Very Very Off Flavors at One Week...

[crawlspacestudios]

I know there have been a few threads about this, but I could not find a general consensus on my issue. I have done about 15 AG brews and the first 10 were great. The past 5 batches, I have started to sample after one week, after the primary fermentation has subsided for the most part. I have not bottled or kegged any of these last brews because the taste of the beer was pretty awful. Almost a sour/bready/bandaid flavor

I read bandaid was chlorine but I use a Camden and also artesian water?

I am really frustrated and don't know what is going on with all of this. Will these flavors subside with more time? I guess my big question is, is it normal for a beer to taste very sh**ty after only one week?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Upthewazzu]

You're really judging the flavor of your beer after one week sitting in the primary fermenter? Dude, you need to sit back chill out and relax.

 

[WayFrae]

I think it is normal for beer to taste kind of funny while the yeast are still heavily in suspension. Whenever I clean out the yeast from my blow off container the smell is awful, sour and bready like you describe. Let it clear a bit then taste it again. How do the other 4 batches taste now that they have cleared?

 

[crawlspacestudios]

Haha sounds good. I was hoping someone would say that. I have never tasted at one week before, but kind of assumed that it would taste like the beer I was making...at least a little bit :/

 

[crawlspacestudios]

I think it is normal for beer to taste kind of funny while the yeast are still heavily in suspension. Whenever I clean out the yeast from my blow off container the smell is awful, sour and bready like you describe. Let it clear a bit then taste it again. How do the other 4 batches taste now that they have cleared?

They were all wheats that I was fermenting with the Wyeast1056(messing around with different grains). I kegged them after only 12 days and they all held the same off flavors. Would kegging them(and cooling) at that time stop the yeast from cleaning up some of the off flavors?

 

[WayFrae]

What was your fermentation temp? Too high of temps will cause off flavors.

 

[Yooper]

............ Will these flavors subside with more time? I guess my big question is, is it normal for a beer to taste very sh**ty after only one week?

Thanks in advance!

The short answer to your question is 'no', it's not normal for a beer to taste ****ty after one week. It shouldn't taste awesome- but it should taste like flat beer that needs some time for the yeast to fall out and for the flavors to meld.

Weird flavors like you describe are generally water related. Can you described your 'artesian water'? It sounds like a high mash pH or something like that causing some problems.

 

[j1n]

what kind of sanitizer do you use?

I highly disagree with Upthewazzu, doesnt matter if its only 1 week. You shouldn't have those off flavors and its not like its normal to have them at the 1 week mark. I dont understand why people think aging the beer will fix everything.

 

[crawlspacestudios]

The short answer to your question is 'no', it's not normal for a beer to taste ****ty after one week. It shouldn't taste awesome- but it should taste like flat beer that needs some time for the yeast to fall out and for the flavors to meld.

Weird flavors like you describe are generally water related. Can you described your 'artesian water'? It sounds like a high mash pH or something like that causing some problems.

I grabbed some Kroger "artesian water", just because I thought that the chlorine from my tap water was causing the problems. I use this stuff called Ph5.2 that I add right into the mash tun before I bring run water in.

 

[crawlspacestudios]

what kind of sanitizer do you use?

I highly disagree with Upthewazzu, doesnt matter if its only 1 week. You shouldn't have those off flavors and its not like its normal to have them at the 1 week mark. I dont understand why people think aging the beer will fix everything.

I clean everything with StarSan and PBW. I will clean with PBW after I rinse an old carboy. Then before I put new beer into it, I will let it sit with the StarSan in there while I mash and boil.

 

[crawlspacestudios]

What was your fermentation temp? Too high of temps will cause off flavors.

I keep it down in the basement and the strip I put on the side of the carboy, stays in between 64-66. Pitching the yeast is a little trickier, even with the immersion chiller I can only get it down to about 80 within an hour. Unless I chill it, then rack it, then let it sit for a few hours; doing that will get it down to 76 after about 3-4 hours. I just worry about something else getting in there before my yeast, so I have been pitching when the wort is around 78.

 

[Upthewazzu]

what kind of sanitizer do you use?

I highly disagree with Upthewazzu, doesnt matter if its only 1 week. You shouldn't have those off flavors and its not like its normal to have them at the 1 week mark. I dont understand why people think aging the beer will fix everything.

