First Brew Help Please

[Brewin']

So I tried my first beer made with a Mr. Kit (was a present), now I am def. upgrading. The beer was a Bewitched Red Ale kit. Instead of being amber in color it is more of a medium brown. The beer cleared up more than I expected and smells pretty good. The first taste is pretty good but the after taste is bitter and not very good tasting. I like bitter beer but this is a different bitter, very hard to describe. Could adding an excessive amount of fermentables cause this stange bitter taste? Such as using Mr. Beer's "booster pack" and a cup of regular table sugar (the table sugar wasn't called for if you use the booster pack)? I was just excited doing my first beer and wanted some potent stuff. You can def. taste alcohol and drinking 2 pints of it will give you a nice kind of different feeling buzz. The first one down isn't so good with the after taste but after a few it tastes better. Not sure what I did here any ideas? Thanks guys!

 

[myersn024]

I don't think adding extra fermentatbles would cause a bitter aftertaste. Someone else will probably chime in, but I'd say let it sit for a while in bottles. Bitter tastes tend to mellow with time.

 

[dougjones31]

Try not to use table sugar. It will give your beer a solvent twang if the beer is light flavored. Use Molasses the next time you want to add fermentables....especially in a Nut Brown Ale.

Your bitterness is probably one of 3 things.

Over-carbonation
Too much, or the wrong type of Hops
It needs to age more and melow out.


The beer being more brown than red was proabably caused by boiling too long which darkened the wort too much. Although if the Malt Extract was canned, it could have been too old. Old Extract turns dark and will give you a bitter beer.

 

[Radarbrew]

Try not to use table sugar. It will give your beer a solvent twang if the beer is light flavored. Use Molasses the next time you want to add fermentables....especially in a Nut Brown Ale.

Your bitterness is probably one of 3 things.

Over-carbonation
Too much, or the wrong type of Hops
It needs to age more and melow out.


The beer being more brown than red was proabably caused by boiling too long which darkened the wort too much. Although if the Malt Extract was canned, it could have been too old. Old Extract turns dark and will give you a bitter beer.

{here, here} I second all the above. I wouldn't be in a rush to make a high strength beer, sticking to good-tasting ales where you can taste ingrediants, then work your way up. Letting it hang out in the bottles is the real hard part. Patience is the unwritten part of brewing.

 

[andre the giant]

Most of my beers tend to have a stong bitterness to them initially. But after a month or so in bottles, the bitterness mellows out considerably. Be patient. As far as boosting the alcohol, if you're going to be putting any extra stuff in there, go ahead and buy some DME (dried malt extract) and use that instead of table sugar. Sugar tends to make the beer have a cider-y taste to it if you use too much.

Good luck

 

[dougjones31]

Patience.....HA! What is that?

Here is what I do. I brew a beer every other weekend. This allows me to keg 2 cornys every month. Now...I have learned over the years that new recipes posted on the net sometimes taste better when they are green because they were posted by someone who thought they were wonderful 1 week after bottling. After aging they become bland or not good at all.

This is usually not something caused by brewing technique...it is just a bad recipe.

So I force carb my kegs and put them in the fridge as soon as I keg them. I always taste them as soon as they get cold. I keep notes on how they taste over time. Every beer goes through a unique aging process. You want a beer to age into tasting good. If it tastes good immediately....Odds are it will not taste as good when it ages. It also means that the recipe needs to be adjusted. More grains, more hops, etc. You want the beer to be strong initially and mellow with age. This will give you a beer that tastes better for longer periods of time.

I keep 2-4 kegs tapped with 4-6 kegs in reserve at all times. I keep 2 standard brews on tap and try new recipes every now and then. Once you make the jump to Kegging......it is easy to stay ahead!

 

[pbowler]

yes, No table suger.

Table sugar is Fructose which adds funky flavour when eaten by the Yeast.

Corn Sugar (Sucrose I think?) has a different structure that works better for Beer

 

[dougjones31]

Get your sugars right.

