"jolly rancher" green apple smell?

[EJay]

Tonight I bottled an amber ale recipe I've done before. I cooked it up on 8/29. I normally do 1 gallon batches but I like the last batch enough that I scaled up to a whopping 1.5 gallons. The other change is I dry hopped for the first time and used a thrift shop mr. beer LBK that I cleaned with oxyclean and then starsan. I had previously been using glass jugs.

Dry hopping was 19 days ago (on 9/4).

When I opened up the fermenter - there's an overwhelming smell of caramel apple. Its like those caramel apple jolly rancher suckers. Its really nice actually, but overwhelming and unexpected, especially since I've done this recipe before. The taste is fine, this is purely a smell thing.

I presume this basically has to be acetaldehyde?

Will it reduce with some bottle conditioning time?

 

[BigPerm]

I presume this basically has to be acetaldehyde?
Will it reduce with some bottle conditioning time?

Probably. But what did you dry hop with, and was it for the whole time (19 days)?

 

[Jaybird]

Yes probably Acetaldehyde
A flavor of green apples or freshly cut pumpkin; it is an intermediate compound in the formation of alcohol. Some yeast strains produce more than others, but generally it's presence indicates that the beer is too young and needs more time to condition.

Cheers
Jay

 

[EJay]

Probably. But what did you dry hop with, and was it for the whole time (19 days)?

Cascade, and yes it was in there the whole time. The recipe is based on a Mack and Jack's African Amber and they actually ship the beer to bars dry hopped in the keg so I was trying to go for that. Maybe I overdid it. I'll give it 3 weeks at least in the bottle then try one out to see if it subsides. Not sure what else I can do.

Yes probably Acetaldehyde
A flavor of green apples or freshly cut pumpkin; it is an intermediate compound in the formation of alcohol. Some yeast strains produce more than others, but generally it's presence indicates that the beer is too young and needs more time to condition.

Thanks, I saw that definition too. This is nothing like pumpkin, its almost a caricature of sweet apple. I don't have my brew log with me but I used either US05 or S04. So I'm hoping the conditioning time will help.

 

[unionrdr]

I've found that higher initial fermentation temps cause this compound to be produced in high enough PPM's (Parts Per Million) to be sensed. They think now that it all starts during the lag (reproductive) phase in conjunction with the high pitch temps.

 

[EJay]

Well, I popped open a test bottle today and the green apple is completely gone. So at least in my case it totally conditioned out.