Heavy beer tastes awful

I recently brewed a PranQster clone from extract. This was my first time brewing a heavy beer and I messed up a couple of steps. I'm looking for advice on what i should do differently for the next heavy beer and if this one is salvageable.

First, my OG was 1.11 and I pitched two vials of yeast without any starter. I left it in the primary for 20 days and then bottled with a FG of 1.22. It's been in the bottle for about 3 weeks and has a strong banana flavor (this is a Belgian strong ale) which i believe will subside with time. It also has a fairly harsh alcoholic flavor. I'm wondering if this alcoholic flavor will also subside or if leaving this in a secondary for a month would have been the way to go.

Hope this batch turns out. Thanks for the advice.

There is no way the OG was 1.11 unless you did something incredibly wrong. The OG should be more like 1.070 so far as I can tell. Do you have a full 5 gallons of beer?

Conditioning should help smooth out the flavors. When I make any of the strong Belgians I will generally let them condition for at an additional month before I even try them.

Did you notice at which temperatures the beer fermented? Banana flavors (esters) can be a result of high temperature fermentation, as can hot or solvent like flavors (fusel alcohols). If you hadn't already bottled, I would've recommended keeping it on the year cake for 2 more weeks, to give the yeast some time to break down some of those by-products.

Also, I assume you meant your FG was 1.022, down from 1.110? If you were using a recipe, what did it call for the FG to be? With a high OG, finishing at 1.022 seems about right.

20 days seems like a short time for the fermenter on a beer this strong. I would maybe have racked to secondary and let it sit for another 1-2 months before bottling. The FG doesn't seem too far off for a 1.11 beer.

As far as the banana aroma, I think this comes from certain yeasts at higher fermentation temps. Not sure if this will fade out over time or not. The alcohol flavor could be that as well, or just a young big beer. May people espouse aging a beer that big, to make the alcohol heat reduce.

Yes I mean a FG of 1.022. The recipe said the OG should be around 1.079 but I added a AHS alcohol boost to get it up to 1.11. It fermented between 61-67 degrees. Next time i will leave it in the Primary for another month. How much time in the bottle do you think it will take to reduce the esters and alcohol flavors?

An OG of 1.011 is ok, but 2 vials of yeast is not nearly enough... you should have used double the amount without a starter...

The esters in your case are mostly due to the low pitching rate not so much time, so you won't really be able to clean up most of it although it will reduce somewhat with time...

I have no idea what AHS is? but it has to be some sort of fermentable sugar in which case I'm surprised you got a FG of 1.022... nothing wrong with adding more fermentables to kick up the alcohol, but you may have just overdone it...

all I can say is give it time and see if it improves... (lesson learned)

My big beers taste like crap until they are at least 2 months old in the keg.

I had a big beer that did not start to taste GOOD for 1 year! LOL Now after 1.5 years it's pretty damn good! I have found that big beers need a LONG time to develop.

BTW - 1.022 as a FG is amazing!

BeerJorge said:

An OG of 1.011 is ok

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Not for a Pranqster clone, it isn't. That beer is only 7.6% ABV, and 1.11 is way too high.

weirdboy said:

Not for a Pranqster clone, it isn't. That beer is only 7.6% ABV, and 1.11 is way too high.

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+1. The booster was completely unnecessary and probably threw the beer way out of the clone area. But that doesn't mean that in a few months it won't become a very decent beer.

Homercidal said:

+1. The booster was completely unnecessary and probably threw the beer way out of the clone area. But that doesn't mean that in a few months it won't become a very decent beer.

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Yes, I realized that i went a bit overboard on this drunken brew day after i saw the OG. I was pushing the limits and learned my lesson :cross:

Thanks for the feedback.

The booster still doesn't account for the huge discrepancy. Those boosters are only supposed to up the gravity by 1%...say around .008 on the OG. Your difference is more like 3-4% ABV.

my belgian quad didn't even carbonate for 4 months....OG 1.100. It's just starting to be drinkable....after 7 months. High alcohol beers take a long time and a lot of patience to be ready. Leave it alone for 4 months.

FYI, the banana flavor is from the esters the yeast produced when reproducing. The more the yeast have to reproduce, the more esters they will produce.

With a 5 gallon brew at 1.11 OG, Mr. Malty says you would've needed 4 vials without a starter (well, 3.8, but you try pitching 80% of a vial!). So you pitched only half of what you should've pitched. Esters can be created by high fermentation temperatures as well, but I'm guessing the banana here is from the underpitching. I think you're stuck with the banana.

I will bet that this beer will taste great in 2 years. If you want to brew big beers and drink them early, from my experience, you will be disappointed. Even my 5% beers taste 10 times better at 1 year than at 2 months.

weirdboy said:

Not for a Pranqster clone, it isn't. That beer is only 7.6% ABV, and 1.11 is way too high.

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True... I was just saying in general, it is possible to get a 1.110 OG... but you are right, not for a Pranqster...

Stash it and break it out for the winter holidays. You won't regret waiting.