Beer Tastes Like Crap

Just bottled my first batch, last night.

Tasted one...tastes gross. I knew it wasn't going to be too amazing as I was going off of a basic recipe, but this one tastes...weird. The alcohol and beer flavors are somehow "separate".

For example, most beers, you take a swill in your mouth and you get a mix of all the flavors. The malt...the hops, etc. Mine tastes distinctly separate. You taste the alcohol, then you taste water. (Only ~3% ABV...didn't boil long enough. :facepalm: ) But it doesn't taste like a super-light beer...as I said, its like the flavors don't mesh.

I know the beer is still really green and needs to develop carbonation, but another thing is that there is a LOT of sediment. It has a milky white sediment. Is it really just the yeast and other things that have fallen out of suspension, or is it something else? After all, I racked to a secondary, so you'd imagine the beer would naturally have less sediment in it.

Let it age and carb and then taste it. It's too hard to judge this early. And believe it or not, carbonation and aging does make a huge difference.

RMitch said:

I know the beer is still really green and needs to develop carbonation, but another thing is that there is a LOT of sediment. It has a milky white sediment. Is it really just the yeast and other things that have fallen out of suspension, or is it something else? After all, I racked to a secondary, so you'd imagine the beer would naturally have less sediment in it.

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How long has it been in the bottles? I'm sure it is fine...

to reduce sediment in bottles chill them for a minimum of a week, if not more. The linger you chill the tighter the sediment layer will compact. I had a beer I found in the back of the fridge that had been there for like 3 months and the sediment was so tight you could flip the bottle over and none ended up in your glass.

Just relax.

krazydave said:

Let it age and carb and then taste it. It's too hard to judge this early. And believe it or not, carbonation and aging does make a huge difference.

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+1

You generally need to let the beer sit for a minimum of 3 weeks. Tasting one the day after bottling isn't going to tell you anything.

How long did you have the beer in the primary, and how long in the secondary? Temperatures that it fermented will change flavors, and the beer just needs to condition. I have tried some at bottling time that were almost not drinkable, but in 4-5 weeks in the bottle they were amazing.

What affect, if any, does cold-conditioning have? I placed one bottle in the back of the fridge, to compare the flavor of it to the room-temp conditioned bottles, in a couple weeks.

RMitch said:

What affect, if any, does cold-conditioning have? I placed one bottle in the back of the fridge, to compare the flavor of it to the room-temp conditioned bottles, in a couple weeks.

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Chances are, it won't carbonate in the back of the fridge... Most of us bottle condition/carbonate our brews as close to 70F as we can get, for 3 weeks (or longer, depending on the brew)... It's usually pretty close when you're approaching 2 weeks, but that extra week also helps (most of the time)...

RMitch said:

What affect, if any, does cold-conditioning have? I placed one bottle in the back of the fridge, to compare the flavor of it to the room-temp conditioned bottles, in a couple weeks.

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Well, first of all: have you let the bottles carb up at room temp? The yeast need a somewhat warm temperature in order to be able to eat the carbing sugars you introduced at bottling. After 3 weeks of that and maybe a week to age then you could experiment with temp to compare flavors.

RMitch said:

What affect, if any, does cold-conditioning have? I placed one bottle in the back of the fridge, to compare the flavor of it to the room-temp conditioned bottles, in a couple weeks.

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With ales there's really no such thing as cold conditioning, cold puts ale yeast to sleep, and there ain't sleepworking yeasties that we know off.

They won't carb OR condition in your fridge in a reasonable amount of time...

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Revvy said:

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

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Which is why people like me keg 95% of what I brew. Patience just doesn't run in my family!

check your bottle - is it white porcelain with a chrome handle and hinged lid - if so, it is indeed crap and not beer you are tasting.

otherwise, i'd be inclined to agree with the above posters

krazydave said:

Which is why people like me keg 95% of what I brew. Patience just doesn't run in my family!

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Heard she ran away with Virtue...

l1ranger said:

check your bottle - is it white porcelain with a chrome handle and hinged lid - if so, it is indeed crap and not beer you are tasting.

otherwise, i'd be inclined to agree with the above posters

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Nah, its your standard brown glass 12oz bottle.

krazydave said:

Which is why people like me keg 95% of what I brew. Patience just doesn't run in my family!

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ANd you;ll find that most of the keggers on here you ask, the experienced one, let their kegs mature a few weeks too......and find their beers are greatly improved as well....

They are usually not realizing that if they have kegs of beer ready to swap out when they kick one, that the beer they are replacing them with has conditioned over the couple weeks.

The ability to force carb quickly really doesn't mean that the kegger is NOT still drinking green beer.