Please help assess results of first AG..

When I racked my first AG to keg a couple of weeks ago, the sample had a lemon/orange peel taste...sour, but not bad. After two weeks at 11 psi of continuous gas, I pulled another sample today. The sour taste today is just as bad as it was with my original sample. It may even be worse, but that could be because it is now refrigerated.

Since this was my first AG, I was extra careful with my cleaning and sanitizing in case the beer was not good. I wanted to be able to rule out contamination as the reason. I do not have any experience with any of the grains I used, nor have I quite figured out my hops preference. So I am not sure if I am tasting "ingredients and recipe" or infected beer. When I was using extract kits and then PM kits, recipes with 18-24 IBU's seemed to be my favorite. I was at 28 with this one, but don't think that is the problem. Maybe I need more hops and this is what an underhopped dry beer tastes like?

I am hoping that you guys with the experience can help me figure what I am tasting that is sour so when I try this again I can have better results. Could it be the hops level on this light beer? Could it be the corn that I have never used before, or does the corn taste that others experienced with this recipe taste like corn? Could the AE I added to secondary give it this flavor? Or was I just careless somewhere and have an infected beer?

I made that jump to AG using Deathbrewer's thread as a guideline and everything seemed to go well. Too well really. I hit my numbers, no boil overs, or any other problems. I was organized, prepared, and it went well until now.

The recipe was BierMuncher's Cream of Three Crops, adjusted as follows for a 5.5 gal batch:

6# Pale Ale Malt
1# Crystal 10L
2# Flaked Maize
1.75# Minute rice
1.5 oz. Hallertau @ 3.9% for 90 minutes
Safale US-05

My brew day temps/tech were posted in this thread.http://https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/brewed-first-ag-yesterday-how-did-i-do-166862/#post1929162

From reading the threads about this recipe, this is an awesome beer and I need to give it another try so I'll have a summer light beer. I am pretty sure this one is a goner as it is pretty bad! I just don't know where/when it started going bad.

Thanks for the help.

ive done bm cream of 3 crops but i do mine a bit different

try 5lbs 2 row
1.5 lbs flaked rice
2.5 lbs flaked corn
1oz saaz at 60 min
1oz williamette at 30 min

my starting og was 1.050 and it finished at 1.010

ibus came out to be like 26 but i like a hoppier light beer anyway

wcarter1227 said:

ive done bm cream of 3 crops but i do mine a bit different

try 5lbs 2 row
1.5 lbs flaked rice
2.5 lbs flaked corn
1oz saaz at 60 min
1oz williamette at 30 min

my starting og was 1.050 and it finished at 1.010

ibus came out to be like 26 but i like a hoppier light beer anyway

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What AAU's with your hops?

So do you think my recipe gave it the off flavor?

I had a Blonde Ale I brew do something like that to me. First batch was awesome. So I brewed a 10 gallon batch, I put 5 gallons in bottles and the rest in a keg. I tapped the keg and wow, not the same beer I had brewed earlier. I was thinking of dumping the batch. After a couple of weeks in the keg. It turned into a great beer again. So with that being said. Just let it sit in that keg for a couple of weeks and then give it a try. Oh stop sampling it every day, it doesn't change that fast. Trust me!!!

Jud said:

I had a Blonde Ale I brew do something like that to me. First batch was awesome. So I brewed a 10 gallon batch, I put 5 gallons in bottles and the rest in a keg. I tapped the keg and wow, not the same beer I had brewed earlier. I was thinking of dumping the batch. After a couple of weeks in the keg. It turned into a great beer again. So with that being said. Just let it sit in that keg for a couple of weeks and then give it a try. Oh stop sampling it every day, it doesn't change that fast. Trust me!!!

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I only sampled it when I kegged it two weeks ago, and then last night. I know they get better with age and that time can sometimes cure the mystery taste. I don't think I will live long enough on this one! Thanks for the advice, and I hope that it resolves itself like yours did.

Maybe it was maize? I've never used it so I dont know what sort of flavor it imparts? Can anyone else say yay or nay to that?

I currently have a Smoked RyePA that I brewed recently with Wyeast 1450, it has pretty poor flocculation so the yeast stayed suspended seemingly forever, I was in need of the carboy so I racked it to a keg and put it on gas to chill a bit and clear up. the first test sample out of the tap was bitter and downright nasty, because of the yeast still suspended in it. After clearing for 2 weeks there was no odd flavor at all, I knocked the keg while checking my line pressure yesterday and the beer again had a slight cloudiness and the nasty flavor was present again because I resuspended the yeasties in the keg. Maybe your issue is similar to that and those first few pints have the settled yeast in them giving you that flavor??

431brew said:

What AAU's with your hops?

So do you think my recipe gave it the off flavor?

