How bottling/tasting my AG left me with more questions than answers...8

Some of you may remember a thread I posted earlier about my first AG brew. Well, yesterday, I bottled it and I had a couple concerns. For those who didn't read the other discussion, I used 7.5 lbs of grain:

2 lbs. Golden Promise

2 lbs. Maris Otter

2 lbs. 20L Crystal malt

1 lbs. 120L Crystal malt

.5 lbs Rolled Oats

I also used 1 oz. of Willamette, 1 oz. Tettnanger, 1 oz. Saaz and 1 oz. of Liberty.

I used Wyeast Bavarian Wheat 3056 as well.

Without making this longer than it needs to be, I'm a bit suspect of the beer. I taste tested it before adding the priming sugar (turkey baster) and noticed that there was a bit of a "twangy" odor to the beer. It smelled fairly strongly, but not badly, though that twang kind of bothered me (I had botched an earlier batch by using too much oak and I think that imparted a similar twang).

The description for the yeast said that it produces estery flavors (says nothing about bananas or cloves though...and I didn't detect any of those anyway), as well as phenolic flavors. That's what I'm assuming/hoping the twang is due to. I babysat the beer as it fermented and watched the temperature constantly, so I don't think it was that. My sanitation was pretty good as well, I'd say. The only other suspect I could think of is an astringency from grain husks, but I hardly had to vorlauf - the grain bed was perfect and the wort was clear as a bell straight out. Any idea what could be the culprit?

My other question was about appearance. The wort was a darker amber color before I boiled it and still fairly dark when it was in the fermenter, but when I bottled, it looked at least a shade lighter, somewhere between a lighter amber and a darker blond. I can't imagine why the colors would've changed like that. Did it have something to do with the particles in the beer (they looked akin to the stuff that appeared when I let New Glarus Copper Kettle Weiss sit too long in its bottle)? I just thought it was all kind of strange.

None of this really matters as long as the beer clears up, I suppose. It's obviously still pretty green, though I'm not entirely sure what that entails in terms of taste - if anyone wants to define that, feel free.

Sorry for the novel of a post, here. I just want to make sure I figure out if I had done anything wrong so I can correct it for the next batch.

Kind of a strange recipe, but it also sounds as though you've made beer.

My advice: give it some time. Bottle it, put it away in a cool, dark place and try it again in a few weeks or even a month or two.

Next time, perhaps it would be a good idea to try something simple, such as EdWort's Haus Pale:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=31793

Then, if you detect any weird flavors or anything, it should be much simpler to determine the cause.

Sorry that is a recipe unlike any that I have made. For me that is way too much specialty grains vs. base malts, but that may be true to your style.As for the color, 5 gallons will always look darker than 12 oz. just more to block the light. As for the taste, how old is the beer? it takes time to mellow out. I hope it is just young!

i wouldn't worry about a bit of a "twang" to it when you're just bottling it. let it condition in the bottles for a few weeks and i'm sure that will change.

that is a bit of a crazy recipe, but the only part i really don't understand is why you used a bavarian wheat yeast for a beer with no wheat or rye in it? let us know how it is when it's carbonated

too much crystal mate. try a pound total and up the base malt to six pounds next time. i don't know that you get a lot of fermentables with that much crystal, but you will get some strong/unique flavors. you also hopped the snot out of a rather low gravity beer, so the balance may be a tad off. that twang could also be a lot of hop

just to address something from your post that no one has yet, you don't have to worry about tannins from vorlaufing. tannin extraction comes from over-sparging or sparging too hot. you don't want the grain bed temp to get above 170F.

you said that the beer smelled twangy, did you detect and off flavors? it's hard to imagine what twangy is like. when i think twangy my mind goes to either cidery, like from using table sugar, or sour, which would indicate contamination. take a look at the BJCP Beer Faults and see if any of their descriptions stand out.

the other thing is that a lot of baravian/belgian yeasts produce a lot of interesting ester and phenol profiles that some people just plain dont like. i made a wheat with 3942 belgian wheat, and couldn't stand it!

Thanks for the input, everyone.

What I mean by "twang" is something that smells a bit sharp, almost like that tannin-like sharpness you'd detect in a strong red wine. Bear in mind that that twang is mostly in the scent and it's much, much more subdued in the taste of the beer. Other than that, there isn't really any detectable off tastes in the beer so far, but a fraction of that odd smell did permeate the taste.

In regard to overhopping my beer, I guess I'm a bit of a hop head, which is why I have the wide variety of strong flavored grains in hopes of offsetting it. A lot of you may wonder why I used the Bavarian Wheat yeast. I'm kind of wondering too. After sitting down and thinking, this is the list of reasons I came up with for using it:

1.) It was the only yeast I had available at the time. :cross:

I was hoping more of the esters would come across and go well with the hops and grains but that remains to be seen...seems like the phenolic taste won out so far. The good part is that the yeast must've done pretty well since it left about 3/4" to 1" of trub behind in my fermenting bucket. Though I wonder what the effect of using a wheat yeast on non-wheat grains would be...

