Fermented wort tastes like raw, yeasty bread dough

[bradleypariah]

I am a little over a week deep into this recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=630971

Full details:
OG was about 1.082
Original flavor was pleasantly sweet, and the hops were almost unnoticeable, as anticipated.
Yeast: BRY-97 (my first time using it).
After eight days (yesterday), gravity was 1.010, and the off flavor is now present.
It didn't look or taste infected, just extremely yeasty. Imagine wet, raw, white, bread dough. Not awesome.
Yeast cake was absolutely monstrous - two or three inches thick in only four gallons of ale.

Vowing to never drain-pour again, I went ahead with the blackberry addition, and racked to a keg. I plan to let it sit for a week before sampling again, but I'm mentally prepared to wait months. My week-old ales never taste like this. However, I've been doing this long enough to know that if my patience holds out, this beer should eventually have a palatable, albeit unique, flavor someday.

Brew day details - I forgot to scrub my copper wort chiller before throwing it in the boiling wort on boil day. :smack: After racking to primary, I saw a blue ring in the bottom of the bucket where my chiller had been stored. I assume this means there was a small amount of copper sulfate in my boil. However, on brew day, the cooled wort tasted very pleasant.

What do you guys think caused this yeasty, raw bread dough flavor? Is BRY-97 $h!tty-tasting bread yeast? I've been using White Labs for quite a while. This was my first dry yeast in three years, and I am actually impressed by the attenuation of a single packet in such high gravity wort. Did I possibly under-pitch? Is this just what I should expect from such a high grain bill, single malt, with so little hops? Any of you ever taste something like this before?

 

[Norselord]

Fermentation temp?

All my gravity samples taste yeastier than the final beers. Mostly due to cold crashing and yeast settling out.

I doubt your chiller put any significant levels of copper sulfate into your wort, unless you have very high sulfate water. Copper is a yeast nutrient.

When you don't have a lot of hops in your brew, a few things can happen: you risk contamination and the taste of everything else is amplified.

Give it time.

 

[bradleypariah]

It's been very hot in Portland lately - around 105° F, but this was in the basement. Ambient temps in the 70s. I realize now it may have been too warm. According to Lallemand, the optimal range caps at 72° F.

Looks like I might be waiting quite a while for the off-flavors to get absorbed.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Yeasty bread flavor sounds more like green beer (young and not complete). A week is quick imo. I like to hit terminal gravity and give it at least three days more.

If your basement is 70 then your wort probably got to 75 or higher during fermentation. I'd speculate you have potential for fruity esters and perhaps off flavors.

You may want to search out swamp coolers to help regulate temps a bit. At the very least it will smooth out the peak temps a bit.

 

[bradleypariah]

I'm glad to know you guys think it's only age or temperature. Hopefully both will mellow with age.

The heat wave caught me by surprise. If you haven't heard, the PNW never gets this hot, and it's been in the news. A third of the people in Northern Oregon and Washington don't have air conditioning. We personally only have single-room window units - the house has no central A/C.
I hadn't considered the impact on my basement or the beer until I tasted it.

Since the heat will most likely last a little while longer, I'm thinking I need to brew something that handles the warmth better. I just ordered some Belgian yeast that is optimal up to 78° F. May as well embrace the temperature.

 

[kh54s10]

I too think that judging the taste of a beer after just a week is not going to tell you much about the finished product.

Thoughts. That is a really unbalanced recipe. So much so that the bready flavor does not surprise me at all. Your fermentation temperature was likely quite a bit high, but it should lead to different off flavors than bready. I would expect the flavor to change dramatically after adding the blackberries and having them finish.

I have only ever brushed off my IC when there was dried on crud that I didn't get by rinsing on the last batch. Usually I only give it another rinse before putting it in the kettle to sanitize it. I doubt that it will have had any effect on your beer at all.

