off near enough) but real tasty. Glad I didn't dump it.

Revvy said:

Letting your beer sit in a bottle for a year= Good brewing practice.

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Does this apply to Ales? Why do some of the books indicate that ales reach their "peak" flavor after 3-4 weeks in the bottle? (I've read at least 2 blurbs that have indicated that.) Are those just inaccurate? Or are you referring to lagers?

bdaddy said:

Does this apply to Ales? Why do some of the books indicate that ales reach their "peak" flavor after 3-4 weeks in the bottle? (I've read at least 2 blurbs that have indicated that.) Are those just inaccurate? Or are you referring to lagers?

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Talking about all beers regardless of ales of lagers. It's really dependent on the style of the beer, and more importantly the ABV of it. Bigger beers take more time to come into maturity, or to condition out any greeness. High grav barleywine may take up to a year to be ready.

Wanted to add this; I originally posted it as a new thread:

I started my first kit probably eight or nine weeks ago, a honey blonde ale by Brew House. I was as excited as any newbie to taste my first homebrew, so I opened a bottle after maybe ten days in the bottle, thought it was just okay, had another bottle maybe a week later, thought it was better, and started to drink it regularly after the presribed three weeks in the bottle. It was a nice beer.

In the interim I had bottled a few more kits and had a few more on the go. I was mostly drinking my second batch (a honey brown that came with liquid malt extract, grains I boiled, three types of hops, etc.) and sort of ignoring the honey blonde. Well...last night I cracked one of the honey blonde bottles and could not believe how much it had changed. Absolutely wonderful; significant honey flavour coming through that was not present before. It was a completely different beer. The kicker was later last night when I went to a buddy's house who had made the same kit about two weeks after me and we cracked a bottle of his. It tasted like mine USED to--good but not yet fully developed.

So now I know that when the voices of experience here on HBT say HAVE PATIENCE, they are right. When they say three weeks in the bottle is a MINIMUM, they are right. Of course I am left lamenting the fact that I have maybe 15 of 60 bottles left. Mind you, it will be easier to wait on stuff now that I have a decent stock of beer built up.

So hard to wait thou when it calls me in my sleep.......Eric come drink us you know you want to drink us.

im still pretty new t homebrewing, im currently in my 3rd batch. let me add to the horrible beer stories. i brewed an irish red ale extract recipe. rushed through the brewing process, pitched the yeast too hot, around 90. i put the lid on my primary and left it alone. about 2 weeks later i bottled it, didnt even do a secondary, i didnt know better at the time. to my discovery i forgot to top the fermenter off to 5 gallons, so i did a 5 gallon recipe with only 3 gallons of beer. when it was time to crack one open it gushed of course. had a horrible dirty brown color and tasted like sewer water. needless to say i was heartbroken, but i put them away and brewed another batch. 2 months later i crack on open and it still has some off taste to it but the head isnt too crazy and its starting to mellow out. 4 months after that the beer is crystal clear red color. i couldnt believe it. i had a case of killians and i cracked one open to compare and low and behold the sewer water beer is better tasting, and just as clear. never dump any alcohol, ****ty or not. time heals all pains. thanks revvy

This thread encapsulates that sense of wonder and exploratory curiosity that I experienced when I first dialed into the local university's BBS some 13 years ago -- and it prompted me to register.

So much knowledge, wisdom and experience being shared.

Or maybe it's just this IPA.

Cheers!

You've just helped me feel much better about a batch I just made. I'd have to be home to give you the exact ingredients, but I just read the OP and my batch definitely tasted "bubblegummy." I bottled it anyway, and it looks like I'll be waiting a couple months to drink it. Dark Christmas brew anyone?

Thank you for giving me some hope for the terrible crap I tasted last night.

I bottled my 2nd batch of home brew this evening and this thread has popped up at just the right time...

It got pretty hot here while I was brewing and it finished fermenting in about 2.5 days, then it sat for another 2 weeks before tonight. I suspected that something was going to be wrong and when I tried it whilst bottling it had an overpowering banana flavor to it. I was wondering whether to get rid of it but after reading this I'm going to wait. I'm going on a long vacation so this will now sit for at least 2 months before I can get my hands on it so fingers crossed it will sort itself out!!

osagedr said:

The voices of experience here on HBT say HAVE PATIENCE, they are right. When they say three weeks in the bottle is a MINIMUM, they are right. Of course I am left lamenting the fact that I have maybe 15 of 60 bottles left. Mind you, it will be easier to wait on stuff now that I have a decent stock of beer built up.

Click to expand...

The best cure to impatience is a fat pipeline with lots of carboys, I have no patience therefore I brew when ever a carboy and keg frees up.

Revvy said:

2)Never dump a batch unless it has mold or other noticeable signs of infection confirmed by a brewer with more experience than you. Or if it tastes, as Evan says, "like Satan's anus."

Click to expand...

I have another condition to add to this, as it just happened to me today. I would say it's probably okay to dump a batch if it may have shards of broken glass in it. I broke my floating thermometer while watching the temp climb for a boil (I am on an electric stove so I wanted to preempt a boil over) and before I knew what was going on I was stirring steel BBs and glass shards. Since I had already come that far, malt was already added, so I decided to finish it up. It's in the fermenting bucket right now, but I think it will end up down the drain rather than risking bodily harm. Certainly makes me sad though

just let it sit in the fermentor undisturbed for a few weeks, and filter it through a fine filter. you may have to add a bit more yeast to get it to carb up, but it'll def be drinkable