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LongDog

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I honestly think I did. Ugh.

I brewed this on June 22. http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/195/itstoohots-apa.
I asked about apricot extract on the forum and decided on 4oz. I thought 6.5oz was over the top. So, I went with 4.

I worried about oxidizing the beer so I didn't want to stir in the extract. So today i poured the whole bottle(4oz) in with the priming solution and racked right on top of it.

It tastes so much like extract, that I can hardly even taste the apricot. It just has that alcohol or artificial flavor taste.

I tasted the last beer to come out of the bottling bucket. You know, the one that doesn't quite get filled to the desired height.

Will it mellow at all? Is there any way that I can save it?
 
The only way to know is to give it a few weeks.

It often takes added flavors quite some time to mellow.
 
I did the same thing with a batch (4oz apricot extract). It mellowed slightly, but still has that weird extract flavor. I begrudgingly drank the keg and will never use extract again. Sorry man.
 
Damn. That sucks. Yeah, it tasted 100Xs better before I added te extract. That stupid little 4oz bottle really messed me up. I should have used maybe an ounce or 2. How in the world did that person use 6.5oz? That's te last time I try a recipe that hasn't been reviewed either.
 
Hmmm.... time will tell. But apricot extract? Is that like vanilla extract? Yeah, I think 4 oz...

{thinks in head. that's almost a tsp a quart. Which is what I'd use for ice cream but for beer .... yeah, not to *my* taste}

Well, maybe it'll mellow out. You can always cross your fingers.

That reminds me of one time I was 8 years old (as opposed to the other times I was 8 years old) and I baked some cookies. My know-it-all older sister had written a recipe and she had, in ten-year old logic, decided that the cap of the vanilla bottle was a convenient measure and had written "1 cap-full of vanilla". I thought her "a" looked like a "u" so in my 8 year old literalism...
 
In my defense, the beer was for my wife. She will not touch it now. This stuff is terrible. It was a really mellow light ale before the apricot extract. The bottle says 6-7oz per 5 gallons. There is no way. I wish I could get a refund from brewers best for the cost of all those ingredients, cause that beer is probably going to have to be poured out.
 
LongDog said:
In my defense, the beer was for my wife. She will not touch it now. This stuff is terrible. It was a really mellow light ale before the apricot extract. The bottle says 6-7oz per 5 gallons. There is no way. I wish I could get a refund from brewers best for the cost of all those ingredients, cause that beer is probably going to have to be poured out.
Click to expand...

Unless you really need those bottles for something else, seal them in a box, put it in a dark place at room temp and mark your calendar to put a few in the fridge around Labor Day. Who knows? You may be pleasantly surprised.

On more than one occasion, I've seen beer improve dramatically given extended conditioning time.
 
Yep it could mellow some, after 4 months of aging a couple in bottle for the batch I did there isn't too much of a difference though.

I used a good amount from the keg to boil brats before grilling and soaked some beans for baked beans as well.
 
I had a bud who did this with honey. H put way too much in, to the point that it was undrinkable. After a year and a half or so, he was looking for bottles in the garage and found the cases, cracked one open to pour it out and decided to take a swig. It turned out to be damn good. Sometimes, you just need to give it enough time.
 
I wonder how extract even has a market? Nearly everybody that I know, or have read about, myself included has used extract once. Never again, it's real fruit only ;-)
 
worksnorth said:
I wonder how extract even has a market? Nearly everybody that I know, or have read about, myself included has used extract once. Never again, it's real fruit only ;-)
Click to expand...

I don't think I'd ever use anything like that again. But real fruit? For some reason putting a fruit purée in the fermenter makes me think about tasting rotten fruit in the beer or having it get an infection. I know lots f people do it...
 
badcat68 said:
I had a bud who did this with honey. H put way too much in, to the point that it was undrinkable. After a year and a half or so, he was looking for bottles in the garage and found the cases, cracked one open to pour it out and decided to take a swig. It turned out to be damn good. Sometimes, you just need to give it enough time.
Click to expand...

Was that real honey in the secondary, or honey extract?
 
LongDog said:
I don't think I'd ever use anything like that again. But real fruit? For some reason putting a fruit purée in the fermenter makes me think about tasting rotten fruit in the beer or having it get an infection. I know lots f people do it...
Click to expand...

Pasteurize the fruit, makes it mushy and kills the critters. I do it all the time. My daughter LOVES a strawberry blonde I make. 5gallon batch with 5lbs of strawberries in the secondary for 7 days. It's pretty good.
Definitely go with real or frozen fruit.
 
I have also read here on HBT that a LBHS told a person to add the extract to the primary itself, and he posted good results... That said I have a peach extract that I plan on using BUT it is a food grade extract from olive nation... I will see how it works out in the future, because I have read that peach flavor is hard to get to come through in a beer with the fruit itself...
 
I did a Blueberry Wheat this way. A kit my LHBS put together. They told to add the full 4oz. Like you (op) I added to bottling bucket and racked on top. I only used 3z. and my first bottles were way to much of the berry flavor. But that has mellowed over a few months. It's now a much better beer. Cheers!
 
worksnorth said:
I wonder how extract even has a market? Nearly everybody that I know, or have read about, myself included has used extract once. Never again, it's real fruit only ;-)
Click to expand...

Yep, real fruit then supplement it with some extract if needed. I learned my lesson a long time ago with hazelnut extract. When using extract, use an oral syringe to add measured doses. Start small, gently stir, then sample. Add more if needed but only add a tiny bit at a time...like maybe a ml or less at a time.
 
worksnorth said:
I wonder how extract even has a market? Nearly everybody that I know, or have read about, myself included has used extract once. Never again, it's real fruit only ;-)
Click to expand...

I used maple extract once in a cream ale for my sister-in-law, because it was the only way I knew of to get the maple flavour in the beer without the yeast fermenting it out.
 
The only way to know is to give it a few weeks.
hu7h.jpg
 
Time may be doing the job of mellowing the apricot. I just tried one yesterday after 4 1/2 weeks and it is much more drinkable, though still overwhelming.

3 more weeks may mellow it to the point where it may even be somewhat enjoyable.
 

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