Kegged an IPA but has a Acetaldehyde taste to it! What to do?

[pshankstar]

I think this post belongs here since I'm at the keg phase of my brew, but if it needs to be moved, please do so. Thanks, newbie brewer!

I recently brewed a clone of the Ranger IPA by New Belgium (recipe below). The FG was below the target a little and stayed there for a week, so I knew fermentation was done when I kegged it. I know IPAs do not age well because the hoppiness and/or bitterness will diminish over time. Yet my brew has the green apple/pumpkin taste which leads me to believe it is Acetaldehyde. From what I have seen on the forum the best thing to do is let it sit longer. So with that being said, here are my questions:

Can I let it sit in my keggerator to condition longer? Or should I remove it from the keggerator and place it in my basement (around 68 degrees)?

How long does it take for Acetaldehyde to work itself out? I guess there may be no answer to this and I will have to keep trying a little bit here and there.

Since I should let it sit a little longer, I was thinking I should place some hops (I have some Cascade hops from a friend's hop garden) in a muslin bag to place in the keg when the Acetaldehyde is gone. I know I can soak the muslin bag and weight in SanStar to sanitize it, but what about the hops? Just place them in the sanitized bag and place in the keg?

When I place the hops in the keg, can I just leave the hops in the keg until it kicks? Or should I remove them after X amount of days?

Any thoughts, suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated! I am hopeful this brew will turn out great over some time. I leave in a few days for vacation so, it will sit for 10 days anyways while I'm away.

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New Belgium Ranger IPA Clone (BYO Magazine)

Batch Details:
5 gallons/19 L, Extract with grains
OG = 1.059 FG = 1.009 IBU = 70 SRM = 7 ABV = 6.5%

Ingredients:
4.5 lbs. (2 kg) Briess light dried malt extract
1 lb. (0.45 kg) cane sugar (15 min.)
1 lb. 13 oz. (0.82 kg) pale malt
4 oz. (113 g) crystal malt (120 L)
12 AAU Chinook hops (60 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 12% alpha acids)
6.5 AAU Simcoe hops (30 min.) (0.5 oz/14 g at 13% alpha acids)
3.8 AAU Cascade hops (15 min.) (0.75 oz./21 g at 5% alpha acids)
0.5 oz. (14g) Chinook hops (0 min.)
0.5 oz. (14g) Simcoe hops (0 min.)
1 oz. (28g) Cascade hops (0 min.)
2.5 oz. (71g) Cascade hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II)
3/4 cup corn sugar (if priming)

Step by Step:
Steep grains in 3 qts. (2.8 L) of water at 148 F (64 C) for 45 minutes. Add water to make 4 gallons (15 L) of wort and bring to a boil. Stir in roughly half of the dried malt extract and boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at times indicated. Add remaining malt extract and cane sugar for final 15 minutes of the boil. Cool wort and transfer to fermenter. Top up to 5 gallons (19 L) with cool water, aerated and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68 F (20 C). Dry hop in secondary or keg for one week.

 

[JonM]

Did you use your friend's fresh hops in the original brew? If so, that might be what you're tasting.

 

[pshankstar]

@JonM, no I did not use those hops. I received them after the beer was fermenting and already in the dry hop phase.

 

[JonM]

The reason I asked is fresh hops are quite a bit different from pellets and I thought maybe you were tasting that kind of vegetable-y (but good) flavor you get with fresh stuff.

Acetaldehyde iirc, comes from stressed yeast. If you had a healthy fermentation (and it sounds like you did) I'm wondering if you have acetaldehyde at all? Maybe you're just tasting some of the punch from a lot of dry hops? I always thought cascades have a lemony kind of flavor. Maybe you're tasting that?

 

[pshankstar]

The reason I asked is fresh hops are quite a bit different from pellets and I thought maybe you were tasting that kind of vegetable-y (but good) flavor you get with fresh stuff.

Acetaldehyde iirc, comes from stressed yeast. If you had a healthy fermentation (and it sounds like you did) I'm wondering if you have acetaldehyde at all? Maybe you're just tasting some of the punch from a lot of dry hops? I always thought cascades have a lemony kind of flavor. Maybe you're tasting that?

Thanks for the info, that is good to know. This taste is definitely a green apple/pumpkin taste. When I first noticed it, I had a pumpkin beer before hand and thought it was just an after taste I was experiencing. So I just wrote it off to that. A couple days later I tried the brew again, without having another beer before hand and it tasted like pumpkin flavor. I tried another glass the other night and it was a green apple taste I thought. Definitely not a lemon taste, thats for sure...

I cleaned and sanitized the keg really well. I took it apart to clean every nook and cranny I could. So I'm trying to figure out what I can do next...

Thanks for your input, its greatly appreciated!

 

[BBBF]

You can krausen it and the new yeast will can clean up what the other yeasts didn't.

