Gluten free beer off taste issue.

So I brewed a GF beer (recipe to follow) this beer sat in primary for 21 days the secondary for 5 days then cold crash for 2 days then bottles for 2 weeks. The beer looks like unfiltered apple juice and tastes and smells strongly of apple cider. There is almost no hop character. Should I let it sit in the bottles longer to condition and hopefully mellow out the apple cider smell/taste or is this a normal by product of sorghum beer?

5 Gallon Batch

2 lbs Flacked rice stepped for 30 min at 155
3 lbs White Sorghum extract
1.5 lbs Amber Belgian Candi Syrup
4 oz Maltodextrin

45min Boil

1 oz Sterling 7.2AA 45min
1 oz Saaz 3.0AA 15min
1 oz Saaz 3.0AA 5min

Prymal said:

So I brewed a GF beer (recipe to follow) this beer sat in primary for 21 days the secondary for 5 days then cold crash for 2 days then bottles for 2 weeks. The beer looks like unfiltered apple juice and tastes and smells strongly of apple cider. There is almost no hop character. Should I let it sit in the bottles longer to condition and hopefully mellow out the apple cider smell/taste or is this a normal by product of sorghum beer?

5 Gallon Batch

2 lbs Flacked rice stepped for 30 min at 155
3 lbs White Sorghum extract
1.5 lbs Amber Belgian Candi Syrup
4 oz Maltodextrin

45min Boil

1 oz Sterling 7.2AA 45min
1 oz Saaz 3.0AA 15min
1 oz Saaz 3.0AA 5min

Click to expand...

Weird. I got a sort of wine flavour from a batch of GF PA I brewed from a kit in Oz, but that was fixed by adding a little demerara sugar the second time I brewed it. Maybe that cidery flavour came from 1.5lb's of candi syrup. Maybe someone a little more experienced can help, althought hop flavour won't "come back".

Oh man...

What was your OG/FG? I think I can see the problem, but measurements would confirm.

And no, apple cider is not normal. It's more of a faint lemony citrus taste.

OG 1.045
FG 1.009
I used Nottingham yeast

I would love to know what is wrong

Prymal said:

OG 1.045
FG 1.009
I used Nottingham yeast

I would love to know what is wrong

Click to expand...

Wow...it looks like you got an efficiency of 80% or so from your flaked rice, that is WTF phenomenal for a steep. It looks like the yeast also somehow found a way to eat the starch given off by it...also WTF weird.

To others: if his measurements are correct, this means flaked rice contains SUGAR not STARCH or that it magically converted somehow.

OK Prymal, so the problem I thought would originally point the direction of apple cider was not the case. There are several things that can cause appley flavors in beer.

First, the possible good news:
- Acetaldehyde is often the cause of appley flavors. The most common cause is your beer is too young to be drank currently.

Now the other possibilities:
- Your concentration of simple sugar is fairly high (1.5lbs of amber) and this MIGHT cause cidery flavors. That being said, I think your recipe should be fine in this regard.
- Another possibility is fermentation. Certain yeasts at higher temperatures can create acetaldehyde, nottingham is definitely one that is common for this since it likes cooler temperatures (all the way down to 56F or so).
- Fruit flies. If one gets in, he carries aceto bacteria, which causes this flavor.

Without actually tasting it, I can't tell you which it is, but each of these is a little different tasting.

Oh, and for future reference or in case you dont believe me, here is where Palmer talks about off flavors:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

It probably was fermented way to high. I left it in an ale pale in my closet that was probably around 70 degrees. If I let the beer condition in the bottles a lot longer could that flavor go away or am I stuck with it?

Prymal said:

It probably was fermented way to high. I left it in an ale pale in my closet that was probably around 70 degrees. If I let the beer condition in the bottles a lot longer could that flavor go away or am I stuck with it?

Click to expand...

You are stuck with it for the most part if it is a fermentation problem, but try letting it condition anyway, just so you learn how beer changes. It also could be just young and it may go away.

I didn't catch the bottle time. That's right. You'll need to wait 3 weeks minimum, like any other beer, so it doesn't taste green. I had thought it was going to be the invert sugar. The haze could be due to the young condition too. I was thinking that it would be starch haze from the unconverted rice.

The beer has been in bottles for 2 weeks at this point. I am going to let it sit for another 2 before I try it again.

Normally I wait 4 weeks before tasting first bottle, but most beers I wait 6-8 weeks before I start drinking.

I know the one I made the last bottle drank at 16 weeks was the best one, but tht was not a GF beer (my wife is the GF person)