There goes my perfect record

[Incubus2112]

So I started brewing maybe 3 months ago. I've done an extract brew, and about 3 all grain brews. All came out better than I had hoped. That is until my most recent, fourth brew.

I was just coming off my best brew yet with my last 5 gallons of California common. Was the clearest, best tasting beer i had made to date. To boot, I had just received my chest freezer/fermentation chamber to use and I was STOKED to see how controlled fermentation chamber temperatures affected this beer.

I was also stoked to use my new 7 gallon kegco glass carboy with straps.

Couple difficulties aroused from using it, I am afraid, but I am nearly certain they had nothing to do with the terrible taste that the final product came out with. First of all, I couldn't get the airlock working as it came so I made do without the benefit of those reassuring bubbles blurping at me. I kept it at nearly 60 degrees throughout fermentation as the Wyeast 2112 packet indicated a 58-68 degree range for the yeast.

Fast forward to day before yesterday when I got home from Tahoe to rack the beer to a keg, cold crash, and carbonate for drinking.

Here is where stuff spit the bit. I had lost my trusty kit-included siphon in the move, so I had to purchase one on-the-fly from amazon. Was shorter, and less than $10. Not terrible reviews, but I turned it terrible.

Started siphoning my beer into the keg and the siphon tube is about half empty of beer and started bubbling air into the feed.

Tried to stop/restart the process to get it going and it just kept going back to bubbling.

Got my wife to come out and help me as now I had nearly half my keg filled with oxygenated beer. Wife came out, stopped the siphon, pulled the tube from the siphon tube, and re-inserted into beer to create a straight-liquid siphon for the last 1/2 of the keg.

There was some gunk that got sucked into the keg as I didn't even have enough to fill the corny *shakes fist*, but I am nearly positive that the entire batch is ruined, despite the first beer tasting honestly terrible and undrinkable.

OXYGEN KILLS!!

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't think I would blame oxidation at this point. It supposedly takes many weeks for that to really show up as an off flavor. Besides, I had a similar autosiphon issue that had to have severely oxygenated my entire batch of beer. Instead of starting a siphon, my siphon just pumped air into the carboy. I didn't realize what was happening, so I just kept pumping harder and faster while air bubbles were practically exploding into the carboy with each stroke. I ended up removing the racking cane from the siphon, filling the tube with sanitizer, and starting the siphon manually.

Until my last two batches it was the best beer I made, and I drank all of it before any signs of oxidation made themselves apparent. I would definitely consider other aspects of my process first. There is a possibility that you just made a beer style that you don't like too.

 

[Ashevillain]

Whats it taste like? If this is your first batch with temp control that changes some things. It will net you a consistent huge improvement across the board but there are other things to consider to make it work as intended.

You used the California Lager yeast and while you fermented within the ideal range, this yeast prefers higher temps. Higher temps and maturation time allows it to clean itself up.

3 things can result from not driving the temperature up towards end of fermentation and giving the yeast time to clean up after itself:

-diacetyl
-acetaldahyde
-sulfur

Here is a link describing these flavors, maybe you notice 1 or more present in your brew.

You wouldn't have experienced these as much without the ferm chamber, as without the temp control your more vulnerable to esters, phenols, and fusel alcohols. But even with temp control you have to finesse your numbers to suit each strain/style.

If you think its sulfur, it can be fixed post fermentation by "scrubbing" the beer with co2. Just connect your gas disconnect to your liquid post and run co2 from the bottom of the keg while holding the pressure release valve open. Sulfur easily volatilizes out of solution and will get released from the keg.

 

[Foosier]

This is definitely a RDWHAHB moment. Don't panic. It will be beer. There may be no issues. You won't know till it is carbed and serving.

 

[Incubus2112]

Whats it taste like? If this is your first batch with temp control that changes some things. It will net you a consistent huge improvement across the board but there are other things to consider to make it work as intended.

You used the California Lager yeast and while you fermented within the ideal range, this yeast prefers higher temps. Higher temps and maturation time allows it to clean itself up.

3 things can result from not driving the temperature up towards end of fermentation and giving the yeast time to clean up after itself:

-diacetyl
-acetaldahyde
-sulfur

Here is a link describing these flavors, maybe you notice 1 or more present in your brew.

You wouldn't have experienced these as much without the ferm chamber, as without the temp control your more vulnerable to esters, phenols, and fusel alcohols. But even with temp control you have to finesse your numbers to suit each strain/style.

If you think its sulfur, it can be fixed post fermentation by "scrubbing" the beer with co2. Just connect your gas disconnect to your liquid post and run co2 from the bottom of the keg while holding the pressure release valve open. Sulfur easily volatilizes out of solution and will get released from the keg.

Hard to pin down, but my initial reaction is to say it tastes stale, somehow.

 

[Ashevillain]

Stale for sure sounds like oxidation which isn't surprising considering what happened! I just know of several instances where I worried about oxidation and it wasn't an issue in the finished product, but that certainly doesn't mean oxidation doesn't happen. Well I hope my post above helps in the future anyways!

