First Awful Beer - Identify the off flavor, help?

[bpnc9702]

I've got quite a bit of brewing under my belt, never had a problem - being doing all-grain until just recently when I tried to modify a recipe with DME from all-grain (lets cut down the rime in a brew day)

The brew was plagued with small misapps from the beginning, this was supposed to be easier (and it is) but I mashed the specialty grains and boiled for 25 mins before I remembered to add the DME and then screwed up the hop additions - oh well lets just see how the mistake turns out.

The taste prior to fermentation was very nice, excited to try. I used reused WLP001 (3rd generation- pitched at 65F, OG 1.053) that I had from another batch, I made a mini starter and tossed it in and no activity for almost 3 days. I've had reused yeast that took a day or so to take off and after going to the brew store to buy the backup yeast the beer was peculating HOWEVER this guy didnt - so I bought a new vile and of course it took off and starting to blow through the airlock, so I made a blow off hose (sanitized it in starsan) and let it feed into a bucket of star san & water.

2 weeks later, taste it...awful, not beer. I'm thinking the lack of fermentation during those days could be the culprit. The flavor seem almost bitter/sour with foul smell ---- this beer is hopped well so I'm trying to differentiate the hop bitterness from the off flavor. My wife has the premium pregnancy palet and describes it as sourish maybe almost ammonia like. I've read through the off flavors and trying to identify the culprit but just cant put a finger on it - anyone has an idea? Infected, yeast was bad?

 

[ong]

What temp did you ferment at? Anything unusual about the recipe?

 

[ong]

It's not a weird orange-y flavor, is it?

 

[bpnc9702]

this was in the low to mid 60s, never got into 70 - low enough the it took well over a week to complete. Nothing unusual other than using DME other than mashing.

Orange flavor, not that I can tell - but this is a session IPAm Cent & Cascade hops so they have that citrus aroma and flavor...thats what makes it so hard to differentiate the flavor and aroma from the hops to the culprit here. Ive done a lot in this family so I know when something is wrong, I just cant pinpoint it. Would be a lot easier if this was a neutral malty amber, it would stick out.

 

[ong]

I have pretty much stopped using Chico yeast (wlp001, us-05, Wyeast 1056) because I have gotten terrible flavors from low fermentation temps (62-ish). The flavor and aroma I've gotten are kind of perfumy, spoiled/fermented orange.

What hops did you use? Simcoe and Citra and a couple others are often considered to have a cat pee aroma, which can also be described as ammonia. Edit: sorry, just saw that you specified Cascade and Centennial, neither of which are very catty.

 

[joshesmusica]

i know you said you've had success before with slow starts, but i personally wouldn't want my beers sitting for three days with no activity.
i just did a harvested yeast yesterday in fact, and i have a method that you might think about trying. i learned it here:
http://www.woodlandbrew.com/2012/12/no-more-wasteful-yeast-starters.html

you should really read the article, but if you want a quick run down, you basically use half your wort to pitch the yeast in and make a starter with, then pour the other half of your wort in when you see the krausen forming (typically around the 24-hour mark, and with this one it was nearly right at 24 hrs). it can work with any size beer because you can always just cut the cell count needed in half.

some recommendations off of that method that i added in myself is to have at least one of the buckets to have a spigot. i usually do top off water anyways because my kettle is small, so i pour from the kettle into the one with the spigot, then top off, then pour my yeast that have already been warmed to about 30C into the bucket i'm going to ferment in, then pour from the spigot into that bucket. this is nice for a couple of reasons. 1) it's pretty good aeration going on, and 2) i can do a quick whirlpool and my spigot is high enough that the trub won't go into it. although there have been tests that have shown that at our scale the hot and cold breaks aren't horrible, i don't mind getting rid of all of the hoppy trub in an ipa. so then by the time i'm going to pour that unfermented wort onto the fermenting wort, that trub has compacted well enough to not pour it in. i do wonder if these hops sitting overnight in this half-wort would be adding in some extra hop flavor and some aroma, but i've not really tested to see. anyways, i've written a lot, but when i'm using liquid yeast or harvested yeast, it's been a successful method for me.

 

[twistyboy]

the lag phase is one the most delicate time for a beer,if you havent sanitize your stuff well enough,thats the moment when the infection is gonna spread because theres no alcool present.usually we want a lag time of under 12 hours the minimize the risk.i did some beers that took 2 days to start and come out ok. when the lag phase extend, is probably because you under pitch. check your yeast rinsing or starter technique.

 

[flars]

Can you post your recipe? How old was the harvested yeast you used and how did you do the mini starter?

 

[bpnc9702]

5lbs Light DME
1 Lb Amber DME
0.75 Crystal 10L

The yeast was from end of October (I brewed mid Jan), used a mini starter, though it didnt really seem to have any activity, but I tried it anyway. I did harvested from the same type beer, but only from primary since I didnt use a secondary that time. Normally I harvest from secondary - I've used 4th or 5th generation Notty yeast from my secondary and the longest its taken to take off is maybe 1.5 days. Pretty much all of my fermentation take off quickly, this is the longest it ever took and it was a dead give away that something was off. My rule of thumb is that a short lag time for fermentation normally solves a lot of problems. This one didn't, the rest of the harvested yeast from the batch are tossed - I did try another one that came from it using some DME and sugar, and it never did anything either. That indicates to me that the culprit could have been related to the yeast.

 

[flars]

The yeast definitely was not to old to use unless storage caused a problem. How did you make your starter and how long did the starter ferment before pitching? Was there a lot of visible hop debris in the yeast?

 

[bpnc9702]

The yeast definitely was not to old to use unless storage caused a problem. How did you make your starter and how long did the starter ferment before pitching? Was there a lot of visible hop debris in the yeast?

for this one I had it set out for over a day and had added some boiled DME and sugar solution (cooled) to it - agitated it regularly. No visable hop or trub, when I done done this method in the past and had some it was so minimal it didnt matter. This was the same style of beer too. This was the 3rd generation, and the 2nd generation of this yeast I didnt use a starter and you could see the yeast wake up and move after a few hours adjusting to temp. This is a relative low gravity beer so normally starters are not normally required but I still do it to kick it off.

 

[flars]

Could be a few reasons for the off flavor.
An under pitch situation was created if the starter was not given time to ferment out. A shaken starter, depending on the condition of the yeast, can take up to three days to finish.
The plain sugar added to the starter wort damaged the yeast cells, also resulting in an under pitch situation. Only DME should be used in a starter wort.
An under pitch combined with a low fermentation temperature, for this yeast, resulted in heavy ester production which you are experiencing as the off flavor. The esters may also be perceived as a strong peach flavor in more lightly hoped beers.

The starter wort, if you pitched it, would have added to the off flavor also.