Tasted my Hydro sample....will my beer flavor change?

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muscleshoalsbrewer

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I transfered my Stone DB clone on saturday. The beer finished at 1.024, 1point under the reciepe. But when I tasted the sample it seemed that the flavors were all muddled together? It almost reminided me of a DFH 120 kinda bizzare taste.. this brew had 5oz of chinook, but was supposed to be a 2 1/2 gal. boil that I changed to a full boil. I am afraid that I should have dialed the hop qty back a little. I know the reciepe says to let this one age 2 months, I know the flavor will improve but will that "muddled" flavor dissapate? I sure as hell dont want to open it and find somthing that tastes like that DFH!...blahhh
 
If I'm not mistaken, that is a 10% abv beer, which will take a while to conditon. Once you bottle, let it sit for at least 3 months before taking a taste.
 
You'd be surprised how much the flavor profile of a beer can change over time.... just try one at a time on a weekly basis after 3-4 weeks and then decide when it's ready...
 
So changing the boil volume, and not changing the hop addition wont make this beer way to bitter? The schedule for a PM was 3 1/2oz chin. at 60min, 3/4oz chin. at 15min and 3/4oz chin. at 5 min. I guess I am concerned that that was for a 2 1/2 gallon boil and the top off would dilute the hop bitterness. But by doing a full boil I have somehow "over hopped" this one....if there is such a thing.
 
So changing the boil volume, and not changing the hop addition wont make this beer way to bitter? The schedule for a PM was 3 1/2oz chin. at 60min, 3/4oz chin. at 15min and 3/4oz chin. at 5 min. I guess I am concerned that that was for a 2 1/2 gallon boil and the top off would dilute the hop bitterness. But by doing a full boil I have somehow "over hopped" this one....if there is such a thing.

Supposedly we can only detect up to 100 IBUs (some say slightly more.) So no, with a beer that big (I'm sure Stone's is over 100), the extra hops honestly aren't going to make a huge difference. You may get more hop flavor/aroma from the later additions, but you shouldn't be able to detect the higher bitterness. I think your beer will be fine once it is given proper conditioning time. The hops will fade plenty in the 3 months it takes to get that thing drinkable.
 
The thing to remember though is that if you are smelling or tasting this during fermentation not to worry. During fermentation all manner of stinky stuff is given off (ask lager brewers about rotten egg/sulphur smells, or Apfelwein makers about "rhino farts,") like we often say, fermentation is often ugly AND stinky and PERFECTLY NORMAL.

It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.

I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.

A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.

If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.

Fementation is often ugly, smelly and crappy tasting in the beginning and perfectly normal. The various conditioning phases, be it long primary, secondarying, D-rests, bottle conditioning, AND LAGERING, are all part of the process where the yeast, and co2 correct a lot of the normal production of the byproducts of fermentation.

Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.

Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same.

If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.

Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer:

And the remaining 50% of the last 10% are where these tables and lists come into play. To understand what you did wrong, so you can avoid it in the future.

Long story short....I betcha that smell/flavor will be long gone when the beer is carbed and conditioned.

In other words, relax, your beer will be just fine, like 99.5%.

You can find more info on that in here;

Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

Just remember it will not be the same beer it is now, and you shouldn't stress what you are tasting right now.
 
Revvy, that's a copy/paste! I was searching the archive recently and saw you give almost that exact same answer in another thread!!

(Don't blame you, a lot of the same questions get repeated.) ;)
 
Enjoy the sample for what it is a sample of a young beer. Give it time. I enjoy tasting the beer as it goes. Fun to see how it improves with each week or two.
 
Revvy, that's a copy/paste! I was searching the archive recently and saw you give almost that exact same answer in another thread!!

(Don't blame you, a lot of the same questions get repeated.) ;)

If they keep asking the same basic questions, I'm not going to re-invent the wheel each time I answer, am I?
 
I mde a Wit recently that I thought was going to be pretty bad. Right up until I got it's full carb it had a harshness and off flavor that I couldn't nail down. But suddenly a week later it tasted fine. 2 weeks later I compared against a Celis White and it was very close. Mine was just a wee bit hoppier.

Time does affect your beer, and in your case I would give it extra time because that style of beer requires tasting over a long period. I would start sampling after a month or so and try one each week after that. You should get a different beer each time.
 
The thing to remember though is that if you are smelling or tasting this during fermentation not to worry. During fermentation all manner of stinky stuff is given off (ask lager brewers about rotten egg/sulphur smells, or Apfelwein makers about "rhino farts,") like we often say, fermentation is often ugly AND stinky and PERFECTLY NORMAL.

It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.

I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.

A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.

If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.

Fementation is often ugly, smelly and crappy tasting in the beginning and perfectly normal. The various conditioning phases, be it long primary, secondarying, D-rests, bottle conditioning, AND LAGERING, are all part of the process where the yeast, and co2 correct a lot of the normal production of the byproducts of fermentation.

Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.

Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same.

If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.

Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer:

And the remaining 50% of the last 10% are where these tables and lists come into play. To understand what you did wrong, so you can avoid it in the future.

Long story short....I betcha that smell/flavor will be long gone when the beer is carbed and conditioned.

In other words, relax, your beer will be just fine, like 99.5%.

You can find more info on that in here;

Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

Just remember it will not be the same beer it is now, and you shouldn't stress what you are tasting right now.

Yo revvy i just wanted to say that you single handedly helped me "condition" from a noob to a confident brewer..I still have alot to learn but when i start getting worried i just remember the info you shared with us all and everything works out..thank you very much..cheers man
 
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