stageseven
Well-Known Member
A couple weeks ago a friend and I tried to make our first gruit, and after taking a gravity sample I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with it. The fermenter smells strongly of sulfur, and the sample tasted super bitter, and bile-like. We're not exactly sure what went wrong, but we have some theories. First, this was our first all-grain brew, and not knowing our system very well, we ended up with more liquid in the pot than we wanted after an hour boil. We ended up boiling for closer to 2 hours. The only bittering agent in the boil for that time was a half ounce of wormwood, but one of our thoughts was that wormwood doesn't act the same way that hops do with only a limited amount of bitterness potential in a boil. Another thought was that the beer is still really cloudy and obviously not finished fermenting yet (it's gravity is currently 1.016 with an OG of 1.072), and since we've never used Brett before I thought it might affect the flavor being in suspension more than yeast does. My third idea was that maybe the recipe just isn't very good. Here it is:
7 lbs 2-row
4 lbs Pilsner malt
8 oz 30L
8 oz Wheat malt
1.5 lbs Dememera Sugar
8 oz clover honey
.5 oz Wormwood @ 60 minutes (actually ended up being more like 100)
.05 oz Chamomile @ 0 minutes
.25 oz Wormwood @ 0 minutes
1 oz Elderflowers @ 0 minutes
1.5 oz rose hips @ 0 minutes
1 gram Sweet Gale @ 0 minutes
Pitched 1 package each of WLP565 Saison I Ale and Brettanomyces lambicus.
What do you guys think. Bad recipe? Infection? Still needs conditioning? With how terrible this tasted combined with the fact that there are no hops acting as a preservative, I don't have a lot of hope for this batch. Is it a dumper?
7 lbs 2-row
4 lbs Pilsner malt
8 oz 30L
8 oz Wheat malt
1.5 lbs Dememera Sugar
8 oz clover honey
.5 oz Wormwood @ 60 minutes (actually ended up being more like 100)
.05 oz Chamomile @ 0 minutes
.25 oz Wormwood @ 0 minutes
1 oz Elderflowers @ 0 minutes
1.5 oz rose hips @ 0 minutes
1 gram Sweet Gale @ 0 minutes
Pitched 1 package each of WLP565 Saison I Ale and Brettanomyces lambicus.
What do you guys think. Bad recipe? Infection? Still needs conditioning? With how terrible this tasted combined with the fact that there are no hops acting as a preservative, I don't have a lot of hope for this batch. Is it a dumper?