getting a little tang here

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dmica2

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Just pulled my third batch out of the fermenter (Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Clone) after 14 days and because im impatient i typically taste my fermented beer just before i bottle. This one tasted real tangy and got me worried. This was also my first attempt at partial mash brew.

Any thoughts on the tangy flavor, or do i just need to calm down and wait, my least favorite part.

Thanks for all the great posts it has made my introduction to homebrew a lot more fun
 
You need to calm down and wait. Sorry....But your beer is just green.

It really is hard to judge a beer until it's been about 6 weeks in the bottle. Just because you taste (or smell) something in primary or secondary DOESN'T mean it will be there when the beer is fully conditioned (that's also the case with kegging too.)

The thing to remember though is that if you are smelling or tasting this during fermentation not to worry. During fermentation all manner of stinky stuff is given off (ask lager brewers about rotten egg/sulphur smells, or Apfelwein makers about "rhino farts,") like we often say, fermentation is often ugly AND stinky and PERFECTLY NORMAL.

It's really only down the line, AFTER the beer has been fermented (and often after it has bottle conditioned even,) that you concern yourself with any flavor issues if they are still there.

I think too many new brewers focus to much on this stuff too early in the beer's journey. And they panic unnecessarily.

A lot of the stuff you smell/taste initially more than likely ends up disappearing either during a long primary/primary & secondary combo, Diacetyl rests and even during bottle conditioning.

If I find a flavor/smell, I usually wait til it's been in the bottle 6 weeks before I try to "diagnose" what went wrong, that way I am sure the beer has passed any window of greenness.

Fementation is often ugly, smelly and crappy tasting in the beginning and perfectly normal. The various conditioning phases, be it long primary, secondarying, D-rests, bottle conditioning, AND LAGERING, are all part of the process where the yeast, and co2 correct a lot of the normal production of the byproducts of fermentation.

Lagering is a prime example of this. Lager yeast are prone to the production of a lot of byproducts, the most familiar one is sulphur compounds (rhino farts) but in the dark cold of the lagering process, which is at the minimum of a month (I think many homebrewers don't lager long enough) the yeast slowly consumes all those compounds which results in extremely clean tasting beers if done skillfully.

Ales have their own version of this, but it's all the same.

If you are sampling your beer before you have passed a 'window of greeness" which my experience is about 3-6 weeks in the bottle, then you are more than likely just experiencing an "off flavor" due to the presence of those byproducts (that's what we mean when we say the beer is "green" it's still young and unconditioned.) but once the process is done, over 90% of the time the flavors/smells are gone.

Of the remaining 10%, half of those may still be salvageable through the long time storage that I mention in the Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer:

And the remaining 50% of the last 10% are where these tables and lists come into play. To understand what you did wrong, so you can avoid it in the future.

Long story short....I betcha that smell/flavor will be long gone when the beer is carbed and conditioned.

In other words, relax, your beer will be just fine, like 99.5%.

You can find more info on that in here;

Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

Just remember it will not be the same beer it is now, and you shouldn't stress what you are tasting right now.
 
revvy nice post, thanks alot

i just found one of you old posts too where you were calming young brewers and I linked it and sent it to my brewing partner to calm us both down.

thanks for the advice!
 
that just perfectly answered my question regarding the slight cardboard taste in my pale ale that's only been in the bottle 2 weeks. i was going through all sorts of factors in my head (with new house and system used) but will chill out for a few more weeks.
 
damn i thought this thread was going to be about poontang:mad:

Ditto. I was hoping to get a little tang here as well.... :D

Revvy said it perfectly. I like to taste my beer through the different stages of fermentation and conditioning, but I reserve final judgement until after it has been in the keg for over a month. At that point it is typically two months past brew day so the beer is starting to mature.
 
I know what your problem is...

This
TangJar-Orange.jpg

is not a brewing ingredient!
 
No way! do they still make that stuff cheshire? I haven't seen it since the 80's. Lmao, could you imagine putting that into your beer? Hmm... Orange cream ale. Just for the record my mind went right into the gutter too.
 
No way! do they still make that stuff cheshire? I haven't seen it since the 80's. Lmao, could you imagine putting that into your beer? Hmm... Orange cream ale. Just for the record my mind went right into the gutter too.

If it didn't have preservatives, I'd probably try to ferment it just to see what it would do. :D And they do make it. It's in the isle with the kool aid and stuff like that. Comes in a plastic canister now though.

I had a friend who was going to college and used to make what he called a "freshman screwdriver". Glass of vodka and a spoonfull of orange Tang. :p
 
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