Table sugar = Sucrose--- Sucrose (common name: table sugar, also called saccharose) is a disaccharide (glucose + fructose) with the molecular formula C12H22O11. Its systematic name is β-D-fructofuranosyl α-D-glucopyranoside. It is best known for its role in human nutrition.
****************
Fruit = Fructose---Fructose (or levulose) is a simple sugar (monosaccharide) found in many foods and one of the three most important blood sugars along with glucose and galactose. Honey; tree fruits; berries; melons; and some root vegetables, such as beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips and onions, contain fructose, usually in combination with sucrose and glucose. Fructose is also derived from the digestion of sucrose, a disaccharide consisting of glucose and fructose that is broken down by enzymes during digestion. Fructose is the sweetest naturally occurring sugar, estimated to be twice as sweet as sucrose.
***************
Corn Sugar = Dextrose/Glucose---Glucose (Glc), a monosaccharide (or simple sugar), is one of the most important carbohydrates in biology. The cell uses it as a source of energy and metabolic intermediate. Glucose is one of the main products of photosynthesis and starts cellular respiration in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
***************


When it comes to brewing.....we only want to use simple sugars or monosaccharides. Fructose and Glucose/dextrose are good but table sugar is not. Table sugar is fructose and glucose bonded together which is harder to ferment.

However.......we do use sucrose sometimes. We do it when the Sucrose brings with it desirable flavors like Brown Sugar or Molasses. But we always use them in moderation.

 

[pbowler]

yeah, what he said.

I'm a bit rusty sorry, don't wanna give inaccurate info.

It's no tuncommon to use a malt extract in place of the raw sugar as well. (as dougjones indicates)

 

[ajf]

When it comes to brewing.....we only want to use simple sugars or monosaccharides.

Perhaps I should give up using malt which contains maltose (a disaccharide).

-a.

 

[fezzman]

yes, No table suger.

Table sugar is Fructose which adds funky flavour when eaten by the Yeast.

Corn Sugar (Sucrose I think?) has a different structure that works better for Beer

In a small experiment I got to taste what table sugar can do to a beer. When racking my Amber to the secondary, I also filled a single bottle. I just melted some table sugar and added that to the bottle. A week later it was beautifully carbonated but definitely cider-y. It was still fun to do and was the first official homebrew that I drank.

On the subject of sugars, is powdered sugar the same as table sugar as far as fermentation?

 

[pbowler]

Powdered sugar is the same yes, just ground up finer, hence the 10x etc. on the label.

but I've been wrong before...
right here in this thread in fact.

table sugar causes fruity flavours, hence my mistaking it as Fructose.

 

[zmcgrew]

dougjones31,

Thanks very much for that lesson in sugars!

I'm new to home brewing and was curious what the difference was between the sugars that can be used.

 

[dougjones31]

Perhaps I should give up using malt which contains maltose (a disaccharide).

-a.

Ahhhh Grasshopper.......we have two Glucose molecules connected together in this disaccharide(Maltose). Whereas table sugar/sucrose is a fructose bonded with a glucose. The two bonds are different and the Maltose bond being a bond between two identical molecules is easier to break. Boiling wort will actually break some maltose into glucose. And the Yeast can attack each Glucose molecule independantly in Maltose because of where the bond is. So Maltose does not really have to be broken down for the yeast. Also...the enzyme Maltase breaks down maltose into glucose very rapidly.


Maltose (also: malt sugar, di-glucose) is a disaccharide with the molecular formula C12H22O11. Its systematic name is α-D-Glucopyranosyl-(1→4)-α-D-Glucopyranose.

Like other carbohydrates, maltose has a hydrogen to oxygen ratio of 2:1. It consists of two α-glucose molecules joined by a glycosidic bond between carbon atom 1 of the first glucose unit and carbon atom 4 of the second glucose unit. The second glucose unit is reducing, however the first one is not because the reducing group is part of the glycosidic bond.

Maltose is the second member of an important biochemical series of glucose chains. The addition of another glucose unit yields malto-triose, and a four-glucose chain is malto-tetrose, etc. Further additions will produce dextrins, also called malto-dextrins, and eventually starch.

Maltose can be broken down into two glucose molecules by hydrolysis. In living organisms, the enzyme maltase can achieve this very rapidly; heating with a strong acid for several minutes will also work.

The production of maltose in germinating cereals, such as barley, is an important part of the brewing process.

 

[dougjones31]

There is always an exception to the rule!


