alcoholic aftertaste

Hello Everyone,

I posted a few weeks ago with some concerns about my first brew experience. I was encouraged to see the batch through, which I did. I followed John Palmer's Cincinnati Pale Ale recipe. The end result was a beer that tastes quite good going down, but that leaves a bitter (ok, not so bad), sharply alcoholic aftertaste, that leaves the back of your mouth feeling like you've smoked a bad cigar.

Anyway, based on reading I see to contributing factors:
1. Eagerness got the best of me and I pitched yeast with the wort at about 80 degrees (now realizing I should have brought the temp down to 70).
2. Secondly, following Palmer's recipe, I used two packets of yeast. After further reading I understand that one should have been fine.

Anyway, Palmer's book does point to high fermentation temp and excessive yeast as two contributing factors to the alcohol aftertaste. And I figure my 2 out of 2 probably account for my result. I'm just posting for the benefit of others who hopefully won't make these same mistakes. And I'm also interested if others have had the same experience with similar conditions.

Meanwhile, I'm still drinking and enjoying the result (despite the aftertaste). The second batch is now fermenting, and I believe was done nearly by the book. One concern though is that I had washed the entire wine thief, but only sanitized the inside before plunging it into the wort for a sample. I'm hoping I didn't contaminate the batch, but will have to wait and see.

Thanks for all your inputs on my last batch.
Bitter Al

By the way, I had a very vigorous fermenation that stopped all bubbling within 24 hours. It drew down the gravity from a theoretical recipe OG of 1.045 (which I didn't measure) to an FG of 1.00 at 70 degrees.

sharp alcoholic taste usually comes from fusel alcohols that are generated by high fermentation temperatures. What was your fermentation temp?

My experience is, that this sharpness mellows after one to two months. As a matter of fact I'm right now drinking a Weizendoppelbock that I deemed undrinkable just a few months back due to the sharp alcohols. But now it's a pretty decent beer.

Kai

Kaiser, room temperature was consistently about 70 degrees. But the wort was around 80 when the yeast was pitched and fermentation took right off and I could feel even after a few hours that the bucket felt warm to the touch. So my guess is that the fermentation itself kept the ale significantly above 70 degrees for some time, and the fusel alcohols were formed in those early stages. I really don't know, and these are just guesses based on what I've read.

And I have noticed that the sharp aftertaste has mellowed a bit from the first sneak sample (1 week bottled) through to now which is approaching 3 1/2 weeks. But it is still very significant. It will be interesting to see if it continues to mellow as was your experience.

Al

The best improvement you can make to your beer at this stage (having just started brewing) is to get fermentation temp control. For most of us this meant finding a used fridge/freezer chest and a way to override the built in thermostat. I'd put this before buying a bigger pot, kegging and definately AG. Some brewers use the water bath approach, but I think this is rather labor intensive.

Kai

Sounds like you know what to do next time. I had a barleywine hit 85F once, but since it was just getting started, I was able to cool it down in time.

Kaiser said:

sharp alcoholic taste usually comes from fusel alcohols that are generated by high fermentation temperatures. What was your fermentation temp?

My experience is, that this sharpness mellows after one to two months. As a matter of fact I'm right now drinking a Weizendoppelbock that I deemed undrinkable just a few months back due to the sharp alcohols. But now it's a pretty decent beer.

Kai

Click to expand...

Just wanted to throw in that if you get severe headaches from drinking your Cincinatti Pale Ale the possible cause is the fusels.

I made a fairly high gravity Belgian style ale that out of the gate, the alcohol 'flavor' came through. After several months of conditioning though, you can hardly tell it has alcohol in it...dangerously smooth.

bitteral said:

By the way, I had a very vigorous fermenation that stopped all bubbling within 24 hours. It drew down the gravity from a theoretical recipe OG of 1.045 (which I didn't measure) to an FG of 1.00 at 70 degrees.

Click to expand...

If your hydrometer measures 1.00 at 70 degrees, that would be 1.001 with temperature compensation. That is a very low gravity for a pale ale.
I would check that your hydrometer is telling the truth by testing it in some cold tap water. It should read 1.000. If it is reading low, you may be able to return it, or just compensate by adding the difference from 1.000 to all subsequent readings.

-a.