green beer?

[cosmokramer]

new a couple questions answered if you have the time to help me.

my first batch ever was a kolsch beer which i made from a kit at the local store. spent 2 weeks in the fermentor handling the business and then was bottled and was let condition for 3 weeks. whelp after those 3 weeks needless to say i tried it and noticed it tasted a bit cidery? well now 5 weeks after brewing it still hasnt lost any of that taste.

my 2nd batch is only 2 weeks into the bottle conditioning phase but i cracked a bottle the other day and noted that it too had a bit of a cidery taste...

what could i attribute this to? is there a general area in the brewing process in which this could make my beer taste cidery? the kolsch beer has a nice carbonation to it, but doesnt seem to have any sort of head when poured. the blackberry ale, although only 2 weeks in, had a nice head and plenty of carbonation?


i know its tough to pinpoint the location of fault but i wanna try my best to correct it. from the beginning i was just so excited to make beer no matter the taste. and now ive noticed that if does have an off taste i dont even want to drink it! so i am a bit bummed.


any suggestions would be great, im sure some of you have dealt with this before. and if you have questions i'll be sure to answer if it might help you diagnose the problem.

thanksss

 

[cosmokramer]

maybe because i only boil about 2 gallons worth of water in my five gallon batch and top that off with 3 gallons of cold tap water?

 

[oldmate]

It may be the yeast you're using, or if you added any white sugar, that can also impart a cidery flavour onto the beer.

 

[cosmokramer]

I used a priming sugar, people have commented before that using dry malt extract works just as well.

 

[EoinMag]

I used a priming sugar, people have commented before that using dry malt extract works just as well.

The quantity of white sugar used in priming is not enough to impart a cidery flavour, it's more like when it approaches 25-20% of the total bill.

 

[Hang Glider]

First question - at what temperature did you ferment?

 

[clm]

i had a similar experience with my first (extract) amber ale...it tasted like sweet apple cider. I decided that it was due to incomplete fermentation/too much sugar in the brew.
after about two months bottle conditioning it tasted fine...needless to say, it's all gone!

 

[Justibone]

I think the temp is probably the key. You didn't mention it, so that tells me you may not have known how important it was.

It's critical to keep the temperature down below 70F for the primary fermentation for *most* beer types... wheats and saisons are far more heat tolerant than other types of yeast/beers, but a kolsch could have been affected. If the heat was the problem then the byproducts will probably decrease -- might even disappear -- with enough time in the bottle.

 

[cosmokramer]

honestly im not sure exactly what the temp was. im confident that it was nowhere over 75 degrees, although we have had a lot of heat lately it stays relatively cool in the dark basement.

im going to make sure to monitor the heat in that area and do what i need to do to keep it in range.

 

[Hang Glider]

keep in mind that the yeast activity will produce heat - so if your ambient (room) temp was 70, the initial phase of fermenatation was closer to 74-78F

If you can keep the beer at 65, so it doesn't climb above 70, you will see a marked improvement in the quality!

Keep on brewin'!

 

[kpr121]

Also did you do any gravity readings? That would tell you if there were some extra fermentables (sugars) that were left after a stuck fermentation or not.

 

[cosmokramer]

yeah the OG was 1.042 and the FG was 1.006. i was pretty comfortable with that thinking it wouldnt really get much lower.

 

[cosmokramer]

so i just checked. the temp was around 74. ouchhhh. any suggestions now how to keep that lower consistantly?

 

[Justibone]

Search the forums for "swamp cooler".

 

[cosmokramer]

A swamp cooler just seems like so much work. I've placed thermometors in a couple areas of the basement and hope to get accurate reads for dofferent temps. I guess now ill just hope winter comes soon so the overall household temp will be lower. That would probably help I'd imagine. Might just have to brew a years worth of beer in 4 months - hahahahahahah

 

[Justibone]

A swamp cooler just seems like so much work. I've placed thermometors in a couple areas of the basement and hope to get accurate reads for dofferent temps. I guess now ill just hope winter comes soon so the overall household temp will be lower. That would probably help I'd imagine. Might just have to brew a years worth of beer in 4 months - hahahahahahah

Lots of people do that, brew a year's worth of beer only in late fall to early spring. Other people only brew temp-tolerant beers in the summer, like wheat and saison.

Filling a Rubbermaid(tm) tub half full of water, putting your fermenter in it, and then dropping old soda bottles -- filled with water and frozen -- into the Rubbermaid(tm) tub is too much work? The fan and the T-shirt help a lot but aren't totally necessary.

I think it's more work to clean and sanitize a fermentor than to put the fermentor in a tub of water. It's too much effort to make beer and then have it suck, so if one can make it better cheaply and simply, I think that's a fantastic thing.

Diff't strokes fer diff't folks, I suppose. Cheers!