beer has very good nose but cant really taste for the alcohol at bottling

I fermented my first brew for 9 days. It was an autumn amber ale. It was done fermwnting in 4 days but I let it set for 5 more. At bottling time the beer had a great caramel nose and no off smells but it tasted slightly strong of alcohol yet it is only 4.7%ABV. Will this subside with some bottle conditioning? Will it be a good drinkable brew?

brewtus72 said:

I fermented my first brew for 9 days. It was an autumn amber ale. It was done fermwnting in 4 days but I let it set for 5 more. At bottling time the beer had a great caramel nose and no off smells but it tasted slightly strong of alcohol yet it is only 4.7%ABV. Will this subside with some bottle conditioning? Will it be a good drinkable brew?

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It will probably get better, but it really depends on why you have the strong alcohol taste in the first place. If it's because the yeast was pitched too warm and fermented too warm, or you used a poor quality ale yeast, and fusel alcohols resulted from that, then it won't improve much if at all. If it's simply a beer that needs a little time to mellow (9 days is really pretty young to bottle a beer), then it may improve quite a lot.

Congrats on the first beer. What temperature did you ferment at? What strain of yeast did you use?

It was the American ale yeast from wyeast. I pitched the yeast right at 80 degrees guess I should have gotten under 80 but I rushed due to I was afraid of contamination. It went crazy fermenting for 3 days and then slowed to 3 bubbles per minute. I fermented at anywhere from 63 to 70 the whole time so that should not have been my prob. Im hoping it is just a green brew that needs time.

What was the temp during fermentation over those 9 days?

Sounds almost exactly like my first brew which was also an amber ale. I pitched warm also (upper 70's) and fermented in the mid 60's. The taste got much better after it had sat in the bottle for 2-3 months, although the hops had faded a bit.

Congrats on the brew. And for your next one take the time to get the wort into the mid 60's before pitching. Your yeast will produce far less undesirables as they are reproducing and getting established. Do your best to control the fermentation temps towards the finsih you want. Finally leave normal gravity brews in the primary fermenter for 2-3 weeks (3-4 for higher gravity).

A longer fermentation time should help to clean up your future brews.

Also, and I was a little confused about this when I first started, when you say 63-70 degrees, are you referring to the temperature of the beer, or the ambient temperature of the room? The yeast activity creates a lot of heat and keeps my beer at 5-10 degrees above the ambient air temp. So, you want the temperature of the beer to be in that range and not the ambient air temp.

Try pitching under 70 if you can next time. Ideal I believe is around 65 degrees and ferment in the mid 60s. Other than that, it may fade with time in the bottle. Grats on the brew though!

+1 on all the above sounds like a temp issue. If the taste does not go away with time, like my first batch, you can always use it for cooking!!

Yea I know guys shoulda waited it out longer on the fermentation guess I got the impatience of a noob lol The whole time during fermentation of the 9 days my sticky thermometer i had place on the side of the primary was anywhere from 63 to 70 degrees just depending on the time of day. I kinda figured pitching that high may have caused it. It is by no means a nasty unbearable alcohol taste it's just enough that it kinda is over powering all the other flavors I should be getting in this brew. I sure hope some time in the bottles will kinda clean this brew up.

My very first brew was bottled and had some strong yeastie flavor as well as alcohol as well. It is still in the bottle and I tried one after 2 months. The taste was remarkably better after time in the bottle. I thought after a month and how crappy the beer tasted that I'd be dumping the entire 4 cases. So glad I didn't and let it chill for a few months. They are REALLY good now. Well, REALLY good for being a first attempt. Just give it time and I'm sure the time will heal all things...most of the time anyways.

Brewnoob1, I sure hope so. Did you let it sit the time at room temp for the 2 months or did you wait till it had carbed up then put in your cellar or fridge for the rest of the time? I hope it turns out, i'm keeping the faith with the time heals all.

Mine sat in a dark spot in my garage at around 65-68 ambient temp. I chill for a few days before drinking. Even the ones I throw in the freezer for a quick chill are pretty darn good. Time did wonders to the beer. I really can't even describe how different the beer tastes after 2 months time. It was seriously close about a month ago to being dumped. I still have 3 full cases. The 1st case was me trying them all at different points throughout the first month or so. The last one I tried was when I was brewing last week. It amazed me at how good it was. I even let my wife try it for the first time (I've been too embarrassed up to that point to let anyone try one) and even she thought it was really good.

Thast's awesome man. I hope that this will be the case for me as well. I was all excited on bottling day to give it a try and when i did it was like my heart just sank, I was like this is not quite what I was hoping for. I'm gonna wait 2 weeks before I try one though. I bottled it on 12/8 which was friday. So hopefully it will have gotten atleast some better by then.

Unionrdr, Thanks for the great advice I will definately do this next time. My OG was 1.046. I took 3 FG readings on the 7th, 8th and 9th day and it was stabilized at 1.010 but I did not let it set the extra 3-5 days to clean up which was probably like you say my problem.

I thought the same thing. Heart sank and I thought...wow, I spent money on this crap? Just give it time and learn from your mistakes every batch. Every batch of mine since that very first has gotten better and better. Just keep your head up and moving forward. This is a rewarding hobby that will suck you right in.

brewtus72 said:

Unionrdr, Thanks for the great advice I will definately do this next time. My OG was 1.046. I took 3 FG readings on the 7th, 8th and 9th day and it was stabilized at 1.010 but I did not let it set the extra 3-5 days to clean up which was probably like you say my problem.

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That's a good average FG for that OG,ime. So you're good there. But yeah,I learned that 3-5 day thing from a little experiment I did on a couple of brews. It really does help a lot,so by the time it's been in bottles 3-5 weeks,it's all better. If,of course,it wasn't really a strong off flavor to start with. I mean like raaaaalph bad. In your case,I think it will work fine.
My 1st brew must've had every off flavor known to man,& I got rid of it by following the advice given here,besides hoping time would help to start with. It did. I just refined it by my little experiment over the next 3-4 brews. In our case,time really doeas heal all wounds.

Ohh I will man. I love good beer and love to brew i'm definately not giving up on it. Even if this doesnt turn out I'm ordering me another kit with in the next few weeks.Gonna keep trying till I get it right!

I think so to unionrdr, It for sure wasnt near ralph bad by any means. It just wasnt where I thought it should be, but now I know its just because there's quite a bit of cleaning up to do by the yeast. Im gonna test one out in 2 weeks maybe wait even 3 and if its tasting better I know the time is gonna heal. Thanks for all the great advice guys this has really eased my mind.

Yea i'd say it will be the same for my brew. I did the calculations and i got 4.75% ABV which is not high at all and I'm guessing about right for an amber ale. I just did something simple for my first time and i'm glad. I definately wasn't ready for a bigger beer.

thats a fact man. Thanx for everything. I'll update you and the other bro's on the beer when i do the carbonated taster.