I brewed a 5 gal american lager and a 10 gal american lager (2 seperate carboys). Lagered for 6 weeks at 32-38 deg f. Bottled all using same equipment. All tasted great before bottling. After 2 weeks bottled I tried a bottle from each batch. The 5 gal batch was good. The bottles from the 10 gal batch were bitter. They were 2 different recipes. The bottles were all sanitized at the same time. Any clue what has happened?
Bitter taste after bottling
- Thread starter gotedgo
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Could be you got a few nasties giving off flavors, but I wouldn't bet on it.
What was your hop schedule?
5 gal batch had 1/2oz hallertauer @ 20 min and 1/2 oz hallertauer @ 10 min left in boil. The 10 gal batch was 1 oz hallertauer @ 20 min and 1 oz hallertauer @ 10 min. Note: the 10 gal batch was fermented in 2 seperate carboys.
Sorry if this throwing a lot at you, but I'm trying to give you some leads to go on as to what caused the change.
Were the FG's the same? a lower FG would be less malt flavor in by comparison, more pronounced hop presence.
Did you up your starter for the increase in wort? underpitched yeast could affect the flavor. A low pitch rate can lead to:
* Excess levels of diacetyl (buttery)
* Increase in higher/fusel alcohol formation (hotness)
* Increase in ester formation (fruity)
* Increase in volatile sulfur compounds
* High terminal gravities
* Stuck fermentations
* Increased risk of infection
Do you use starsan or bleach? Bleach will give you a chemically flavor that may taste bitter. Perhaps one of the fermenters you used wasn't totally scrubbed of bleach.
Also, From a different thread:
Basically, if you're using different width kettles, your evap rate will change. Using the same kettle, your taking longer to get 10 g to a boil and likely losing more water there preboil.
The only other thing I could think of is trub. Do you transfer your wort trub and all? or do you filter it out? You may have gotten more of it in the 10g batch than the 5g batch.
There's a ton of variables that come in to play. Simple math says doubling the batch size means double the recipe, but from what I've heard, in most cases - when you scale your recipe up in proportion to the increase in volume, something changes. The chemical reactions happening in the new system are different than the chemical reactions in the old system and will likely affect the flavor.
If all you can think of that changed is your fermentation method (split fermentation), try finding a 10 g bucket to ferment in. Perhaps fermenting all in one place was the difference.
Or, for your next batch using ten gallons, instead of doubling the hops, increase it by less than that!
Worst case scenario for your current batch, you let it sit for a few months and let the bitterness mellow out.
I'm thinking it was my bottle sanitation which caused the difference in the batches. They both had the same FG 1.008 and same flavor when I tried them (before bottling). This was my procedure to sanitize : rinsed the bottles w/ cold water; used b-brite to clean (with bottle brush); soak in sanitizer solution (can't remember which one - "not" bleach) for 5-6 min (makers instructions); use cold water to rinse; placed on bottle tree to dry. I've used this method many times but only for one batch at a time. Is it possible that my sanitizer had gotten "thinned out" because of the number of bottles I cleaned (158)? The first bottles could have been sanitized (which I used primarily on the 5gal batch). The other bottles may have not been getting sanitized. How long does a sanitizer like starsan mixed properly in a 5gal bucket last?
If you used starsan you aren't supposed to rinse. I kind of doubt the difference is an infection but you never know.
First thing I would think is you need to test more than a bottle or 2 of each to be sure there is a real difference. The same beers can taste very different drunk at different times depending on temp, time of day, last time you brushed your teeth, what you last ate or are eating, etc, etc, etc. I would do a side by side comparisson, preferably blinded. If after testing again in a controlled situation you still see a difference in degree of bitterness it is almost certainly a difference in hop utilization so look for something you did different with that.
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