Split batch-two different beers-different ferment

I brewed a 10 gallon batch of ordinary bitter. I split it into two Ale Pails, fermented with the same yeast in the same place at the same time. The only variable was the fermentation to bottling time. I bottled one 5 gal batch at 2 weeks, and the other at 3 weeks

I would have expected the beer left longer in the fermenter to be better, but it was not. The beer bottled after 2 weeks had more clarity and tasted more malty. The other batch seemed more hoppy on the bittering side, and was more cloudy. I am reluctant to admit that maybe the difference is an infection in the second batch but it's really not bad, it's just different.

I can't supply a side by side photo of these two sisters, but here is a picture of the washed yeast. The two jars on the left are from the second batch. If you can't see it, the second batch jars are darker.

Any ideas what happened here?

My explanation would be that as beer ages, more suspended material falls out of solution making the beer darker. The beer on the left is kind of a sick brown color. The one on the right looks nice though.

But if you listen to the Basic Brewing Radio episode from December where they made an end of the year barleywine, their guest recently lived in England. He said that they drink their beers really young; as in a couple weeks young. I've always heard that small english beers need to be drank young, so I've always had them in the bottle in about 2 weeks.

Where your two ale pales filled to the same level? And did you put the exact same amount of yeast in the two pales?

Could be an attenuation problem? Was the one that was hoppier (is that a word) from bottom of the boil kettle? You may have picked up more trub in that one.

chase said:

My explanation would be that as beer ages, more suspended material falls out of solution making the beer darker. The beer on the left is kind of a sick brown color. The one on the right looks nice though.

But if you listen to the Basic Brewing Radio episode from December where they made an end of the year barleywine, their guest recently lived in England. He said that they drink their beers really young; as in a couple weeks young. I've always heard that small english beers need to be drank young, so I've always had them in the bottle in about 2 weeks.

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That's an interesting point! The younger beer was more to my taste. The older one, while not tasting "off" less to my taste, what with me being English and all. Thanks. I reckon you could have something there!

MSUConrad said:

Where your two ale pales filled to the same level? And did you put the exact same amount of yeast in the two pales?

Could be an attenuation problem? Was the one that was hoppier (is that a word) from bottom of the boil kettle? You may have picked up more trub in that one.

Click to expand...

They were both from the same boil....But now I come to think on it, I had problems at the cooling stage. One pail would have come from the top, the other from the bottom... Having saidt that, all the gravities were the same for each fermentaion. Thanks, now I have TWO valid possibilities to consider!

My buddy used to drain his double batches one carboy at a time from the keggle and the same thing would happen...slightly different product from each carboy. After splitting the drain to fill 2 carboys at once, the finished product was more uniform. When I went to double batches, I made sure to fill both fermenters at the same time. It is necessary (for my set up) to throttle one of the hoses with a clamp or else one carboy fills faster.

dstar26t said:

My buddy used to drain his double batches one carboy at a time from the keggle and the same thing would happen...slightly different product from each carboy. After splitting the drain to fill 2 carboys at once, the finished product was more uniform. When I went to double batches, I made sure to fill both fermenters at the same time. It is necessary (for my set up) to throttle one of the hoses with a clamp or else one carboy fills faster.

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Oooh! Now we are cooking!! So now I'm looking at a manifold for my boil kettle to split the batch evenly! I LOVE this idea! I will no doubt be proven wrong, but I've never heard of this concept before on HBT....Thanks!! I'm gonna make that manififold!