DMS Flavor in 1st All-Grain Batch

I have brewed a few extract beers with good results and decided to try all-grain.
I recently brewed my first all-grain batch, a simple American Wheat beer. I used a picnic cooler MLT with a stainless hose braid. After the boil, I hit the target OG spot on, and it fermented down to 1.010. I tasted it at bottling time and noticed it had a noticeable corn flavor (DMS?). I had about 7.5 gallons of sweet wort after batch sparging. I split the wort evenly between 2 20-quart pots and boiled for 1 hour on my electric stove. ( I am an apartment dweller and don't have anywhere outdoors for a propane burner.) I combined the wort into a single boil pot once I had boiled off sufficient volume. I cooled the wort to pitching temperature in about 20 minutes using an immersion chiller. I believe my sanitation practices are good, and have had no problems with off-flavors thus far. Do you think the problem is infection or not having a strong enough heat source to fully volatilize the DMS?

Did you happen to use Pils malt? I know a lot of people boil for 90 minutes in that case. Did you put the lids on the pots at any time while the wort was still steamy hot?

And...one more question! Did you have a good rolling boil going in both pots?

The maltbill was 4 lbs each of pale 2-row and white wheat. To the best of my recollection, I chilled the wort uncovered to about 150F or so, then submerged the kettle into an ice bath. I then covered the pot loosely with aluminum foil at this point and ran the chiller until the temp was about 76F.

I had both stove burners going at full high heat the entire boil. It was a decent boil, certainly as vigorous as my equipment would allow.

I think that you did not boil long enough. From your above statement I will assume that your malt is a domestic two row. This being the case, a longer boil is needed. I have been doing some experimenting with the domestic vs. the British pale. The BP produces less DMS. I think, and this is my opinion, that our domestic two row has more in common with most Pils malts then with a BP. So I treat it as such. I do a 90 minute boil and have great success. I do get a grainy smell at first, but after aging for two weeks this goes away. The other important thing remember is to cool very fast. Even if you boil for 90 minutes if you are not able to cool the wort down below 140F in say 10 minutes. You will get DMS as well. 140 seem to be the magic number at which DMS production become greatly reduced, from my understanding though this does not stop it. So the faster you can cool the better. S.

It sounds like I need a longer, more vigorous boil to drive off the DMS. I'll certainly try a 90 minute boil next time and see if I get better results. I did go ahead and bottle the beer in question. I'll let it condition for a couple weeks and see if the DMS flavor has diminished, although I don't expect it to. This may be a batch I have to sacrifice to the beer gods...

Let it marinate, my friend. I think all of us around here have had some funktastic flavors at bottling which mellowed with age.

blacklab said:

Let it marinate, my friend. I think all of us around here have had some funktastic flavors at bottling which mellowed with age.

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Funkastic?? ha ha ha ha That is so good. All my beers are this way.

Having only had Boulevard's version in the past, I purchased some Sierra Nevada unfiltered wheat beer to get an idea of what a American wheat beer tastes like. The SN wheat beer was a nice easy-drinking beer, and whatever flavor I was tasting in my homebrewed wheat beer at bottling time was also in the Sierra Nevada version, just to a lesser degree. Tonight I decided to try a bottle of mine, though it had only been in the bottle for 5 days. As expected, it wasn't fully carbonated, but the flavor has mellowed considerably. I think this beer will turn out just fine. Maybe what I was tasting wasn't DMS after all.

Perhaps the lesson here is RDWHAHB and don't judge a brew until it has conditioned.

Make more beer. That is the only way you can age it long enough. More storage is the answer.
"Serve no beer before it's time".

ISUBrew79 said:

Perhaps the lesson here is RDWHAHB and don't judge a brew until it has conditioned.

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I just learned this - finally bottled a PM batch i was convinced was ruined...only to find out that it is an amazing beer. At 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks - it was horrid. I went out of town for 2 weeks...and waited another week before bottling...and amazingly enough...at 6 weeks...it was good.