Diagnosing Bad Beer

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ryser2k

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Schuylkill Haven, PA
For the second time in my short brewing career I've cracked the first bottle of a new batch to find this one particular off flavor which basically renders the whole batch undrinkable. This time it was a Northwest style pale ale, the first time it was a Scotch ale... both all grain recipes. The flavor is very distinct and it was the same for both beers. (Edit: These two beers were the Austin Homebrew Scotch Ale and Northwest Pale Ale all-grain kits)

My immediate guess was that it was caused high fermentation temperatures, since all I have is a basement and a prayer in this summer heat in central PA. This particular beer just sat on the basement floor... in hindsight I probably should have used the bucket of water + wet t-shirt cooling method that I'm using on my current batch.

Anyway, I flipped to the "Is my beer ruined?" section in Palmer's How to Brew and went down the list of off flavors. I ended up settling on a combination of esters and fusel alcohols (read: high fermentation temps) as the culprit, but I don't really know for sure. I mean, I don't really know if that's what I'm tasting, or if I'm just settling on that because I can't really tell exactly what it is... I mean, I can't even begin to explain it on here. All I can say is that the beer is still drinkable despite the off flavor, but it's not very enjoyable.

I guess my question is, does anyone have any tips for getting a more conclusive diagnosis here? Is there anything that I can do to make it more obvious to me what the problem is? My biggest fear is that I'll brew this next batch, try to keep the fermentation temps down, and end up having this bad taste for a third time.

Either way, I am thinking about making a bunch of changes to my process this next time, including making a starter from my activator pack, monitoring the temperatures more often during both brewing and fermentation, taking gravity measurements, etc. Nothing kills your brewing spirit like a bad batch :(
 
If you have the chance to take some classes on beer they'll usually have an identifying off flavors class. Expensive, takes time and location, but it is an option. On a somewhat more practical note, you could try The Enthusiast™ Beer Taste Troubleshooting Kit, from beertown.org. 8 off flavors to spike your beer with. At $150 you might want to go in on it with some other homebrewers. For free you can try listening to the various pod casts, The Brewing Network, Basic Brewing Radio have both done shows about tasting and off flavors.
 
I took an off-flavor seminar at OSU and learned that I had the wrong idea about some flavors and can't even taste others! It was well worth the $40. One interesting point was how fast a beer can go skunky. We sampled one (I believe it was a Redhook) that had been in the sun in a clear bottle for only 30 minutes. Bad news.

Find a local club & get some opinions.
 
I would recommend changing only one thing at a time so if you get result your happy with you know what made the difference.
 
ryser2k said:
For the second time in my short brewing career I've cracked the first bottle of a new batch to find this one particular off flavor which basically renders the whole batch undrinkable. This time it was a Northwest style pale ale, the first time it was a Scotch ale... both all grain recipes. The flavor is very distinct and it was the same for both beers. (Edit: These two beers were the Austin Homebrew Scotch Ale and Northwest Pale Ale all-grain kits)

My immediate guess was that it was caused high fermentation temperatures, since all I have is a basement and a prayer in this summer heat in central PA. This particular beer just sat on the basement floor... in hindsight I probably should have used the bucket of water + wet t-shirt cooling method that I'm using on my current batch.

Anyway, I flipped to the "Is my beer ruined?" section in Palmer's How to Brew and went down the list of off flavors. I ended up settling on a combination of esters and fusel alcohols (read: high fermentation temps) as the culprit, but I don't really know for sure. I mean, I don't really know if that's what I'm tasting, or if I'm just settling on that because I can't really tell exactly what it is... I mean, I can't even begin to explain it on here. All I can say is that the beer is still drinkable despite the off flavor, but it's not very enjoyable.

I guess my question is, does anyone have any tips for getting a more conclusive diagnosis here? Is there anything that I can do to make it more obvious to me what the problem is? My biggest fear is that I'll brew this next batch, try to keep the fermentation temps down, and end up having this bad taste for a third time.

Either way, I am thinking about making a bunch of changes to my process this next time, including making a starter from my activator pack, monitoring the temperatures more often during both brewing and fermentation, taking gravity measurements, etc. Nothing kills your brewing spirit like a bad batch :(

This is the point I'm at with my beer, I honestly can't tell what the taste is. I'm hoping to make it to a club meeting which is not for another month, it will be well aged at that point.
 
Catfish said:
If you have the chance to take some classes on beer they'll usually have an identifying off flavors class. Expensive, takes time and location, but it is an option. On a somewhat more practical note, you could try The Enthusiast™ Beer Taste Troubleshooting Kit, from beertown.org. 8 off flavors to spike your beer with. At $150 you might want to go in on it with some other homebrewers. For free you can try listening to the various pod casts, The Brewing Network, Basic Brewing Radio have both done shows about tasting and off flavors.
Yeah, I heard about this on Basic Brewing Radio... I'd love to try it but that price is killer, and I don't have enough brewing friends to split it up.

Maybe I should hit up a club as well... Todd, which club are you going to? I'm in your area... and I thought the only local club was out of the Philly area.
 
ryser2k said:
Yeah, I heard about this on Basic Brewing Radio... I'd love to try it but that price is killer, and I don't have enough brewing friends to split it up.

Maybe I should hit up a club as well... Todd, which club are you going to? I'm in your area... and I thought the only local club was out of the Philly area.


It meets in a town called lemoyne which is next to Harrisburg. Scotzin's is the LHBS which hosts it. The next meeting is the 9th, unfortunately I will be out of town for it.

I think you are about an hour from me.
 
ryser2k said:
Yep about an hour away... sadly I'm out of town for that weekend as well. Have you been to that LHBS though?


Yes I have, as far as I know it is the closest one around here. They are fairly well stocked although I have concerns about turn over rates.
 
Here's an idea...
On your next batch take some of your wort and ferment it in a growler upstairs where conditions will guarantee high fermentation temps. Be sure to save some of your yeast (or starter) to add to the growler. Make sure you use some of the same yeast that's going into the rest of the beer.
Once both batches are done, you can compare the difference in their flavors. The difference will be what the high temps caused.
I'm currently in the process of doing this very experiment because I was curious too.
 
That's a very good idea, I may try that as well. Right now I'm thinking I'll hold off on brewing my next batch until I get a chance to bottle the one in my secondary now. If that one turns out OK, I think I can point the finger at high fermentation temps, because I did everything I could to keep that batch cool.
 
Something occured to me last night... I tasted the beer while bottling and didn't taste any off flavors then. It was only after the beer was in the bottle for a week and carbonated that the taste was apparent.

So, I guess this means the off flavors were caused by something I did during the bottling process, or something that happened in the bottle. Or, the bottle conditioning process itself brought that flavor out.

I guess I'll put some extra effort into sanitizing my bottles this weekend when I bottle the next batch...
 
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