First homebrew is a Guinness clone, tastes sweet

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mvolps22

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What would have caused my beer to end up tasting a little too sweet for Guinness? It's good nonetheless, just want to prevent it in the future.

Thanks,
Matt
 
I'd guess you used extract, which is always going to be sweeter than you hope for. Additionally, Dublin water is an important part of the Guiness recipe.

Also, adding a small amount of soured Guiness helps give it the slightly sour taste.
 
My assumption with sweet taste is usually under-attenuation or under-pitching.

As it's your first brew, I assume you probably pitched Wyeast with no starter?
 
How old is it? I have a couple left from a stout that I thought was far too sweet, then all of a sudden, it smoothed out and is pretty freakin' good now.
 
Well, since water isn't sweet, it's probably the other stuff that's causing the problem.

But seriously, help us help you. If you don't post some details, it's hard to determine the root cause of your problem.
 
Mostly water and then some other stuff.

Sounds like you got off to a good start but it is kind of hard to figure out your situation without a little more info!

All Grain recipe or extract recipe, mash temp, original gravitiy - final gravitiy.
With some basic info it can be relatively easy to help otherwise, it is literally anybody's guess!

When mashing, sweeter beer tends to be due to higher mash temps. If using an extract recipe did you add any sugar like honey or table sugar?
 
My first few beers were on the sweet side (IMO) because I didn't give them enough time. The recipe said 7 days primary, 7 days bottle. Every one of them was better a couple months later (unfortunately, I only had one bottle left a couple months later)
 
My first few beers were on the sweet side (IMO) because I didn't give them enough time. The recipe said 7 days primary, 7 days bottle. Every one of them was better a couple months later (unfortunately, I only had one bottle left a couple months later)

I know what you mean! It took me several batches to learn a little patience(only a little) when it comes to conditioning! I now double or triple my times, usually min. of two weeks primary and min. of two weeks (if I secondary) and min. of three weeks in the bottle before I drink. Of course I sample one bottle at week one after bottling, for quality control purposes:cross:
 
Here's what I did:

Spent 2 weeks in the primary and then 3 weeks conditioning in bottles...The ingredients
6lbs English light malt syrup
.75lbs Roasted Barley
.25lbs Carafoam Malt
.25lbs Acidulated Malt
1 oz. nugget hop pellets
1 Packet of Cooper's ale Yeast.

Also, I did not have a yeast "starter" at least I don't think so. I'm not quite sure what that is.
 
1. Guiness uses a special "Sour" extract that they mix with their beer. I'm sure you didn't have that to add.

2. I suspect you also had some under attenuation.
 

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