troubleshooting most recent brew

Greetings Everyone,

Hope you are all well. I am working to troubleshoot an "off" flavor in my most recent beer. I'll give you some history first though.


I brewed a brewers best summer ale back July 22, 2012 (thumbs up for record keeping!) Due to certain issues I didn't bottle this until about a week ago! This brew sat in primary the entire time.

I can hear it now: "Doctor Wily, why on earth did you let it sit that long?! zomg! rabble rabble internetz!" I know, I fail, sorry, lol.

ANYWAY....

I notice it has a apple-y/cidery flavor. Browsing through the troubleshooting guide by Palmer both seem to lend to the chances that the fermentation was done at too warm of temp and too young of a beer. Certainly possible as it was a pretty hot summer but it spent it's first few weeks of life sitting in the living room where I have a hardcore AC unit. The heat exposure would have happened after about 3 or so weeks.

I'm drinking one of the beers now (it's been about a week in the bottle) as I type this to get a good idea of the flavor. It's certainly a bit of a sour apple after taste and it's not *bad* per-say, just not what I was expecting; I'm sure somewhere along the line my process broke the flavor. I notice a slightly almost metallic smell as well.

It's absolutely palatable, I wont be tossing it or anything, and frankly, the one I'm drinking now is better than the one I had 2 days ago. I know with beer time cures most wounds but I want to make sure I am turning out the best beer I can.

I'm just curious for the sake of learning what may have happened here and I appreciate any help given.

TL;DR: I left my beer for a long time and now it tastes funny.

Thanks everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings!

Edit: for those who are interested, here's a photo!

Both of those flavors can be explained to an extent by being green, another week or two and you should be much better. I am curious how you got so much carbonation after a week. Did you add more yeast? I can't imagine the original was all that active.
Letting sit that long on a yeast cake can impart some off flavors as well, but if it's decent right now, some bottle conditioning should help make it better.

No sir, nothing fancy for carbonation. Just did my priming sure and away she went.

I'd use the phrase "all right" to describe it, which (in my head anyway) is less quality than decent, lol. Again, I'll certainly drink it, it's not "omg puke throw it out" bad or anything, just kinda not a "clean" enough flavor I guess.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it!

I doubt that the long primary is the cause of the off-flavor. I suspect that the fact that it has only been bottled one week is the biggest contributor to the strange taste. I say try it again in 2 weeks and let us know how it is then!

One week isn't enough. The apple taste like twist said is from being green. Try again in 2 weeks and I bet you will notice its gone and your beer tastes great. Good luck, wait it out, relax

I've forgotten about a Black IPA in the secondary for 7 months and it turned out great after I bottled it. The main thing is it didnt get an infection and it was sitting in a 5 gal carboy with about an inch head space. I doubt I could have bottled it if it had hair growing on it though.

after about 3.5 weeks the flavor has mellowed but is certainly still apparent. SWMBO described it as "gross apple juice" lol. I can certainly see where it's improved but I still have the sour-y aftertaste.

Cheers!

Possibly an infection or too much sugar would be my guess.

I absolutely think the cause of the off flavor can be contributed to the long sit in the primary. That recipe had a decent hopping I would imagine, and hops don't stand up to the test of time.

Even more so, I think the lack of temperature control played the biggest factor.

Pretty awesome how you bottled, didn't add yeast and BAM after a week it is carbed. I never add yeast at bottling time, even with my lagers, and most of my beers are carbed after a week.

I've made some pretty nasty beers before and haven't had much luck with off flavors disappearing after it's bottled, but your mileage may vary.

estricklin said:

I absolutely think the cause of the off flavor can be contributed to the long sit in the primary. That recipe had a decent hopping I would imagine, and hops don't stand up to the test of time.

Even more so, I think the lack of temperature control played the biggest factor.

Pretty awesome how you bottled, didn't add yeast and BAM after a week it is carbed. I never add yeast at bottling time, even with my lagers, and most of my beers are carbed after a week.

I've made some pretty nasty beers before and haven't had much luck with off flavors disappearing after it's bottled, but your mileage may vary.

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I'm chocking it up to temp control as well I think. All in all this beer was kind of a fail (except I've drank 12 of em already, big fail, right?) Temp control and the extended sit.

Here's the ingredients if anyone is interested from brewers best:

Ingredients
3.3 lb. Pilsen LME
1 lb. Wheat DME
1 lb. Pilsen DME
SPICE PACK
SPECIALTY GRAINS
8 oz. Carapils
HOPS
.5 oz. Bittering
.25 oz. Flavoring
.25 oz. Aroma
YEAST
1 Sachet

This is do up for my second brew. Hoping to make something my wife and friends will drink. They're all light beer drinkers...

