Oilly, buttery what happened?

Made a corona clone recipe from AHS. It had 6lbs base malt and 6lbs of flaked maze. I used the liquid yeast with a 1L starter. Fermented in my kegerator at 60 for a week then moved it to secondary and placed at 70 for two weeks. I then bottled and tried it last night. It wasn't terrible but not corona. I noticed a oily mouthfeel and a taste of butter. I thought that meant I didn't let the yeast clean up the beer. Diacytles or something.

What can I do now, if anything, to rescue my beer? Thanks for the input.

Tim

Sounds exactly like diacetyl... Nothing to be done for it. I have had some issues with my pale lagers and diacetyl in the past. In the future, ferment at a lower temp (~50ºF) and raise it up to 65ºF or so about 2/3 of the way through fermentation.

It is Diacetyl. You will want to employ a diacetyl rest in your lagering routine. Especially when using that much adjunct.

Sounds just like corona to me, that is all that I can taste in corona is a crisco oil type of taste.

I didn't know that the corn would possibly increase diacetyl. So, if I try this again I should do the rest when the yeast are starting to calm down but still active and I should ferment colder? I'd like to master this. It was my first recipe to use maze and my second lager/pilsner. Thanks for the input.

twofieros said:

I didn't know that the corn would possibly increase diacetyl. So, if I try this again I should do the rest when the yeast are starting to calm down but still active and I should ferment colder? I'd like to master this. It was my first recipe to use maze and my second lager/pilsner. Thanks for the input.

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It really depends on the yeast strain you used- most lager strains need to be fermented at about 50 degrees while most ale strains are fermented in the mid 60s. If you used a lager strain, a 1 liter starter wasn't a big enough starter and 60 degrees for fermentation temperature is far too warm.

Diacetyl doesn't come from the flaked maize, it is a byproduct of the yeast. Stressed yeast will create more diacteyl, and some yeast strains produce more diacetyl than others naturally.

Maybe too much flaked corn? I thought flaked anything can add oil like flavors and appearances at over 8% if the grist.

For a nice crisp lager, you are going to want to take the advice of Yooper seriously. BIG starter (most of my lagers get 1 gallon, big lagers over 1.060 get 1.5-2gallon starters) Ferment cold 50-54 is the range you are looking for, then warm up to 65-70 for a day and then lager. It is a "lager" after all. Drop that temp down to 34 for a month and you should be good, but taste some samples the whole way through to get an idea how the flavor is changing. Even though many on these boards disparage light lager, it is a very difficult style to brew if you are new to lagers.

I would like to brew light beers. I will try this one again with a bigger starter and colder temps. The weird thing was that I tried this beer through each transfer and never got the off flavors I have now. Is there anyway it could have been caused by the priming sugar? Maybe the pressure got too high killing the yeast before they could clean it up? I can't bring myself to dump beer but these will be set aside to age and maybe improve? If not I'll run it through a still and make fuel.

Thanks for the input!

I wanted to update this thread. I let this beer sit another week and tried it last night. The diacetyl taste is gone. This beer is really clean and crisp now! It must have been that the bottle conditioning wasn't done yet. I'm glad. I didn't want another bad batch.

I'm a bit confused as I've had the same issues lately. Was the 70 degrees for two weeks not a diacetyl rest?

I brewed an Oktoberfest, fermented for a month at 50, raised to 60 for 4 days and I think I tasted diacetyl. Yesterday, I kegged a bitter, using wlp005, that had fermented for 10 days at 68-70. I tasted the same buttery flavor in this ale. Maybe my perception of diacetyl is wrong, but I definitely get a buttery popcorn feel on the roof of my mouth and tongue. I don't taste butter, but I haven't discovered this in my other ales.

Thanks,
Nick

English Ales are known for having diacetyl.

ntalkers said:

I'm a bit confused as I've had the same issues lately. Was the 70 degrees for two weeks not a diacetyl rest?

I brewed an Oktoberfest, fermented for a month at 50, raised to 60 for 4 days and I think I tasted diacetyl. Yesterday, I kegged a bitter, using wlp005, that had fermented for 10 days at 68-70. I tasted the same buttery flavor in this ale. Maybe my perception of diacetyl is wrong, but I definitely get a buttery popcorn feel on the roof of my mouth and tongue. I don't taste butter, but I haven't discovered this in my other ales.

Thanks,
Nick

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WLP005 is also known as Ringwood. This strain can produce very clean flavors but is does require a bit more care to use. You need to make up a BIG starter and use quite a lot of pure O2 to get it going.

Underpitching and not using oxygen will cause the yeast to produce quite a bit of diacetyl.