 

[BMWillis]

Yeah, I'm already over this heat wave shenanigans. Ready for crisp fall mornings and fall seasonal beers


Temp definitely got a little warm so you might get some esters or fusel alcohols.

Also, 1.082 is a pretty dang big beer. It might need even more time to get rid of all those 'green' off flavors since you're looking at a 8-9% beer.

 

[Dcpcooks]

I just went and looked at your recipe. How long did you end up mashing for?

 

[bradleypariah]

That is a really unbalanced recipe.

Meaning, you think it'll be really sweet? Because that's what I'm going for. Almost cider-like, or hard soda pop. I only have one kind of grain, and I thought single-malt was a common thing. I posted that thread to the Beginners forum asking for advice, but somebody moved it to the Recipe forum, where it basically got no visibility, and I got very little feedback.

I just went and looked at your recipe. How long did you end up mashing for?

An hour. I was using iodine to test for starch. It was coming back yellow after only 30 minutes, but I saw no harm in being certain. Do you think I mashed too long?

 

[Dcpcooks]

Meaning, you think it'll be really sweet? Because that's what I'm going for. Almost cider-like, or hard soda pop. I only have one kind of grain, and I thought single-malt was a common thing. I posted that thread to the Beginners forum asking for advice, but somebody moved it to the Recipe forum, where it basically got no visibility, and I got very little feedback.



An hour. I was using iodine to test for starch. It was coming back yellow after only 30 minutes, but I saw no harm in being certain. Do you think I mashed too long?

No an hour is fine! I was concerned you may have had an incomplete conversion, some residual starch from a short mash which could lead to a bit of a starchy flavors

 

[kh54s10]

By unbalanced I mean no bitterness to overcome the malt taste. The sweetness comes from unfermentable sugars. That is usually increased by mashing at a higher temperature. Lower temperature gives less unfermentables and a drier beer.

Again, I think the flavor will be quite a bit different when the blackberries ferment out and give their flavor. I would also give it a longer ferment time due to the high OG.

I have done a couple where I tasted the beer before carbonation and said to myself "This isn't going to be a very good one." After bottle conditioning or some aging in a keg they turned out fine.

Without having it finish, then describing the flavors, anything now is really just speculation. You may be chasing a problem that will not be present in the finished beer.

 

[bradleypariah]

Without having it finish, then describing the flavors, anything now is really just speculation. You may be chasing a problem that will not be present in the finished beer.

Fair enough. I was only worried because I'm someone who always sneaks a taste at different intervals, and the only other time I tasted this flavor was this batch I wound up with a 1/2 gallon of leftover wort that wouldn't fit in my carboy. I opted to throw it in my old Mr. Beer, and I tossed some bakers' yeast on it. It was absolutely awful. The exact same wort from the 5-gallon carboy, fermented with San Diego Super Yeast turned out to be one of the best beers I ever made. It made be realize the importance of yeast.

Tasting that flavor again had me sweating - I was thinking maybe BRY-97 was a mistake.

 

[fnord]

I've got limited experience with it but BRY 97 is on my list of avoid if I can yeasts. Slow to start & slow to finish & drop in my opinion. Always worried about possible wilds taking over while waiting for it to take off, then needing to wait to package after fermentation complete. Cleaner flavor than S05, less expensive and less attenuation than wlp090, can definitely see the recipes where those characteristics are desirable. But it's certainly slow to start, rapid to ferment, slow to finish the few times I've used it. Most of what I've experienced and read are that you want a quick start, medium paced and steady fermentation, and a quick drop so you can package .

 

[hottpeper13]

BRY 97 is my go to chico dry yeast. It always has that 1/4" of tiny foam at the 24hr mark and drops faster then 1056 or US05. It really makes the ingredients shine.
When I make a beer over 1.060 I let it primary for 4 weeks no matter what yeast I use.
Your stuck with the temp you fermented at as far as flavors go, I would think time is a good thing. I just kegged a 1.084 Wee Heavy that spent one month in primary and 4 months in secondary.