When yeast form Alcohol, you get off flavors from the process not being clean. There are many things that affect how clean the fermentation is....

Yeast health
Yeast amounts
Temperature
BLA
BLA
bla

And last but not least....the type of sugars affect how clean the alcohol production is.

In a perfect world....When yeast ferments, it breaks down the glucose (C6H12O6) into exactly two molecules of ethanol (C2H6O) and two molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2).

BUT the variables that I listed can affect this equation by introducing energy or other molecules that can form some other compounds that are nastier then ethanol. Aldehydes and Fussil alcohols are the main ones. Strong Bonds like those in table sugar also cause more of these byproducts to be formed because the bonds interupt the yeasties and cause them to only do their job half assed.


Aldehydes
There are many flavor-active aldehydes present in beer. These are formed at various stages in the brewing process and are produced by oxidation of alcohols and various fatty substances. Aldehyde levels reach a maximum during primary fermentation or immediately after kraeusening, then decrease. Aldehyde is reduced to ethanol by the end of the primary fermentation. If oxygen is introduced back into the process, the ethanol is oxidized back into acetaldehyde.

Esters
Esters are considered the most important aroma compounds in beer. They make up the largest family of beer aroma compounds and in general impart a "fruity" character to beer. Esters are more desirable in ales than in lagers. Kunze reports that ester production is increased by 1) high fermentation temperatures, 2) restricting wort aeration, 3) increasing the attenuation limit, and 4) increasing the wort concentration to above 13% P . In addition, the type of yeast affects ester levels. Most of the esters are formed during primary fermentation, and some ester formation occurs during maturation. However, the level of esters could double with a long secondary fermentation .

Diacetyl
Diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione, which are classified as ketones, are important contributions to beer flavor and aroma. Often these two ketones are grouped and reported as the vicinal diketone (VDK) content of beer, which is the primary flavor in differentiating aged beer from green beer. Of the two, diacetyl is more significant because it is produced in larger amounts and has a higher flavor impact than 2,3-pentanedione. A buttery or butterscotch flavor usually indicates the presence of diacetyl, while 2,3-pentanedione has more of a honey flavor.

Dimethyl Sulfide
Another major compound responsible for sulfury flavors in beer is dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which is a desirable flavor component in lager beer but not in ales. In lagers it will lead to a malty/sulfury note. The taste threshold for DMS is considered to be from 50 to 60 µg/liter. DMS also enhances the malt character of beer.

Fatty Acids
Fatty acids are minor constituents of wort and increase in concentration during fermentation and maturation. They give rise to goaty, soapy, or fatty flavors and are recognized as common flavor characteristics in both lagers and ales; but they are more prevalent in lagers because of the tendency of some lager yeast strains to produce greater quantities of fatty acids than do strains of ale yeast .

Fusel Alcohols
Fusel alcohols are a group of byproducts that are sometimes called "higher alcohols." They contribute directly to beer flavor but are also important because of their involvement in ester formation. Fusel alcohols have strong flavors, producing an "alcoholic" or "solvent-like" aroma. They are known to have a warming effect on the palate. About 80% of fusel alcohols are formed during primary fermentation . The yeast strain is very important, with some being able to produce up to three times as much fusel alcohols as others .

Nitrogen Compounds
Yeast also excretes some nitrogen compounds during fermentation and maturation as amino acids and lower peptides, which contribute to the rounding of the taste and an increase in palate fullness. Harvesting of the yeast too soon can therefore produce empty, dry beers even when they are subsequently lagered for a long time. The beginning of autolysis can be detected by an excessive increase in the amino acid content.

Organic Acids
Some of these organic acids are derived from malt and are present at low levels in wort, with their concentrations increasing during fermentation. Other acids are produced solely as a result of yeast metabolism. Organic acids can directly effect the flavor of beer by lowering its pH.

Sulfur Compounds
Volatile sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and thiols make significant contributions to beer flavor. When present in small concentrations, sulfur compounds may be acceptable or even desirable, but in excess they give rise to unpleasant off-flavors, e.g. rotten-egg flavors. Three main sources of sulfur compounds in beer are raw materials (malt and hops), yeast metabolism, and spoilage organisms – in particular Zymomonas anaerobia, Enterobacter aerogenes and Hafnia protea.