Scorching

I brewed my fourth batch this weekend (wheat beer - Oberon clone) and like a dope I didn't start stirring soon enough when I added the LME. After steeping the grain at 160 F, I added the LME from the plastic bag it came in. I was trying to squeeze out the last little bit instead of stirring and all of a sudden the odor of scorched LME hit me. I quickly started stirring and the smell eventually went away. When I poured the wort into the primary fermenter I poured through a strainer and caught several black chunks that came off the bottom of the pot. Is there any chance that my beer won't taste like burned LME? It doesn't have any odd odors, but I'm afraid the taste is going to be ruined.

Welcome to HBT!

You MAY get some slight burnt flavours from the scorching but really you won't know until it's all said and done. I would finish up the batch as usual, chances are it will be just fine.

To help you avoid that in the future, remove the pot from the heat while you stir in your extract, that should drastically reduce the chances of scorching.

Thanks. I'll give it a tasting when I transfer to secondary in about a week. I've got my fingers crossed. The smell coming out of the air lock actually smells pretty good.

Also try the late extract addition method when doing a light colored beer like that. Add 3/4 of your extract about 45 minutes into your boil to give your beer a lighter color. There have been many threads in it, give it a search. WELCOME!

i did the exact same thing with a hefeweizen that i made and it came out to be the best one yet with no taste what so ever of burnt malt. ever since then i add all of my malt at the last 15-20 min of the boil and it works great.

bradsul said:

To help you avoid that in the future, remove the pot from the heat while you stir in your extract, that should drastically reduce the chances of scorching.

Click to expand...

+1 PADDING CHARACTERS

ben the brewman said:

i did the exact same thing with a hefeweizen that i made and it came out to be the best one yet with no taste what so ever of burnt malt. ever since then i add all of my malt at the last 15-20 min of the boil and it works great.

Click to expand...

+2, especially with LME compared to DME.

+3 - Yes, yes, yes. Cut your fire before you add LME and don't light it again until you know you have it dissolved. DME is not nearly as much of a concern, since it dissolves so quickly and some of the undissolved stuff tends to float.

If you caught it as quickly as you did, you probably are fine.


TL

I scorched the hell out of my first brew. Took about a half hour with a scotch-brite pad to get all the burnt stuff off the bottom of my pot. However, no detectable burnt flavor was in the finished product.