"Homebrew twang" despite controlled fermentation and yeast starter

[valkommen]

Hi guys. I just recently brewed an all-grain version of the homebrewtalk Zombie Dust clone and am noticing the same old "homebrew twang" that all of my other beers have had so far. I'm a little discouraged as I bought a new thick-bottomed kettle, a mini fridge/inkbird for controlling fermentation temperatures, and made an appropriate yeast starter for the batch. I also used distilled water in the brewing process, and used a gentle boil.

The beer fermented for close to two weeks at 67 +/- 2 degrees, and has been in the bottle for one so far. I know the beer is young and still "green", but I've seen other brewers say that they ferment for ~10 days before going straight to keg. I don't get how this is even possible. Mine still has a distinct yeasty/syrupy/green kind of taste that all other beers have had before I even started controlling temperature or making yeast starters.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing as well even after making efforts to stop it from happening? Any advice other than "just wait longer"?. Thanks for the help.

 

[z-bob]

Are you doing partial-mash, and perhaps your LME is old?

I used to do partial mashes about 20 years ago (then quit brewing for a long time, then started doing all-grain a few years ago) and my partial mash beers had that. At the time, I attributed it to the cane sugar I was using for priming. I didn't notice it when I primed with corn sugar, but maybe I was fooling myself. Or priming with cane sugar made the problem worse but the problem had to be there in the first place. I'm using a lot more sugar in my brewing now and don't have the problem. I think it's because way back when, I bought a 30 pound jug of LME and it was stale after the first few brews.

 

[ESBrewer]

Give it more time in the bottles. Bottle conditioning takes more time than kegging and force carbonating because the yeast starts a new round of fermentation. It mutiplies (a little), then ferments and at last flocculates to the bottom and perhaps eats some unwanted compounds. In addition, this process tends to be slower than the initial fermentation because the yeast is more stressed (by alcohol-% and eventually by pressure, too). When you are done with carbonation, you can put the bottles in a cold place to speed up the yeast flocculation.

 

[valkommen]

Are you doing partial-mash, and perhaps your LME is old?

I used to do partial mashes about 20 years ago (then quit brewing for a long time, then started doing all-grain a few years ago) and my partial mash beers had that. At the time, I attributed it to the cane sugar I was using for priming. I didn't notice it when I primed with corn sugar, but maybe I was fooling myself. Or priming with cane sugar made the problem worse but the problem had to be there in the first place. I'm using a lot more sugar in my brewing now and don't have the problem. I think it's because way back when, I bought a 30 pound jug of LME and it was stale after the first few brews.

I noticed the twang in my first few extract brews as well. I switched completely to full all-grain (BIAB), and still notice it. I think I can only attribute it to the beer being young and "green", but I don't understand how others can ferment for 10 days, go straight to keg, and have no problems at all. I feel like I'm still missing something.

 

[Shawn3997]

I had a "green beer" taste in my beers that turned out to be autolysis of the yeast during bottle conditioning. When I switched to kegging it disappeared.

 

[valkommen]

I had a "green beer" taste in my beers that turned out to be autolysis of the yeast during bottle conditioning. When I switched to kegging it disappeared.

Give it more time in the bottles. Bottle conditioning takes more time than kegging and force carbonating because the yeast starts a new round of fermentation. It mutiplies (a little), then ferments and at last flocculates to the bottom and perhaps eats some unwanted compounds. In addition, this process tends to be slower than the initial fermentation because the yeast is more stressed (by alcohol-% and eventually by pressure, too). When you are done with carbonation, you can put the bottles in a cold place to speed up the yeast flocculation.

That's a good point that I had totally overlooked.

 

[MaxStout]

Give the bottles 3 weeks at room temp before making a judgment. Put one or two in the fridge for a couple days and sample. If it still tastes "green" at that point, then it's probably something else.

BTW, you did an AG and said you used distilled. Did you add any salts to the water?

