ryser2k
Well-Known Member
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
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