 

[pshankstar]

You can krausen it and the new yeast will can clean up what the other yeasts didn't.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Sorry, it's the newbie side of me...

Thank you!

 

[BBBF]

Krausening is a technique where you add some actively fermenting beer into an already fermented beer.

Yeast usually clean up after themselves, including acetaldehyde . Your yeast might have given up early and not cleaned up or you racked into the keg before they finished. You could get a small amount of yeast going and add it to the beer and they might clean up after the previous yeast.

 

[m00ps]

wouldnt krausening an IPA oxidize it a good deal?

 

[MrFancyPlants]

wouldnt krausening an IPA oxidize it a good deal?

I think that by the time the wart is krausening all of the oxygen is long used up and has been converted to glycogen and/or more yeasties. I'm no expert, but I think this is a pretty safe technique.
You could also just add a starter. Or dry(or wet) hop again and bring the temperature up to around 70. I favor this last method as it should have tons of hop character.
I wouldn't worry about sanitizing wet hops since you'll be drinking this soon. Vodka soak if you are really concerned?

 

[pshankstar]

I think that by the time the wart is krausening all of the oxygen is long used up and has been converted to glycogen and/or more yeasties. I'm no expert, but I think this is a pretty safe technique.

You could also just add a starter. Or dry(or wet) hop again and bring the temperature up to around 70. I favor this last method as it should have tons of hop character.

I wouldn't worry about sanitizing wet hops since you'll be drinking this soon. Vodka soak if you are really concerned?

Ok so a starter might be a good choice and adding a sack of hops. I assume I'll have to pull the keg from the keggerator to warm it up before I pitch a starter. If I don't purge the CO2 it should be ok and kept from O2, right? Also, is it ok to leave it out for a week or two to do this? I leave Wednesday for vacation for just over a week. So if I do this I would like to try to get the yeast starter pitched before I leave then toss in the sack of hops after I return.

Or am I better off racking the beer back into the fermenter so the pressure doesn't build up too much while I'm away? Would this be ok, assuming I go through all the sanitizing again?

Thanks everyone!!

 

[m00ps]

kegs can hold over 200psi. Id just leave it in the keg. Racking out of the keg, then back in is just asking for oxygen to take your precious hop aroma away

 

[pshankstar]

kegs can hold over 200psi. Id just leave it in the keg. Racking out of the keg, then back in is just asking for oxygen to take your precious hop aroma away

Oh wow!! I knew it was high but wow!!! So there would be no need for a vent or blow off? Or could I get away with just pulling the vent tab once a day or so at first after pitching the starter?

Thanks! [emoji106]

 

[m00ps]

no id just let it go. There wont be a ton of co2 release anyway so no risk of overcarbing

 

[pshankstar]

I have read of people who ferment in a corny keg. They usually disassemble the gas in poppet and pull out the small gas tub, then attach a hose to the poppet and place the other end into a growler of SanStar. @m00ps or anyone else, do you think I should do this as well? Or just leave it sealed up in the corny keg? Probably manually vent it a couple of times before I leave, right? Just making sure I do this right and not have any incidents while I'm away and have a nasty mess to deal with when I return.

Thanks everyone!

 

[m00ps]

I would just seal it up as normal since you arent so much "fermenting" in a keg as you are conditioning a fermented beer. There wont be much CO2 output right? Cause you are adding active yeast to clean up some leftover compounds

 

[pshankstar]

I would just seal it up as normal since you arent so much "fermenting" in a keg as you are conditioning a fermented beer. There wont be much CO2 output right? Cause you are adding active yeast to clean up some leftover compounds

I would assume there wouldn't be much... I've never done this before, but I would think the yeast starter I would pitch would be cleaning up what is left to get rid of the Acetaldehyde. Maybe before I leave, I should pull the vent to relieve some of the pressure before I go. By doing this I can't see any O2 making it into the keg b/c it is pushing out the CO2 out and then it seals right back up. Or I'm just over thinking it and I should just leave it. LOL Thanks @m00ps for all the input and suggestions!

 

[pshankstar]

Ok, here is another newbie question. I am about to pitch my yeast starter into the keg to take care of the Acetaldehyde issue. Should I hit it will some CO2 and vent a couple of times to get the O2 out of the keg right away? Or should I let it sit for a few hours or over night, then vent it so it naturally pushes the O2 out of the keg with the active fermentation?

Thanks in advance for the help! Cheers!

 

[BBBF]

Vent it. You don't need the o2 now and it is better to spend a few cents on extra co2 get rid of it.

 

[pshankstar]

Vent it. You don't need the o2 now and it is better to spend a few cents on extra co2 get rid of it.

Great, that's what I thought but wasn't sure if the yeast to do the fermentation needed just a little bit of O2 at first. Thanks for the quick response! Here goes nothing!