 

[valkommen]

Give the bottles 3 weeks at room temp before making a judgment. Put one or two in the fridge for a couple days and sample. If it still tastes "green" at that point, then it's probably something else.

BTW, you did an AG and said you used distilled. Did you add any salts to the water?

No, no salts. I just wanted to see if I could get a decent beer going first before moving up to water chemistry.

 

[ESBrewer]

Next time you should add some salts. E.g. Ca2+-ions will be important for the wort clarification and effective yeast flocculation and you can get better flavor and mouthfeel when there are some salts in the water.

 

[MaxStout]

You don't really need to delve way into the chem for water salts. You can do a very good job using only calcium chloride and gypsum, both of which you can get from the LHBS for a couple bucks. Here's a good water salts primer.

 

[Blazinlow86]

imho "homebrew twang"/"green beer" is generally just new brewers working thru there process. there is alot of things that can cause your beer to be "off". as a example one of the last things i figured out before getting past the off flavors was that all my beers were overly bitter. after brewing several batches i narrowed it down as being alot worse on beers that used alot of late hop additions. turns out i hadnt been compensating for the amount of time it took to chill my wort during the whirpool causing my beers to in some cases come out to double the ibu i was going for. once i got that sorted my beers have been great. i think its also difficult to help other brewers correct these flavors as i found it very hard to describe the specific twang/green flavor i was experiencing. once you get it dialed in you can most definatly go grain to glass in 10 days with most brews. i personally find my beers DONT really improve with time which imho means your process is good. cheers

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

If your sanitation is on point you probably need to adjust your water profile for the beer style you intend to brew. Makes a huge difference.

 

[mongoose33]

I'll bet the water is the issue. I made a dark lager today, and to what is almost 100 percent RO water I added 5 gr MgSO4, 5 gr CaCl2, 1.5 gr CaSO4, 1.5 gr Campden Tablets (as oxygen scavenger), and 1 gr. Brewtan-B.

Water calculators like EZWater and BrunWater make the process accessible to everyone. I would not have expected your beer to taste right if all you used was distilled water.

BTW, what I put in my water isn't what you should do. That's determined by the amount of water, what's already in the water, and the size and composition of the grain bill.

 

[BrewInspector]

If the "twang" is yeast, many cold crash just prior to bottling. This would drop out more of the yeast from suspension.

 

[Gameface]

Twang is a hard thing to put a finger on, as that is not exactly a recognized off flavor.

Everyone tastes things differently. We don't give that concept enough credit on HBT. It is seriously like if when I see red you see orange when it comes to tasting things. So when you taste "twang" I might drink your beer and be like wtf are you talking about, this is awesome beer.

I think a lot of times we are our own worse critic. That is not to say that you are not tasting something you wish wasn't part of your beer's flavor profile, but it also might not be as bad as you think it is.

I drink commercial beer all the time and think "if this was my beer I'd be concerned about that weird flavor I don't like." But it isn't my beer. It is a highly regarded commercial beer.

Funny story, once I started the evening drinking my beer and I had a few different ones on tap. At one point I cracked open a bottle of a commercial beer, but guess I had already had a few that night and forgot I was drinking commercial beer and not mine. I commented to my wife that I was disappointed in this one and wasn't sure what went wrong, then remembered it wasn't mine. That was a pretty eye-opening experience for me. Had I known it wasn't mine I never would have cared about that little bit of flavor I didn't really like. I would have been okay with it. Not that i would have liked that particular flavor, but it wouldn't have mattered 10% as much to me. Thinking it was my beer I wanted to seek and destroy whatever it was.

So you're tasting a "twang" but maybe beer has twang, not just yours. That's all I'm saying.

 

[z-bob]

It could also be tannin from the grain husks because not enough acid, and no calcium to do whatever it does to lower the pH. The easiest thing to change would be adding about 4 ounces of acid malt.

