bankeny
Member
As the title says, I just finished my first batch of beer, and it's suitable only for pouring down the drain.
I'll try to recount my brewing experience along with what I feel might be possibilities of where I went wrong. I'm hoping some of you seasoned professionals can help me determine what exactly caused the off flavors.
For starters, this was a Belgium Wit from williamsbrewing.com
After two weeks in the bottle, it has plenty of carbonation, but it also has some off flavors that make it undrinkable. I really can't pinpoint the flavor, but it does have a drying (tannic) finish on the tongue. The closest I can come to from reading all the online descriptions of off flavors is that it might be a medicinal flavor. Maybe a bit fruity too? I also tasted this flavor before bottling. So it was not introduced during bottling.
I used a four gallon aluminum pot found at a church rummage sale. I boiled 3.5 gallons of water initially. As I heated the water, the pot did produce some odors of what I believe is ghosts of soups past. The odor was light and I decided to ignore it.
After following the directions and boiling the wort for 60 minutes, I added it to the fermenter bucket (still boiling hot... I know that was a mistake!) I also added a bag of store bought ice and cold tap water to bring it to 5 gallons. I tried to keep as much trub out of the fermenter as I could.
The fermenter was cleaned/sanitized with the "brewer's edge" that came with the equipment kit. I believe it's a chlorine based product, so I rinsed everything before it came into contact with the wort while pouring.
I placed the fermenter in an ice bath, and it took quite some time for it to reach pitching temps. I think I had the lid partially on for most of this time.
I pitched at just under 80 degrees and stirred for a few minutes. Here I'm wondering if I didn't introduce enough oxygen?
Then it was covered, the airlock was filled with water, and it was moved to the basement which was around 68 degrees.
I didn't notice any airlock activity, but a krausen did form after a few days. A few times impatient and curious me took the airlock out to peer into the fermenter. Some of the water from the airlock made it into the beer from this.
The krausen had not dropped by the end of day 14, so I racked it into the priming bucking taking care to leave the krausen (some did fall while moving the bucket) and yeast cake in the fermenting bucket.
I checked the gravity and tasted the beer before racking it. I noticed some off flavors at this time.
A few days later I added the priming sugar and bottled. I was hoping those off flavors would condition out in the bottle, but no such luck.
So.... any clues in here as to where my big mistake(s) were? I hope to learn from them so I don't have to dump another 5 gallons of beer! I used up all the brewers edge cleaning up bottles and have since switched to using StarSan.
Sorry for the long first post....
Thanks in advance!
Brandon
I'll try to recount my brewing experience along with what I feel might be possibilities of where I went wrong. I'm hoping some of you seasoned professionals can help me determine what exactly caused the off flavors.
For starters, this was a Belgium Wit from williamsbrewing.com
After two weeks in the bottle, it has plenty of carbonation, but it also has some off flavors that make it undrinkable. I really can't pinpoint the flavor, but it does have a drying (tannic) finish on the tongue. The closest I can come to from reading all the online descriptions of off flavors is that it might be a medicinal flavor. Maybe a bit fruity too? I also tasted this flavor before bottling. So it was not introduced during bottling.
I used a four gallon aluminum pot found at a church rummage sale. I boiled 3.5 gallons of water initially. As I heated the water, the pot did produce some odors of what I believe is ghosts of soups past. The odor was light and I decided to ignore it.
After following the directions and boiling the wort for 60 minutes, I added it to the fermenter bucket (still boiling hot... I know that was a mistake!) I also added a bag of store bought ice and cold tap water to bring it to 5 gallons. I tried to keep as much trub out of the fermenter as I could.
The fermenter was cleaned/sanitized with the "brewer's edge" that came with the equipment kit. I believe it's a chlorine based product, so I rinsed everything before it came into contact with the wort while pouring.
I placed the fermenter in an ice bath, and it took quite some time for it to reach pitching temps. I think I had the lid partially on for most of this time.
I pitched at just under 80 degrees and stirred for a few minutes. Here I'm wondering if I didn't introduce enough oxygen?
Then it was covered, the airlock was filled with water, and it was moved to the basement which was around 68 degrees.
I didn't notice any airlock activity, but a krausen did form after a few days. A few times impatient and curious me took the airlock out to peer into the fermenter. Some of the water from the airlock made it into the beer from this.
The krausen had not dropped by the end of day 14, so I racked it into the priming bucking taking care to leave the krausen (some did fall while moving the bucket) and yeast cake in the fermenting bucket.
I checked the gravity and tasted the beer before racking it. I noticed some off flavors at this time.
A few days later I added the priming sugar and bottled. I was hoping those off flavors would condition out in the bottle, but no such luck.
So.... any clues in here as to where my big mistake(s) were? I hope to learn from them so I don't have to dump another 5 gallons of beer! I used up all the brewers edge cleaning up bottles and have since switched to using StarSan.
Sorry for the long first post....
Thanks in advance!
Brandon