kanzimonson
Well-Known Member
I'm in the process of helping a friend get into brewing, starting with a few extract batches, and we just bottled up his second batch - it's got a problem that I've never experienced. It tastes like scotch. Not the burning, "hot alcohol" sensation, but more of a smoky, woodsy flavor that borders on chemical harshness. Here's the recipe:
5.5gal
1.057 OG
1.015 FG
35 IBU
4# light DME
3# wheat DME
.75# crystal 40
.5# honey malt
.25# special B
20g roasted barley
28g Kent Goldings - 60 min
14g Fuggle - 10 min
14g Fuggle - 0 min
Pitched with US-04
Because he's still pretty new to all this, I'm still having him ferment in his cool basement - ambient temp is about 70* and the fermenter sits on a cool concrete floor. Not ideal, but not bad for a first time brewer.
For sanitization, we cleaned off the gunk in the carboy by filling with a bleach solution for a week. Then we dumped and rinsed it about 5 times with hot water until we couldn't smell bleach. When bottling, we sanitized everything with blue restaurant sanitizer tabs - they're a quaternary ammonium compound. Again, after sanitizing, we rinsed thoroughly (hopefully) with hot water several times.
We'll see if the flavor persists after it carbonates but I really don't know how to pin this down. I feel bad for the guy because his hopes were so high after an amazing first batch. Any input here?
5.5gal
1.057 OG
1.015 FG
35 IBU
4# light DME
3# wheat DME
.75# crystal 40
.5# honey malt
.25# special B
20g roasted barley
28g Kent Goldings - 60 min
14g Fuggle - 10 min
14g Fuggle - 0 min
Pitched with US-04
Because he's still pretty new to all this, I'm still having him ferment in his cool basement - ambient temp is about 70* and the fermenter sits on a cool concrete floor. Not ideal, but not bad for a first time brewer.
For sanitization, we cleaned off the gunk in the carboy by filling with a bleach solution for a week. Then we dumped and rinsed it about 5 times with hot water until we couldn't smell bleach. When bottling, we sanitized everything with blue restaurant sanitizer tabs - they're a quaternary ammonium compound. Again, after sanitizing, we rinsed thoroughly (hopefully) with hot water several times.
We'll see if the flavor persists after it carbonates but I really don't know how to pin this down. I feel bad for the guy because his hopes were so high after an amazing first batch. Any input here?