 

[mongoose33]

I'll bet the water is the issue. I made a dark lager today, and to what is almost 100 percent RO water I added 5 gr MgSO4, 5 gr CaCl2, 1.5 gr CaSO4, 1.5 gr Campden Tablets (as oxygen scavenger), and 1 gr. Brewtan-B.

Water calculators like EZWater and BrunWater make the process accessible to everyone. I would not have expected your beer to taste right if all you used was distilled water.

BTW, what I put in my water isn't what you should do. That's determined by the amount of water, what's already in the water, and the size and composition of the grain bill.

BTW, II: The above are Epsom Salts, Calcium Chloride, Gypsum. I've been trying to learn the other formula designations.

 

[thehaze]

I've never tasted " twang ", and I would not know how to recognise it. I would however like to share thoughts from my own experience as a new brewer ( started in 2017 / only 55 batches until now ).

I too bottle and because I do this, I avoid introducing more oxygen in my beers than I have to. I brew, chill, pitch yeast and bottle. Anything pale coloured up to red ( 12-14 SRM ) and up to 7-8% ABV, I ferment for 10-14 days and then I bottle. I check FG when I bottle ( or when I dry hop ) so that I can calculate ABV, yeast attenuation, etc.

I usually start drinking them 5-7 days after bottling, as carbonation is already developed by day 5. Some do require more days, but most lighter coloured and light ABV beers, need 10-12 days in the bottle to " get there ". ( does not apply to heavily dry hopped IPAs and Pale Ales )

" Maltier " ones especially, do need a bit more than 10 days, but it depends on the recipe, style, etc.

I say you need to have more patience, and because you now have moved to all grain, you should start " messing " with your water a bit. No overly complicated things, but add a bit of CaCl2, gypsum, acid / baking for adjusting pH, use a spreadsheet of your own choice, etc. This will definitely enhance the aroma and taste and feeling of your future beers. You could maybe try to brew some smash recipes or simpler styles, just to get a hang of it.

I would also recommend brewing beers that are a bit more balanced in terms of hops, yeast and malts. Something like an ESB: Imperial A09 Pub for yeast, Maris Otter and a bit of Dark Crystal malt for grains, some hops ( your choice really ), adjust water with some CaCl2 and gypsum, skip the dry hop and maybe use more hops in the whirlpool. Probably 5-6 oz should get you there. The yeast will flocculate well, giving you a relative clear looking beer, and most likely crisp tasting, even after 7 days in the bottle.

 

[bucketnative]

Honestly, I switched to all-grain initially because of a "tangy" off-flavor in each batch (different styles, times of year, etc...). Upon completing my first couple of all-grain batches, it persisted. It wasn't there at bottling time, but it was there once the bottles carbed up. To me, it was slightly medicinal/cidery in nature.

I tried a few things, but I ultimately nailed it down to being consistent about chlorine/chloramine removal at each stage. I treat all of my water (mash, sparge, Star-San makeup, and priming sugar solution) with Campden tablets to remove chlorine/chloramine. That flavor is no longer present in any of my beers. The chlorophenol molecules have a taste threshold on the order of 20 ppb, so it only takes a very little amount of chlorine/chloramine to mess up your beer.

I think the reason why I noticed it after bottling was because I wasn't treating my Star-San make-up water or the priming sugar solution water with Campden. I thought those were such little factors that it wouldn't matter.

Do you treat all of your water?

 

[Rev2010]

Do you treat all of your water?

He stated he used distilled water. That said, if you used only distilled water you needed to add salts.

Honestly, everyone is giving you differing answering as to what might be the cause but I'm going to say you need to age the beer longer. Ignore all the posts you see that have people bottling/kegging after 10 days. Let your beer sit in the fermenter longer and in the bottles longer. My average fermentation time in the fermenter is 3 weeks then a week to a week and a half in the keg. Bottles always take longer. I would typically wait 3 weeks in the bottle till that taste was gone - 2 weeks at room temp and one week in the fridge.


Rev.

