Frustrated, please help

So I'm in the middle of making my fourth beer. So far 3 of them have been laden with some sort of vegetably buttery after taste. The first two were Wheat beers where I covered the boiling pot which i now know is a no-no. So i thought i was past this off flavor. However in doing my recent shiner bock clone i just took a hydrometer reading and tasted it and there was that damn flavor again. I know that its best to just wait and see, but my other brews, while drinkable, never really recovered from the off-flavor.

Any help is appreciated as this is just frustrating the hell out of me.

We really need to know your complete procedure to help diagnose where you may be going wrong. It sounds like you're getting diacetyl, could be from fermenting too hot

I could buy that on the first two but Im fermenting the SHiner clone at 50 degrees. They were all extract brews. I don't think its a repeated infection as Im super anal about sanitizing and they have all been in different fermenters.

What else information could help?

Sounds like Diacetyl to me. What kind of yeast are you using? Are you making a starter? are you oxygenating?

Poor yeast health can contribute to diacetyl production. You can try a diacetyl rest raising the temp ~10 degrees for 2-3 days.

I would also say fermenting temp is the go-to off taste. Have you calibrated your thermometers in boiling water and ice baths?

With this Shiner i pitched one vial of German Bock yeast from White labs and then another 48 hours later when there was no krausen yet. Im not making a starter but i usually oxygenate pretty well.

I'm with maxam - buttery flavors and oily mouthfeel, particularly in lagers fermented at the proper temps, are not uncommon at all. And for the most part they'll disappear if you warm up the fermenter by about 10 degrees for a few days (this prevents the yeast from going dormant and forces them to finish cleaning up that particular by-product).

I've got a bock lagering right now that showed major signs of diacetyl, but given about 3-4 days (2 really should've been sufficient, I just neglected to check on it that soon!) at warmer temperatures, the diacetyl almost completely disappeared.

EDIT: And with a lager, many people will tell you, hands down, always use a big starter! My bock was actually half of a larger batch I split with a buddy and we're testing the theory: pitched a single smack pack to his fermenter, and a big starter to mine. The starter did NOT prevent diacetyl from showing up, for one - but it definitely made fermentation kick off a whole lot faster. We're lagering another 2 weeks before carbonating and sampling, at which point we'll have a better idea of just how important starters are or are not.

Im gonna try ding a d-rest then. I guess im just not very hopeful because the taste never went away with the wheat beer i did

Diacetyl and DMS are two very different compounds. Yeast can and will break down Diacetyl. Not so much for DMS though (which is likely the cause of the vegetably flavor on your beers that you boiled with the lid on).

I taste the same off flavor though. Can i just not tell the difference?

Honestly, only time will tell.

Give it 2 days d-rest, taste a sample and see if the flavor's still there. If it's gone, then you're probably mistaking one for the other. If not, then we can dig deeper into your process to see what else could be wrong.

The thing that makes it tough is that the off-flavor you're describing appears to be both.

DMS (a compound that typically boils off when you remove the lid for your whole boil) tends to taste, from all reports, like cooked corn. I can honestly say I haven't yet tasted this, so I can't speak to it for sure.

Diacetyl tends to taste buttery, and definitely can impart an oily mouthfeel. I just tasted this for my first time a few weeks ago, and I don't think I can recall anything vegetal about it, to be perfectly honest.

So when you said that you boiled with the lid on for your first two batches, the immediate assumption is DMS. And you described a vegetal flavor - again, DMS. But you also noted buttery flavors, which typically indicate diacetyl. Diacetyl can show up in a lot of different beers, but is most commonly noted in lagers. Check out this article for some of the science behind it, as well as some tips for reducing it. Just give it a look see and see if anything in your process appears to go against it - that might be a culprit for diacetyl.

EDIT: Actually, peeking just through the start of the linked article, there's a strong suggestion that underpitching can lead to more diacetyl, as diacetyl is a by-product of the lag phase. Not sure what your lag times look like, but I know my bock had a lag time less than 7 hours and still DEFINITELY needed a d-rest. You might benefit in this regard from starters, but it's definitely not a fool proof 100% fix...

Alright, just raised the temp to 67 degrees. Ill let yall know in a couple days

thood6 said:

With this Shiner i pitched one vial of German Bock yeast from White labs and then another 48 hours later when there was no krausen yet. Im not making a starter but i usually oxygenate pretty well.

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Did you only pitch one vial in all your beers? Theirs at least part of the problem. You need to make a starter or pitch more vials. Im lazy and pitch 2 vials for an Ale but Lagers you would need even more. Proper amount of yeast, Fermentation temp control and Oxygenating the wort befor you pitch are key to making good beer

How many should I pitch for an average gravity lager? or for that matter a high gravity one?

Honestly, clean lagers are a pretty tough. I never even thought of trying a lager till I had several years of brewing under my belt. I'd back up and try a few basic ales till you get your procedures down pat. Yeast starters or multiple vials/packs are almost mandatory for lagers, they can't handle long lag times. Temp control is also paramount when it comes to lagers. You must pitch cool, I do 48 degrees, then let it ramp up to 50. Once fermentation is complete I taste the beer, if there is any diacetyl I raise it up 10 degrees to do a rest, if not then it's into the keg for lagering.

thood6 said:

How many should I pitch for an average gravity lager? or for that matter a high gravity one?

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try this

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Definitely go with Paul's suggestion - I should've posted that link in one of my earlier posts.

The nice thing about that calculator is that it will tell you, based on whether you're brewing an ale or lager and based on the OG of said beer, either how many vials or smack packs you need or how big a starter you'll need. It'll even tell you how many packets of dry yeast to use, if that's your desire.

There are even variables with the starter: Have a stirplate? You'll need a smaller starter. Have no stir plate and you're too lazy to shake up the starter once in a while, you'll need a bigger one. Brewing with really old yeast? Crank up that starter size even more (or go with even more vials/packs).

What was your recipe for the bock? Not boiling pilsner malt for 90 min could give you some DMS also.

It was the AHS kit and the malt was only amber malt extract. The boil was for 60 minutes.

thood6 said:

Alright, just raised the temp to 67 degrees. Ill let yall know in a couple days

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So what ever became of this? Did the d-rest do anything for your off-flavor?