Cidery tasting beer!!!

[nick112blue]

I know this topic is been brought up many times before in other threads and read most of them. But I wanted to post my receipe and see if you guys could lock a cause down. A little history, I brewed this receipe last winter and it turned out perfect. But this is the second time in a row I have had cidery flavors in the beer.

70min-Briess Caramel 40L
-Briess Munich 10L
45min-Briess Pilsen DME
-Briess Amber DME
30min-German Pearle
15min-Czech Saaz
Safale US-05 Yeast
Primary 10 days 70deg.
Secondary 10 days 70deg.
Bottle Carb 7-10 days 70deg.

Thanks for any help.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

First and foremost, let it sit longer in bottles. May take a long time for that beer to go away. Typically beer that tastes like Green Apples is young and needs more time in the bottle.

 

[JohnSand]

Seconds that. More time.

 

[Magic8Ball]

I don't see anything in your ingredients that say cider to me. Too much table sugar can give you a cider like flavor, its recommended to keep it below 1 lbs per 5 gal batch. But no table sugar in your recipe. Hmmmm

Acetaldehyde can also give off a cider / green apple like taste. You can avoid by a proper pitch of yeast (see mrmalty.com for how much0. Allowing yeast time to clean up the acetaldehyde by making lovely Ethanol Alchol in your beer! Make sure you properly rehydrate your US-05 yeasties!

Lastly wild yeasties can do it too. Think lambics, cidery tart flavor cure = clean and sanitize equipment. Give that US-05 a fighting chance!

Hope that helps some. Prost M8B

 

[BigFloyd]

Cider or vinegar?

Is your 70*F ferment temp the air or the beer? If it's the air temp, you're fermenting too warm and you may be tasting the resulting off-flavors in your still-green beer. More weeks of bottle conditioning may be in order.

If it's like vinegar, I'm afraid that you may have an acetobacteria infection.

 

[nick112blue]

So it definantley tastes like cider especially at the end (not vinegary.) The more I am reading I am leaning toward temp. While brewed, transferred and bottled in the kitchen, I let it ferment in the garage. Generally the darkest and coolest place in the house, but we have had some high temps lately. I check the beer temp often and I would say the average is between 68-70deg. I guess anything is possible, but I use One Step very carefully and thoroughly. So I doubt its contaminated and thats why I was leaning more toward something in the brew process. I am going to give it a week or two and try it again. Thanks for all the responses.

 

[wdwalter]

I keep hearing people say "it just needs more time to age" when talking about the off-flavors going away. I would say for most beers in the 4-5.5% range that is incorrect because they should be drinkable after a few weeks if everything is done correctly. A couple weeks of aging will definitely round the beer out, but will not fix major flaws.

I used to have problems with cidery or hot alcohol flavors until I nailed down my fermentation temperatures. Now I can sample beer immediately after fermentation and enjoy the taste.

Breweries typically produce beers in a 4 week "grain to glass" timeframe. If your beer doesn't taste like commercial beer (good commercial beer) then there is probably a problem with your process.

 

[Stirs]

I had a blond ale with lime zest that fermented in temps that spiked in the 90's. I used a swamp cooler and ice packs, but it got away. I kegged it anyway. Still nasty after ageing a year......

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

First guess; acetaldehyde - green apple flavor attributed to young beer. Can also taste like raw pumpkin in extreme cases. Will likely fade quickly with age. If it doesn't fade, it may be cider-y due to high fermentation temps or other stress on the yeast. If you're temps were 68-70º in the fermenting beer, it's most likely acetaldehyde. If that was your ambient temp, you likely fermented too warm and the apple-y/cider-y flavor may be there for good.

 

[BigFloyd]

I use One Step very carefully and thoroughly. So I doubt its contaminated and thats why I was leaning more toward something in the brew process. I am going to give it a week or two and try it again. Thanks for all the responses.

Please do yourself a favor and get some StarSan to kill the nasties. Great stuff. A spray bottle full of it is quite handy.

 

[Stocktonbrew]

I made the 38DD fermenter cooler. It was easy, cheap, and I don't worry about fermenter temps anymore. Its a cheap investment for quality control.