Kit beer with a marmitey tang

Is it normal for kit beers to result in a decent enough beer but with a vegimite-y smell when you come to drink them?

(vegimite is a yeast based spread, similar to marmite).

I've brewed up a couple of barrels of kits now and they seem to end up tasting fairly similar and all have a very yeasty smell. I've botttled one load and keg'd another but both, when poured in to a glass, smell strongly of yeast and need to be left for a while to breath.

I'm trying one last kit from another manufacturer just in case it was a duff product.

Olly

How long did you ferment them?

6 days or so in the fermenter until it settled within the stated OG and then about 2 weeks in the bottle but I've had some now for 5 weeks in the bottle and it's still the same

You need more time in your primary for the yeast to clean up after themselves. As a rule I leave my beer in the primary for 3-4 weeks. If it is a beer particularly light in color and taste, I have reduced the time to 2 weeks, but IMHO 6 days is way to short.

Hmm Ta. Will leave this one longer.

Te instructions on all 3 kits so far have said the same, that it's 4 to 6 days or until the OG is x. Sure enough around 6 days ish the OG hits that level.

How long can I leave it before it goes the other way?

+1 for Bama's post. Give it some more time to finish up, and that should help some. Kit instructions are notoriously optimistic as far as times go. The quicker you get that primary freed up, the faster you can buy more of their kits.

If you're in a hurry, get another fermentation vessels and build up the pipeline.

edit: I've read of people leaving the beer on the yeast cake for 6+ months.

You did not really mean barrels did you?

Definately leave it in the fermentor for 2-4 weeks. The longer the better.

Understandable.

But if the OG is, apparently, on the mark, and the instructions are being adhered to, how do I know when it's *really* ready?

Unfortunately, the instructions are wrong. Normally, you won't get a good beer to ferment and cleanup in 6 days. Leave it for 4 weeks and then bottle.

You'll find a lot of people hold to the stable FG plus a week process. Namely, sufficient time to reach final gravity, plus another week to clean up. Obviously, there are as many interpretations of this as there are individuals, but it seems to work well: some shorten the cleanup time, some lengthen it.

Personally, I don't touch anything for two weeks. Then, if the FG is stable, I give it another few days, and then either dry hop, cold crash, or bottle.

My first homebrews years ago had a yeasty note to them I did not like. I tracked it down to fermenting a little too warm and then sitting on the yeast cake TOO long. Fermenting cooler and then using a secondary to do my aging took care of the problem.

I have found over the years that there are people who like the little yeasty notes, and there are people, apparently like you (and me) who do not.

If you have all the conditions right (temp, yeast pitch rate, etc.), I think a good routine for a typical ale is as follows: Fermentation should take no more then 7 days. After that two weeks of bulk aging (in either primary or a secondary) followed by packaging. Then another two weeks in the bottle to carbonate, shorter if force carbing in a keg. If conditions were less then ideal, then a longer bulk aging period might be needed.