Of all the beers I've made, I wouldn't have drank (drunk?) a single one of them after one week in the primary fermenter. They all needed a week or two more in either secondary, bottle, or keg. With the exception of 2, all have turned out just fine.

 

[Yooper]

I grabbed some Kroger "artesian water", just because I thought that the chlorine from my tap water was causing the problems. I use this stuff called Ph5.2 that I add right into the mash tun before I bring run water in.

Throw away the 5.2 stuff immediately, and it will probably get much better right away. Just curious, but did this off flavor show up with the start of the use of the 5.2 and the Kroger water?

Of all the beers I've made, I wouldn't have drank (drunk?) a single one of them after one week in the primary fermenter. They all needed a week or two more in either secondary, bottle, or keg. With the exception of 2, all have turned out just fine.

I would. I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so, and they are often gone by week 3-4. If the beer tastes really bad out of the fermenter, there is a problem with either the mash or the fermentation schedule. It's true that a very young beer may taste a bit yeasty, and of course it would be flat, but it should still taste pretty good under the yeast overtone. If you use a highly flocculant yeast, the beer should not even have a yeast taste by day 5 or so.

 

[Upthewazzu]

I would. I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so, and they are often gone by week 3-4. If the beer tastes really bad out of the fermenter, there is a problem with either the mash or the fermentation schedule. It's true that a very young beer may taste a bit yeasty, and of course it would be flat, but it should still taste pretty good under the yeast overtone. If you use a highly flocculant yeast, the beer should not even have a yeast taste by day 5 or so.

So it sounds like you agree with my statement. You start off by saying you'd drink it after a week in the fermenter (7 days), but then say you routinely wait 17 days. By my calculations...carry the 3...divide by pi...you're doing exactly what I said.

 

[crawlspacestudios]

Throw away the 5.2 stuff immediately, and it will probably get much better right away. Just curious, but did this off flavor show up with the start of the use of the 5.2 and the Kroger water?




I would. I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so, and they are often gone by week 3-4. If the beer tastes really bad out of the fermenter, there is a problem with either the mash or the fermentation schedule. It's true that a very young beer may taste a bit yeasty, and of course it would be flat, but it should still taste pretty good under the yeast overtone. If you use a highly flocculant yeast, the beer should not even have a yeast taste by day 5 or so.

You know I think I got maybe one good batch using the Mash5.2 and I really never thought about it. Do you think this would be giving these beers a bad flavor? I just used the Artesian water on the last batch, before that, was using tap water and a camden tablet. Both types of water produced the same off flavors.

 

[Upthewazzu]

Some of the reviews of the stuff online say it throws an off-flavor. I was going to try it out until I read that.

 

[Rivenin]

5.2 is just a mix of brewing salts, the concentrations aren't really correct and you pretty much are adding too much of a wrong salt for any given style, so potentially while the mash PH is off no matter what unless you add salts, unless they're calculated properly, the PH will jump pretty badly...
there are many threads discussing this same thing and tested with PH meters... in the real world, it would work, but not gonna happen.

Also! 1 week in the fermenter could be causing a bit of yeasty flavors... but nothing OFF... if you got a bit of sediment or even a big helping of yeast if it hadn't dropped out, it can be a bit astringent.

1 thing to test this... grab a sample, toss some saran wrap or something over the top, toss it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, let some of the crap drop out a titch and take a slight sip off the top (it's what i do if there is a ton of stuff floating ) or even let it sit out in the room for a bit before you sip it from the top.

When changing stuff like you did with the water AND the PH5.2. When making a drastic change like that, best thing to do is one thing at a time. So next batch, potentially do the whole batch with just the kroger water (i brewed with spring water from the glacier water machines for years, .35cents a gallon and worked wonderfully)

Also, one last thing ('im on a roll typing today!) if you fermentation temps are on that lower side , it may take awhile for everything to clean itself up, so give it another week and try it again. Try not to pitch so high as well, leaving it to sit and cool down, as long as sanitation is good and you have an airlock on, i've left mine over night to get to pitching temps in the summer heat.

Best of luck!!

 

[crawlspacestudios]

5.2 is just a mix of brewing salts, the concentrations aren't really correct and you pretty much are adding too much of a wrong salt for any given style, so potentially while the mash PH is off no matter what unless you add salts, unless they're calculated properly, the PH will jump pretty badly...
there are many threads discussing this same thing and tested with PH meters... in the real world, it would work, but not gonna happen.

