funkenhop
Member
I apologize in advance for the length of my post. This subject has been in the back of my mind for nearly two years and now it's time to get some other perspectives by joining this much-loved forum.
Let me summarize the situation I am encountering during bottle refermentation. A substantial negative change occurs in some of my all-grain ales very shortly after they are primed and bottled. A difficult-to-describe staleness appears within a week in the majority of my non-dark, hoppy ales.
This very noticeable degradation in aroma and flavor is not at all evident at bottling, but when the first bottle is opened it is obvious. And once it appears, it usually does not diminish in any reasonable length of time.
The way I've been operating with this mystery is to keep making changes that are better for my brewing in general, hoping that one or a combination of them will extinguish this problem. At some point in the near future, I'll run out of possible fixes so I'm making my first post on homebrewtalk a real monster.
Maybe some brewer out there has experienced something like this and can throw me a lead. So far, my Internet searches on this problem yield nothing really helpful.
These are some details of my thoughts so far...
The change after refermentation seems to be a reduction of previous aroma and replacement with a less pleasant one. Even after nearly two years of recognizing it, I am unable to equate it to any other smell. The closest thing it compares to is a cardboardy aroma, but it is not like oxidized beers that I have encountered. It is almost an absence of hop aroma, replaced by some kind of stale smell. I don't discount the possibility of oxygen damage, even though I'm always careful to avoid oxidation with each of my beers, including blanketing vessels with CO2 before transfer and using oxygen-absorbing caps.
The amount of negative change that occurs varies, but so far has always occurred in a highly-hopped ale, usually on the light side of the SRM scale. I have yet to brew an ale darker than a red that exhibits this issue (though I have made some dark ales flawed in other ways). With the exception of a few split-batches in which I used Belgian yeast to ferment a symptom-free hoppy pale beer, I have not made a hoppy pale that hasn't exhibited some of this behavior at referment.
The change is evident a week after bottling if it is to occur at all. I don't get itan ale is delicious at bottling, full of distinct hop aromas, and one week later it is almost devoid of aroma. In some cases, substantial time (for an IPA) of either warm or cold storage has improved the situation, to the point that the flaw is unrecognizable and the aroma mostly restored. Of course, 6 months to a year of aging a typical IPA is an unacceptable fix to most people. In some cases, the aroma seems never to recover with time, and it is those beers I dispatch (drink) with great disappointment.
I don't know why so far my Belgian IPAs and Belgian reds are spared this malady. It did get me thinking about yeast strain differences, but the non-Belgian ones I've used (WLP001, 023, 028) behave quite well when used in darker styles. Because I always split a batch into at least three different fermentations, I can compare strain performance while eliminating other differences up to pitching. Perhaps the damage is done no matter what the strain and somehow the more expressive strains are able to mask or contradict it.
Of course, this problem has me thinking about the amount of hops used. Why can I make a sublime wit or saison that keeps its character from fermenter to bottle, but then make an ale to which I add more hops and some California Ale yeast and the bottle refermentation ruins the character? I can't help but think this problem is related to hop usage, at least superficially.
Water chemistry in relation to high hop usage is probably the place to be looking, but it is a big place to look. In my more recent batches I've adjusted my water based on the latest water report for my area. Although I'm pleased with the results overall, I don't believe that it has affected the situation. I have much more to learn in the water department.
Let me summarize the situation I am encountering during bottle refermentation. A substantial negative change occurs in some of my all-grain ales very shortly after they are primed and bottled. A difficult-to-describe staleness appears within a week in the majority of my non-dark, hoppy ales.
This very noticeable degradation in aroma and flavor is not at all evident at bottling, but when the first bottle is opened it is obvious. And once it appears, it usually does not diminish in any reasonable length of time.
The way I've been operating with this mystery is to keep making changes that are better for my brewing in general, hoping that one or a combination of them will extinguish this problem. At some point in the near future, I'll run out of possible fixes so I'm making my first post on homebrewtalk a real monster.
Maybe some brewer out there has experienced something like this and can throw me a lead. So far, my Internet searches on this problem yield nothing really helpful.
These are some details of my thoughts so far...
The change after refermentation seems to be a reduction of previous aroma and replacement with a less pleasant one. Even after nearly two years of recognizing it, I am unable to equate it to any other smell. The closest thing it compares to is a cardboardy aroma, but it is not like oxidized beers that I have encountered. It is almost an absence of hop aroma, replaced by some kind of stale smell. I don't discount the possibility of oxygen damage, even though I'm always careful to avoid oxidation with each of my beers, including blanketing vessels with CO2 before transfer and using oxygen-absorbing caps.
The amount of negative change that occurs varies, but so far has always occurred in a highly-hopped ale, usually on the light side of the SRM scale. I have yet to brew an ale darker than a red that exhibits this issue (though I have made some dark ales flawed in other ways). With the exception of a few split-batches in which I used Belgian yeast to ferment a symptom-free hoppy pale beer, I have not made a hoppy pale that hasn't exhibited some of this behavior at referment.
The change is evident a week after bottling if it is to occur at all. I don't get itan ale is delicious at bottling, full of distinct hop aromas, and one week later it is almost devoid of aroma. In some cases, substantial time (for an IPA) of either warm or cold storage has improved the situation, to the point that the flaw is unrecognizable and the aroma mostly restored. Of course, 6 months to a year of aging a typical IPA is an unacceptable fix to most people. In some cases, the aroma seems never to recover with time, and it is those beers I dispatch (drink) with great disappointment.
I don't know why so far my Belgian IPAs and Belgian reds are spared this malady. It did get me thinking about yeast strain differences, but the non-Belgian ones I've used (WLP001, 023, 028) behave quite well when used in darker styles. Because I always split a batch into at least three different fermentations, I can compare strain performance while eliminating other differences up to pitching. Perhaps the damage is done no matter what the strain and somehow the more expressive strains are able to mask or contradict it.
Of course, this problem has me thinking about the amount of hops used. Why can I make a sublime wit or saison that keeps its character from fermenter to bottle, but then make an ale to which I add more hops and some California Ale yeast and the bottle refermentation ruins the character? I can't help but think this problem is related to hop usage, at least superficially.
Water chemistry in relation to high hop usage is probably the place to be looking, but it is a big place to look. In my more recent batches I've adjusted my water based on the latest water report for my area. Although I'm pleased with the results overall, I don't believe that it has affected the situation. I have much more to learn in the water department.