 

[Yooper]

You don't NEED to add salts- you can make beer with RO or distilled water. It won't taste twangy- the only thing is that it might be a little less "bright" or it may be a little blander than if you used salts.

There has got to be something else. How did the mash go? Was the wort clear? (showing no starch, so you know you had complete conversion).

Which yeast strain did you use, and was the beer clear (or fairly clear) when you bottled it?

 

[Rev2010]

You don't NEED to add salts- you can make beer with RO or distilled water. It won't taste twangy- the only thing is that it might be a little less "bright" or it may be a little blander than if you used salts.

There has got to be something else.

I didn't say his lack of salt additions in distilled water was the cause of his twang, I said it's cause it needs more time. I suggested he needs to add salts to distilled water for pH buffering reasons.


Rev.

 

[TheMadKing]

It could just be the recipe too

Try making a well known clone brew from the recipe bank here on hbt.

My biggest thing was fermentation temperature control. So make sure when you are fermenting at 67 degrees that you're measuring the temperature of the beer, because it can be 5 degrees warmer than the air due to the fermentation process itself. I usually find that the ambient temperature in my chamber is 62 for a fermentation temperature of 66.

Kegging did also make a huge difference for me. I never had a great beer come from bottle conditioning

 

[couchsending]

What yeast did you use?

 

[bucketnative]

He stated he used distilled water.
Rev.

I understand he said that he used distilled water in his beer. My post was specifically targeting all of the other times that water is used or comes in contact with the beer... like sanitizers, rinses, etc... That why I stated "all your water".

 

[MGamber]

Every other batch had that "twang" to it, especially for my brother. When I started oxygenating the wort before pitching it went away and never came back. Just an observation.

 

[Rev2010]

I understand he said that he used distilled water in his beer. My post was specifically targeting all of the other times that water is used or comes in contact with the beer... like sanitizers, rinses, etc... That why I stated "all your water".

Gotcha. Do you really feel though that a few ounces of priming water not treated with campden tablets would make any noticeable difference even after primary fermentation is done? (and yes I know bottle carbing is a secondary form of fermentation on a much smaller scale). I just don't see how such a small amount could lead to perceptible chlorophenol off tastes. Perhaps together with a decent sized yeast starter that was also untreated. As for star san water, I can't get on that one cause the those amounts of water are even far less.

But did you find that eliminated the issue for you? I found that beer often just needs more time. OP said right in his post the beer was only 1 week in the bottle and spent "close to two weeks" in the fermenter. Many here do longer than that in the fermenter and I would say the vast majority do more than one week in the bottle. He then asks for advice other than "just wait longer". Well sometimes "just wait longer" is the answer.


Rev.

 

[ESBrewer]

Because there are many potential reasons for the weird "twang", it could be useful to taste the wort/beer after each and every stage while brewing. Then notice when exactly the "twang" appears. This would give you an insight into the process and may reveal where things are going wrong. Even if the beer would be perfect, it will be useful to taste it along the process - you'll learn a lot when you get more brews and taste samples under your belt.

 

[schematix]

How much yeast did you pitch? Dry, starter, direct liquid pitch?

10-14 days is a really really long ferment for an ale. I just did a 1.060 ale last Sunday that was finished and carbonated and chilled in a keg on the Thursday, 4 days later. Grain to glass in 6 days and not a hint of green or twang.

I’ll go ahead and drop the o-bomb in here too. Oxidation makes for some off flavors in beer. I was never truly happy with anything I made until going full low oxygen on hot and cold side. World of difference.

 

[Gameface]

Because there are many potential reasons for the weird "twang", it could be useful to taste the wort/beer after each and every stage while brewing. Then notice when exactly the "twang" appears. This would give you an insight into the process and may reveal where things are going wrong. Even if the beer would be perfect, it will be useful to taste it along the process - you'll learn a lot when you get more brews and taste samples under your belt.

this is even assuming that there is any "twang." I think everyone automatically assumes people are tasting actual problems in their beer when there may very well not be any. Or at least, not close to the extent they portray them as.