Any of you who read some of my past posts will know that I've tried to make beers with too many adjuncts and extra crap. So this time I thought I'd try to get a unique/weird flavor profile by mixing interesting grains but still aren't so far off base that they make no sense being in a beer together. The only other defense for the hops is that I felt they'd probably be okay in balancing the grains because they all had an alpha acid rating of 4.3 or less. Either way, I'll be sure and post what this ends up tasting like - I'm holding out some hope for this one. It could, some how, against all odds, end up being a winner. :rockin:

EDIT: SenorWanderer: I just looked up the 3942 Belgian Wheat yeast description and it sounds great! Some really interesting ester profiles with low phenol...and not that expensive either. I'm going to have to consider this one for my next ale. Darn shame I have a lager slated for production already - I'm excited to try that yeast instead. : D Anyone have a good Belgian lager yeast to recommend?

Just way too much crystal. A pound of crystal 120 in ANY beer is a head-shaker.

When it's 13% of the grain bill, that's just overkill. Not to mention that your crystal additions in general are 40%.

Next batch, I'd try a tried and true recipe and see how that turns out.

Yeah, I realized my error a bit too late. When I was a couple pounds short of grain, I grabbed the 2 lbs. of 20L Crystal instead of a pale malt, thinking that Crystal of with a low lovibond could be substituted for a base malt. Whoops.

Out of curiosity, aside from being short on the necessary components for fermentation, what negative effects would result from using too much Crystal malt?

It's just going to be really caramel-y and cloying.

I'm with the others and think that twang comes from the crystal malt. Three pounds of crystal in a recipe is a lot, but not necessarily too much. However, it's almost half your grain bill in this recipe. If it is a crystal twang, it should mellow with time.

There really isn't anything negative about using too much crystal, other than what you've experienced. You just don't have a lot of fermentables in that recipe.


TL

I agree with the wait it out and see what you get camp: you have a rather unusual grain bill in combination with healthy dose of hops & a wheat beer yeast strain you haven't used before... adds up to a wait and see beer!

Lemme tell you something I had to tell a couple of good brew buddies and try and take this to heart though it may sting a little.

Quit screwing around with adjuncts, fruit and too many specialty grains and brew a couple of straight ahead beers and learn what individual grains, hops and yeast strains do. When you've got the simple stuff down then go hog wild and throw the odd dirty old shoe in your beer.

Too many brew pals have been sucked in by the vast array of possibilities and end up brewing a whole lot of poopy tasting non-descript beer and never learn why certain beers work and certain ones taste like an armpit. Now you may have already done this but from the beers I see in your signature it sort of looks like you are going through what my pals went through and what I fought to not go through. I can't stress enough, the necessity of learning which grain, hop and yeast gives which taste. After all, you wouldn't expect a meal of spaghetti and meatballs if you cooked rice and beans.

Learn the rules then break 'em... or simply ignore this post and keep on doing what you're doing because in the end you're the one drinking what you brew.

Nostrildamus, that's spot on - can't argue with you on that. The thing was, from my last beers, this one we're discussing was supposed to be that simple, normal brew. The problem was when I, for reasons unknown to me, thought that kilned crystal malts were exchangeable with base malts. After this, I definitely learned what's what. :cross: Next brew I make is going to have the right amount of base malts and one, MAYBE two specialty grains. *whew*

Something I forgot:

It's all fine and dandy for me to throw out advice but how about giving you A SOLUTION!!!

My best advice to any all-grain brewer who wants to really grow and learn more about their craft is to buy and read, Designing Great Beers by Daniels. It will blow your freakin' mind.

Despite what others might say, read the first section of the book on the chemistry of brewing and really understand your craft inside and out. When you're done with that pick a style you've always wanted to brew and hit the second part of the book and learn a load about that style, which grains and hops you should pick from and in what amount, what yeast to employ and what temperature to ferment at.

What you'll come to realize is that there is so much latitude within a style to create something unique that you may not feel the need to throw in an adjunct. I've found in the past that many beers employing a large amount of adjunct and or specialty grain end up tasting relatively similar. They tend to stray further from their style guideline (pale ale, bitter, bock, weizen etc.) and merge somewhere in the center where they are defined by their adjunct instead. Daniels should give you the knowledge and tools to make exactly the style you want and to make it unique through the use of hops, grains and yeast and if you still want to make it really different then get out the adjuncts.

Good luck and good brewing. Designing Great Beers will make a fantastic and easy Christmas gift so start hinting heavily now!!!