Burnt malt extract in wort pot?

I just began brewing my first batch of beer and when I poured the 2.5 gallons of wort from my pot I saw burnt malt extract on the bottom of the pan.

I'm going for an IPA on this beer and I used:

8 ounces American Crystal/Caramel Grain - Steeped about 35 minutes
3 pounds light dry malt extract - Added while bringing to boil before hops
6lbs 9oz. of Light/Pale Malt Extract Syrup - Added @15 min (left in boil)
1 oz. Pilgrim - 60min
1 oz Columbus - 1/2 @ 20min, 1/2 @ 5min.
2 oz. Cascade - 1 @ 10 min, 1 at 0 min.


How likely is it that my first batch is ruined? I'm going for a really clean hoppy beer and now I'm afraid all I will taste is bitter burnt malt extract. What are the odds this will now taste like crap, and is there anything I can do?

Thanks.

This may be a dumb question but would I be able to tell if the beer was ruined just by tasting the wort right now, approximately an hour after finishing the wort? It seems like I wouldn't be able to tell anything with all the hops/malt not really mixed together but I just tasted some that was in my hydrometer and it tastes pretty bitter/not good

you scorched your LME. In the future, you can minimize this by taking your pot off of the heat when adding your extracts.

This won't ruin your beer. You may wind up with a darker color, and possibly some "carmelized" flavors.

you still will have made good beer! Don't worry about how the wort tastes now, it will change during fermentation and conditioning

That's a huge relief, I was pretty worried there for a minute. I searched through the forum for similar posts and was starting to think it was going to be trash.

I hope it's just evident in the color and not so much the taste. I was going for a nice bitter IPA because I'm not a fan of a strong malt taste, let alone camerlized flavors. I guess it's just a waiting game now.

Has anyone else made this mistake? If so, how did things turn out?

brewinginct said:

Has anyone else made this mistake? If so, how did things turn out?

Click to expand...

I would be willing to bet that pretty much all home brewers have had this happen at one time or another, and it turns out like......beer!

Yah, I noticed a few scorched spots on the bottom during my first two brews. I even managed a boil-over during my second, which set me straight on putting the lid on the pot to help it reach boiling faster. But, as AZ stated, your beer is not ruined. Will its taste be affected by the scorching? As long as it's a spot or two or three vs the whole freakin' bottom of the pot being scorched, I don't think it will affect the final taste at all.

Just my opinion though. . .

I'd say about 3/4 of the bottom of the pan was scorched, not the complete bottom.

Would dry hopping with a nice citrusy hop help out?? Or is the carmelized flavor way to distinct to really mask it with more hops?

Let it ferment out and see what it tastes like. It will still be beer, and probably good beer. The great thing about brewing is that now you'll have an excuse to try the recipe again...and you'll come away from the experience with some knowledge about how scorching affects flavors.

Who knows...maybe you end up liking the end product BETTER than if you hadn't scorched at all??

i did this on my Dubbel IPA two weeks ago... i wasn't worried, i was just mad about the smell in my kitchen!

i still haven't washed that pot... ****.

RedGlass- Good point, I will definitely end up with beer and with an initial gravity reading of 1.085, a pretty strong beer. Plus it's my first home brew beer so that will definitely add something to it.

It'll be interesting to see how scorching affects the flavors, I hope I do like it more as a result. I'm just really not into malt/caramel flavors at all and wanted a strong hoppy IPA taste.

No point in stressing about it now, I'll end up with some unique beer in the end!

wawawrx - Yea definitely not the best smell to go to bed to haha.

My pot is being difficult so far. Worst part is it's not mine so I have to get all the burnt lme off without scratching the bottom at all.

Right now I'm boiling a few inches of water, baking soda and barkeepers friend, then depending on how that goes I'll try throwing some vinegar into the mix. Based on what I read that should do the trick

I scorched some LME on the bottom of my aluminum stock pot and I found that putting in very hot water, some dish soap and scrubbing with a pot scrubbie(not steel wool but plastic) took it off after some good elbow grease. I got mine clean in about 10 minutes.

DavidHawman - I just tried more or less the same thing and it all came off with a dish rag.

Boiled the soap/baking soda/barkeepers friend for about an hour in the pan, let it cool, looks pretty much good as new. Since it's not mine i'll probably let some vinegar soak on the bottom of the pan just to make sure theres no discoloration

PBW works wonders! I just started using the stuff about 2 weeks ago and am amazed I never found it earlier. Mix it up, let it sit for a couple hours, and rinse.

...just don't let it touch anything with teflon.

My old stove (electric coil) and 1st brew pot (enamel crab pot) used to scorch bad everytime. never had a problem with burnt flavor, just light color beers were impossible.

RedGlass - I'm going to have to look into that PBW cleaner, sounds like it can't hurt to have some around

starrfish - More encouraging news, awesome. It's fine with me if the beer has a darker color, burnt flavors are all I'm worried about. Would you say that it was the old stove or the enamel crab pot that made scorching happen so frequently? I have a flat top electric stove which has pretty good temperature control but I'm planning on investing in a big pot soon and don't want to get an enamel pot if those tend to scorch easier for some reason.

The important thing is to follow it through, take good notes, and try to do better for the next time. The beauty of homebrewing is that your accidents can turn into great recipes with some time and experience! And like they said, maybe you'll like it better (these kinds of things are great to keep in your notes for brew day).

My first experience with homebrewing taught me so much -- mostly what not to do... and I have horrid memories of drinking what tasted like grassy water (though it was a great experience, anyway).

SnallygasterBrewery - I hear you on the notes. I'm trying to be as thorough about this whole process as possible and have kept pretty good notes so far, but I should really consolodate/organize them better so that I have a system that's easy to reference in the future.

I'm really getting into the process of homebrewing beer, at first I was worried that I ruined my beer but now I'm just excited to see what I end up with. Maybe it'll surpass my wildest expectations, maybe there will be a slight charred malt taste. Either way I've picked up a lot between all the research, the help on this forum, and the actual process of brewing the beer, all of which will go a long way to make the next beer that much better.

Plus the worst thing that can happen is that I have to drink lots of fresh beer that I made at home just from several basic ingredients. Not the worst fate in the world.

I scorched a 6 grain during the mash while I was heating up to Sach rest. It actually turned out to be the best brew I ever made and didn't really seem burnt of smokey at all.

Also, I believe DogFishHead made a Saihtee(no idea how to spell that) that used red hot stones dropped into the wort which burned the wort on contact. So I think you may enjoy it.

I'd say it was a combination of both the coil stove top and the enamel. I even bent a coat hanger to separate coil from bottom of pot. helped some... after several brews the enamel had seen it's better days. As the pot cooled you could hear the enamel "ting"... eventually it started to flake.

I currently use a glass top electric with no scorching (worst was a light carmelization on a 90min boil). Check a place like Big Lots, 5 gallon (20qt) stainless steel stock pots with lid for around $20, can easily handle a 3 gallon boil. (what I use for partial mashes). I have a 10 gallon (economy pot from northern brewer) I use outside on burner for all grain or big partials. (6.5-7gallon boils) I also have a 3 gallon ($12) Big Lots pot for heating mash water