 

[Incubus2112]

This is definitely a RDWHAHB moment. Don't panic. It will be beer. There may be no issues. You won't know till it is carbed and serving.

TBH, I think it's, most likely, sediment taste that I am getting, maybe? I was nearly certain it was oxygen until I read comments here. Now I'm unsure.

To clarify, I racked it to keg and put CO2 at 30 psi on Saturday afternoon and tried it for the first time last night after about 7 pm. It was sufficiently carbonated, but the flavor was bad, as I said.

 

[pepindavid]

What's the grain bill and hop schedule? I had done an Irish Red Ale that didn't taste very good at kegging time, but improved significantly and is no excellent 4 weeks after kegging.

 

[jerbrew]

If you're kegging then your battle within oxygen is half over. Get yourself one of these stick a racking cane into one hole and one of these into the other side. Attach the racking cane to the "out" post of your Keg and blow into the filter. Once you have a siphon make sure you have a way to relieve pressure and your good to go. I take it one step further. Since I fill my kegs with starsan and use CO2 to push it out I have a pretty O2 depleted environment in there for my beer to get cozy in. I then hook up the "in" post of the keg to the part of the cap the filter was attached to. That way I'm using my displaced CO2 from the keg in the headspace of the carboy. This is the easiest, and safest, way to do a closed transfer with a glass carboy. Here's a picture of what it looked like when I was using a glass carboy. Once you're all done with the transfer purge the headspace of the keg with 30PSI CO2 10 or so times and you'll never have to worry about O2 at packaging or during the transfer. Here is a post by @doug293cz with a well made chart showing you that there is almost no oxygen left in that tiny headpsace to stale the beer.

Even if this isn't your ultimate problem with this batch, figuring out the best way to eliminate oxygen during packaging for your setup will reduce the probability that it's your problem in the future and maintain the quality of your finished beer over time.

 

[Incubus2112]

What's the grain bill and hop schedule? I had done an Irish Red Ale that didn't taste very good at kegging time, but improved significantly and is no excellent 4 weeks after kegging.

7lb Pale Row 2 malt|
1lb2.3oz Caramel Crystal Malt 60
11.8 oz honey malt
11.8 oz victory malt
2 oz Northern brewer at 60 minutes and 5 minutes
whirlfloc tablet
wyeast 2112 california ale

I wouldn't say this is a red ale so much as a California Common ale (see Anchor Steam)

 

[Incubus2112]

Additionally, I do the same thing preparing my kegs for beer. I fill them half way with Star-san solution, shake it all about, then gas it with CO2 to move the solution out of the keg to ensure the out tubes are nice and sanitized.

 

[Incubus2112]

@jerbrew That is an AWESOME solution. I will def look into this. THANKS!

 

[Ashevillain]

Or just ferment in kegs:rockin:

 

[Foosier]

Don't be surprised when beer tastes odd after only a few hours under burst carb. You can be experiencing "Carbonic bite". The CO2 has not gone fully into solution. Expect your beer taste to change quite a bit in the keg over the first few weeks.

Personally, I do not burst carb. I set my regulator to serving pressure and let it go. I do sample pretty much daily, because why wouldn't it? In doing this though, you get a good feel for how the taste matures during carbonation.

The point is, beer takes a bit of time, even in kegs. Give it a week and I bet the odd flavor is gone.

 

[jerbrew]

Or just ferment in kegs:rockin:

Exactly, that's what I'm doing now. I was almost happy when I broke my carboy a few brew days ago

 

[Ashevillain]

Exactly, that's what I'm doing now. I was almost happy when I broke my carboy a few brew days ago

Never going back!

 

[pepindavid]

IMHO, there's a weird obsession to try to turn around beer as quickly as possible. I'm as impatient as any other guy, and if the sample is stable and tastes good after 10 days, I often call it a day and carbonate, but you can't judge a beer after burst carbonation in 1-2 days. In my little experience, it's always better after one week, and even better after two weeks in the keg. Now, some beers hit their peak very quickly, others take longer, but you have to give it some time.

 

[Rhaop]

IMHO, there's a weird obsession to try to turn around beer as quickly as possible. I'm as impatient as any other guy, and if the sample is stable and tastes good after 10 days, I often call it a day and carbonate, but you can't judge a beer after burst carbonation in 1-2 days. In my little experience, it's always better after one week, and even better after two weeks in the keg. Now, some beers hit their peak very quickly, others take longer, but you have to give it some time.

I agree with this i've never had beer taste great within a day or two of force carbonation

 

[Ashevillain]

Definitely going to try carbing at 12-15 lbs on my next IPA. I've had beers taste good with burst, but I've also felt the instability that might accompany burst carbing and sampling right after its finished.

 

[Incubus2112]

The previous two brews were the exact same all grain recipe. This is my third iteration of it. Those two were burst carbed down as they were cold crashed for clarification and fined with gelatin. Both recipes were perfectly fine after 36 hours at 30 psi. This is not a matter of CO2, but of oxygen, I believe, getting in and staling out my beer. I have not yet tried another draft off of it since that first schooner I poured, but will retry tonight after getting home. I have very little hopes that CO2 is going to "scrub" my beer of staleness in that time.