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i think the saaz were 4% and the williamette was 4.9%

i just dont see the need for the crystal in the recipe, but thats just me.

i think with time it will get better. i bottle conditioned mine and i dont keg so i dont know if its just green beer or not since i dont even bother trying any of my brews after they are bottled til at least a month in bottles

hoppymonkey said:

Maybe it was maize? I've never used it so I dont know what sort of flavor it imparts? Can anyone else say yay or nay to that?

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maize is corn, its gives it some color, and gives it a sweet corn flavor

for me its a definate yay

What do you know about your water profile? Did you use tap water for this batch?
If so, did you treat the chloramine in it?

"Off" water chemistry for some specific styles (namely very light beers) can get weird flavors when alkalinity gets too high. May or may not be related to your issue.

wcarter1227 said:

maize is corn, its gives it some color, and gives it a sweet corn flavor

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You got one of those correct. Maize is, in fact, corn.

It doesn't add color, flavor and definitely not sweetness. Corn is used to make the beer drier and crisper. It will add a canned corn aroma/taste (DMS, dimethyl sulfide) if the wort is not boiled sufficiently or cooled quickly enough to drive off the DMS.

malkore said:

What do you know about your water profile? Did you use tap water for this batch?
If so, did you treat the chloramine in it?

"Off" water chemistry for some specific styles (namely very light beers) can get weird flavors when alkalinity gets too high. May or may not be related to your issue.

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malkore, I usually use bottled spring water from grocery store, but used tap water for this. I did not treat it with anything. I thought the boil would help with the chlorine.

Reno_eNVy_446 said:

It will add a canned corn aroma/taste (DMS, dimethyl sulfide) if the wort is not boiled sufficiently or cooled quickly enough to drive off the DMS.

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Reno, if it IS boiled sufficiently and cooled quickly as I did, what flavor is to be expected? I have never used it until this batch.


Thanks guys,
Chris

431brew said:

Reno, if it IS boiled sufficiently and cooled quickly as I did, what flavor is to be expected? I have never used it until this batch.
Chris

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It doesn't produce much of a flavor at all. You may notice some corniness in the wort prior to pitching the yeast but once it ferments it will simply lighten the body of the beer and produce a crisp "flavor." Miller uses a ton of corn and Bud uses rice (with similar results) but fear not... you're not using nearly as much as they do so you'll likely end up with nice thin, quaffable light ale perfect for the warming weather.

431brew said:

malkore, I usually use bottled spring water from grocery store, but used tap water for this. I did not treat it with anything. I thought the boil would help with the chlorine.



Reno, if it IS boiled sufficiently and cooled quickly as I did, what flavor is to be expected? I have never used it until this batch.


Thanks guys,
Chris

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My water chemistry is great for stouts and other dark beers, but for light beers I get a very harsh astringent flavor due to my high bicarbonate level. Water is a very important part of beer, and it may be the cause of your off-flavor. I'd suggest doing the same recipe with bottled water and seeing how it comes out. Or get a water report for $16 from Ward's Lab and see exactly what you're working with.

Usually tap water is ok for extract brewing, but for AG brewing it's much more important.

DMS tastes vegetal- think creamed corn or cooked cabbage. It's definitely NOT sour, so I don't think it's DMS.

YooperBrew said:

My water chemistry is great for stouts and other dark beers, but for light beers I get a very harsh astringent flavor due to my high bicarbonate level. Water is a very important part of beer, and it may be the cause of your off-flavor. I'd suggest doing the same recipe with bottled water and seeing how it comes out. Or get a water report for $16 from Ward's Lab and see exactly what you're working with.

Usually tap water is ok for extract brewing, but for AG brewing it's much more important.

DMS tastes vegetal- think creamed corn or cooked cabbage. It's definitely NOT sour, so I don't think it's DMS.

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A couple of you have mentioned the water and that is beginning to make sense. I can only remember one other time that I used tap city water and it was with an extract kit and was the brew right before this one. I still have a little of it in a keg and it is good, but not like the others I had been making. It had a very slight, but kind of bold, off flavor but I figured it was something to do with the hops or with it being a Canadian Ale PM. That was my first CA PM and I wasn't sure what it was supposed to taste like.

I think I just forgot to get the bottled water for that CA PM, or maybe the previous beers were good and I just thought I didn't need bottled water anymore. Can't remember now. When I brewed this AG, I had forgotten about using bottled water until I had the flame going but I wasn't about to stop then.

All other batches I have made in the last two years were with bottled water. There is a noticeable difference in the taste of our water and bottled water. Sometimes ours just isn't good so it can't make good beer.

I will try it again with bottled water. I knew I should have just made a small batch last time so I would still have some ingredients if something went wrong.

Thank you all for your comments.