Let me know how yours comes out. I drank one today and after it was chilled overnight in the fridge it was a decent bit better. the lady is already tainted on it though so she doesn't taste a difference. Meanwhile I sampled my 2 other beers I have fermenting right now, one @ 3 weeks the other at 2 weeks. Planning a bottle day tomorrow for one of em.

Cheers

I'll brew it up after thanksgiving.. I'll post how it turns out here.. Cheers

a couple more pics of the beer from tonight

Looks good. How is that flavor coming along?

that one was chilled in the fridge for a couple days before drinking. Flavor is ok, I still taste that kind of "green beer" after taste, sorta apple-y and it's most noticeable after taking a drink a few seconds after finishing. It's also most noticeable on the middle/middle back of my tongue (if that makes sense)

It's hard for me to describe the flavor because it's not like "sour" like if you took a sip of lemon juice or anything like that. It's kind of like the after taste you get when drinking apple juice.

EDIT: you can kind of almost "smell" that flavor too when you smell the beer.

When I saw it was a "Summer ale" I was going to ask if it was a wheat beer. After you posted your grain bill I can see there was only a lb of wheat in there so am not sure how applicable my original thoughts would be now. Reason I was going to ask if it was a wheat was that the ones I've made have tended to exhibit a slightly tart flavour, as part of the overall flavour package. Sounds like it's coming along and maturing quite well, though.

I wish I could taste it and give you my opinion. I still think that another week in the bottles will take care of it, though. It does sound like "young" beer to me.

Thats an interesting point ogri as I wasn't aware wheat carried any tart flavor with it. Good to know. What if, say, the wheat wasn't boiled more than say, 10 minutes?

DrummerBoySeth said:

I wish I could taste it and give you my opinion. I still think that another week in the bottles will take care of it, though. It does sound like "young" beer to me.

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I hear you. I wish I had some people in the area to taste it for me (or develop a way to send taste across the interwebz, lol) to help troubleshoot. It just seems odd to me (being fairly new yet) that the young flavor would be so obvious after 4 or so weeks in bottle.

Doctor_Wily said:

I hear you. I wish I had some people in the area to taste it for me (or develop a way to send taste across the interwebz, lol) to help troubleshoot. It just seems odd to me (being fairly new yet) that the young flavor would be so obvious after 4 or so weeks in bottle.

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Most people advise 3 weeks for carbonation to complete. Personally, I have found my beers don't start getting really good until 4 weeks after bottling. Since you are 4 weeks in, you should be reaching the end of the "green" phase. If that flavor persists for another week, then you may have an issue that requires attention. Most homebrew flaws are corrected with fresh ingredients, clean high quality water, and temperature control. Pay attention to these items and I suspect you will find your beer quality improves significantly.

Looks good to me. Brewer's Best Summer Ale has been by far my favorite brew that I have made. I brewed 2 BB batches and switched to all-grain and my 2nd AG was a Summer Ale.

GL with it.

Doctor_Wily said:

Thats an interesting point ogri as I wasn't aware wheat carried any tart flavor with it. Good to know. What if, say, the wheat wasn't boiled more than say, 10 minutes?

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Actually, it might not be the wheat that is the culprit, may be the spices that contribute the slight tartness, but I just associated witbiers and weissenbiers with a sort of tangy refreshing taste..

I'd have thought that carefully boiling wheat LME for less than 10 minutes, I'd tend to go for addition at flameout anyway, is always going to be a positive factor for flavour.

On the last of this batch, have about 14 left that will likely be consumed this weekend. I can still certainly taste the off flavor, but once chilled it's far less noticeable. I wondered last night while drinking it if the flavor could be related to the hops used. Or perhaps the spice pack. The brewers best description: "Pleasant citrus notes come from the bitter orange
and lemon peel. Fermented with premium Safale US-05 dry yeast, this beer finishes clean with lingering flavors of citrus and spice. Crisp and refreshing"

The lingering flavor is what I'm not caring for so much. Maybe it's just "working as intended", although I sorta hope not, lol.

Just thought I'd share that this beer is pretty much gone. I think I have one left. Had a buddy visiting for a couple days and he was really digging it. I also took one down to the LHBS and had the guys there taste it and they both approved. The only critique they had was that it was low on carbonation, which I agreed w/ them about. I probably wont do this exact kit again but I may play with the style in the future (closer to summer).