Also! 1 week in the fermenter could be causing a bit of yeasty flavors... but nothing OFF... if you got a bit of sediment or even a big helping of yeast if it hadn't dropped out, it can be a bit astringent.

1 thing to test this... grab a sample, toss some saran wrap or something over the top, toss it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, let some of the crap drop out a titch and take a slight sip off the top (it's what i do if there is a ton of stuff floating ) or even let it sit out in the room for a bit before you sip it from the top.

When changing stuff like you did with the water AND the PH5.2. When making a drastic change like that, best thing to do is one thing at a time. So next batch, potentially do the whole batch with just the kroger water (i brewed with spring water from the glacier water machines for years, .35cents a gallon and worked wonderfully)

Also, one last thing ('im on a roll typing today!) if you fermentation temps are on that lower side , it may take awhile for everything to clean itself up, so give it another week and try it again. Try not to pitch so high as well, leaving it to sit and cool down, as long as sanitation is good and you have an airlock on, i've left mine over night to get to pitching temps in the summer heat.

Best of luck!!

Thanks so much for all of that! I will definitely brew this batch again and leave out the 5.2. I will also let this sit for another week and test again. I will post here when I test another sample to help clear some of this up and that can hopefully point to the problem, or clear it up. Cheers!

 

[Yooper]

So it sounds like you agree with my statement. You start off by saying you'd drink it after a week in the fermenter (7 days), but then say you routinely wait 17 days. By my calculations...carry the 3...divide by pi...you're doing exactly what I said.

I said it doesn't taste ****ty after a week, and I don't "routinely wait 17 days". I often keg at day 10 or so, unless I'm dryhopping and then will keg at day 15ish. But the beer tastes pretty darn good by day 7, really good by day 10, and is often gone before day 21-28.

You said, "Of all the beers I've made, I wouldn't have drank (drunk?) a single one of them after one week in the primary fermenter. They all needed a week or two more in either secondary, bottle, or keg. With the exception of 2, all have turned out just fine."

A week or two more in the secondary means that the beer still isn't being consumed, so you're looking at 3 weeks before even starting to drink them. Mine are generally gone by then, or close. It depends on the beers, of course. A Russian imperial stout is a far different story than a simple APA. But it is a fallacy that beers should taste like crap at day 7 and then the magic beer fairy comes and it's awesome at day 21. It might improve if there are off flavors that need some age- but it won't dramatically turn a crappy beer into an award winner.

 

[Upthewazzu]

I said it doesn't taste ****ty after a week, and I don't "routinely wait 17 days". I often keg at day 10 or so, unless I'm dryhopping and then will keg at day 15ish. But the beer tastes pretty darn good by day 7, really good by day 10, and is often gone before day 21-28.

Regardless of how "good" it tastes (it doesn't) you ARE NOT drinking the beer at 7 days. If it was really that good at 7 days, you would be consuming it at that point. You are not, so stop arguing.

You absolutely said you wait 17 days, here's your exact quote: "I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so"

Again, why aren't you drinking it at day 7? You aren't so I'm not even sure why we're having this discussion.

A week or two more in the secondary means that the beer still isn't being consumed, so you're looking at 3 weeks before even starting to drink them. Mine are generally gone by then, or close. It depends on the beers, of course. A Russian imperial stout is a far different story than a simple APA. But it is a fallacy that beers should taste like crap at day 7 and then the magic beer fairy comes and it's awesome at day 21. It might improve if there are off flavors that need some age- but it won't dramatically turn a crappy beer into an award winner.

I also said a week or two in the bottle or keg, why did you leave that off? Another week in the keg puts it at 14 days total. Usually very drinkable by that point as it's no longer sitting on the yeast cake. Now that I have a kegging system, this is literally the process that I use (1 week to 10 days on primary + 1 week in keg then drink).

 

[j1n]

Of all the beers I've made, I wouldn't have drank (drunk?) a single one of them after one week in the primary fermenter. They all needed a week or two more in either secondary, bottle, or keg. With the exception of 2, all have turned out just fine.

Well, if your beer doesn't taste good after one week then maybe you need to re-evaluate your process. ive gone grain to glass in 14 days and the beer was gone within a week after tapping the keg. Most my beers that aren't dry hopped can be kegged by day 10. If i dry hop then i let it go +4 days for the dry hop. i don't have off flavors in my beer from the short time span and if i did then i wouldn't blame it on time but something that didn't go right in my process.

