Just tried my first home brew! Good beer night.

[Timboosh]

Well - there it is, just cracked the first bottle.

I bought all the original equipment from Midwest supplies. The kit I bought came with their "Autumn Amber" kit (extract + specialty grains).
Midwest Supplies Autumn Amber Ale

I can't even describe all the things I learned even just going through the process 1 time that made brew day WAY easier last weekend for the double IPA that's now in a primary. BUT, after tasting the brew, I do have a question, as I've never tasted a home brew before... (though I really do enjoy trying all different kinds of "microbrews"...).

The Aut. Amber has a sweet quality that I'm not used to from "commercially" available beers. I tasted the wort sample I pulled to do a gravity reading before pitching the yeast, and the final beer tastes much like a lot of the sugar/sweetness from the LME/wort stuck around to get to the beer (not green apple-ish or "off"-flavored, as I've read about). Now that said, I'm very confident that the beer was done fermenting before bottling (all total, the beer is about 4 weeks old now, bottled for 2 weeks). So, my question - is this "sweetness" something that's more normal for home brewing vs. commercial brewing? Or perhaps just something specific to this recipe?? I know more brewing experience of my own will answer this for me as well - just curious to hear from you all...

or to boil the question down (pun intended), how different do worts usually taste from the beers that they make?

on a side note, also tried Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale today. Dayum what a great beer... :rockin:

 

[Germelli1]

just curious, what was your specific gravity when you bottled? What was the original gravity and what were your targets?

 

[gestyr]

Aside from the previous questions, what was your recipe? Different grains leave different amounts of residual sweetness. Different malt extracts have different amounts of non-fermentables in them. Did you use any crystal malt?


BTW, welcome to the hobby.

 

[Timboosh]

Recipe and notes as follows:
- Target OG was 1.042-1.044, I hit 1.040. (I added a touch too much water and the batch was more like 5-3/4 gallons, could have "diluted it" a bit and brought the gravity down from "perfect", no?)
- Target FG was 1.012-1.010, It was 1.011 when racking to the secondary, and was identical 7 days later when bottling.
- Specialty grains were, 2oz Special B, 8 oz Carmel 80L, 2 oz roasted. Steeped for 30 min at 155deg, in right around 3 gallons (my stove can only boil about 4 gallons total, otherwise it's really struggling).
- 6# "Gold" (light) LME. 80% fermentable, 6# supposed to yield a wort of 2-6L.
- 1oz Hallertau, 1oz Fuggles. 60 and 1min respectively (60 min boil).
- Munton's dry yeast. Re-hydrated and pitched.

That's about all the detail I can give...

Oh, 5oz priming sugar added to the batch for bottling, per the instructions.

So, is that just a "naturally" sweet-ish beer??

Thanks in advance for any input. I'm trying to really pay attention with my first few (or few dozen) beers to what ingredients can yield what flavors so I can hopefully start making my own recipes...

 

[Germelli1]

Well I lack the experience to tell you how the grains would affect fermentation, but I can tell you your OG is fine and not a big deal that you minorly diluted it. Your FG was good enough you could have most likely skipped the secondary (i mean for alcohol poroduction, but the secondary helps get rid of fermentation byproducts that could cause off flavors).

I might have overlooked this in a previous post, but was your beer fully carbonated when you opened it?

My vote is that your beer might just naturally be a little sweet since it was done fermenting and stable specific gravity for a week!

Drink it as a dessert beer if you dont have a taste for the sweetness, or add some salt and cook with it!

 

[Malticulous]

1 oz of Hallertau at 60 probably didn't yield many IBUs. 15 maybe. So with 12 oz crystal (80L and special B) it's balanced to the sweet side.

 

[Timboosh]

thanks much for the responses guys - It's certainly not intolerably sweet... like I said, just a sweet character/flavor that I'm not used to from store bought...

Conroe, thanks for adding a little perspective to the balance - just the type of insight I was looking for.

Germelli, yes, it is carb'd, but could probably use a little bit more. There wasn't a great deal of head, but I also poured kinda slow since i've never decanted off of the tiny yeast cake from carb'ing in a bottle... I know I probably jumped the gun to drink after bottle conditioning at two weeks, but what the heck, I have 53 of them (left) and I'm interested in seeing how it ages and/or continues to carbonate. I'm going t see if leaving it for another week or two at 70-73 before I really start drinking it/chill it.

 

[Germelli1]

Germelli, yes, it is carb'd, but could probably use a little bit more. There wasn't a great deal of head, but I also poured kinda slow since i've never decanted off of the tiny yeast cake from carb'ing in a bottle... I know I probably jumped the gun to drink after bottle conditioning at two weeks, but what the heck, I have 53 of them (left) and I'm interested in seeing how it ages and/or continues to carbonate. I'm going t see if leaving it for another week or two at 70-73 before I really start drinking it/chill it.

Head retention is never an aspect of beer I have cared too much about...it doesn't affect its taste/drinkability at all, just aestetics.

When I am feeling impatient, i just tell myself "the only way to see if a beer is carbed and ready to be cold-contitioned is to pop one open "

 

[RchanceN]

Like Conroe said, with only 1oz of Hallertau for the bittering addition, it's going to lean toward the malty and sweeter side. I've noticed that most of my beers have a hint of sweetness to them when they're still green even if they seem carbed. Letting it sit another couple weeks always fixes this.

I have an amber now that's been bottled for about 3 weeks. It tastes fantastic, but a bit sweet. My solution...let it sit.