My post earlier was just pointing out how some people think that the beer magically gets better after aging it. if it taste bad after a week then it will probably taste bad a few weeks later too.

 

[Upthewazzu]

Some of you are having trouble with math. 7 /= 14.

I explicitly stated that it does not taste good after a week (7 days) but tastes just fine a week later (14 days) once it's been removed from the primary fermenter and taken off the yeast cake. I guess I should have said something more along the lines of "I don't like the taste of beer while its sitting in the primary fermenter, but it tastes fine once it's been removed for a week or so".

Geesh.

 

[j1n]

Regardless of how "good" it tastes (it doesn't) you ARE NOT drinking the beer at 7 days. If it was really that good at 7 days, you would be consuming it at that point. You are not, so stop arguing.

You absolutely said you wait 17 days, here's your exact quote: "I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so"

Again, why aren't you drinking it at day 7? You aren't so I'm not even sure why we're having this discussion.



I also said a week or two in the bottle or keg, why did you leave that off? Another week in the keg puts it at 14 days total. Usually very drinkable by that point as it's no longer sitting on the yeast cake. Now that I have a kegging system, this is literally the process that I use (1 week to 10 days on primary + 1 week in keg then drink).

Yeah, but you most likely are trying a hydro sample at 7 days and you will know if its good or not. of course your not drinking it out of a keg carbed at 7 days.

 

[Yooper]

Regardless of how "good" it tastes (it doesn't) you ARE NOT drinking the beer at 7 days. If it was really that good at 7 days, you would be consuming it at that point. You are not, so stop arguing.

You absolutely said you wait 17 days, here's your exact quote: "I'm routinely drinking pale ales by day 17 or so"

Again, why aren't you drinking it at day 7? You aren't so I'm not even sure why we're having this discussion.



I also said a week or two in the bottle or keg, why did you leave that off? Another week in the keg puts it at 14 days total. Usually very drinkable by that point as it's no longer sitting on the yeast cake. Now that I have a kegging system, this is literally the process that I use (1 week to 10 days on primary + 1 week in keg then drink).

"Drink" means to put into my mouth, taste, and swallow. I will drink a full hydrometer sample, but perhaps the beer is best consumed when carbonated. I'm sorry you are having such a difficult time understanding and wish to argue semantics.

Pale ales are generally dryhopped at my house, so they are fermented out, let sit until clear (about 7-10 days, and it does taste good at that time), then dryhopped for 5 days, and then kegged. It takes a day or two to carb up- so it's being consumed routinely by day 17 on tap. It is usually sampled way before that, and my husband is known to drink it pretty flat before that. At day 17 is when I would offer it to guests and friends- if that helps you visualize what I mean. I do not grab a straw and slurp it out of the carboy, if that is what you imagine I meant.

Some beers, like when we did the "10der and mild" swap, are brewed, packaged, carbed up, and drunk by day 10. The key there is of course that the OG is fairly low, a highly flocculant yeast strain is used, and the beer is kegged.

A very few others, like a Belgian triple, an oaked beer, a Russian imperial stout, etc, will need a bit of time to meld and come together but it still tastes good out of the fermenter by day 7-10. It's not like it tastes like **** and then magically becomes manna from heaven. A well made beer should taste pretty good (albeit flat and warm) right out of the fermenter.

 

[Braufessor]

I just drank a 10 ounce glass of 7 day old pale ale out of my fermenter today - it tasted very good, but, it was flat, and I still need to dry hop it. I could have easily drank 2 or 3..... but it is going to be a lot better in another week or two when it is dry hopped and properly carbonated. Yooper and others are right on the money - beer should taste fine/good at day 7-10. It is not necessarily "finished" and it is obviously not carbonated - but, the "off flavors" the OP described are not flavors associated with incomplete fermentation, or the need for "aging." They are water and process problems.

5.2 is no good.... it is really no good if you don't know precisely what you are dealing with in regard to your water - what minerals are in it to start with? what are you adding? what is your mash pH...... if you don't know that stuff, you definitely don't want to just throw 5.2 in. If you do know that stuff - you don't need the 5.2.

You mentioned you are pitching yeast at 76 degrees - that is a big problem. That is way to warm. That warm temperature is going to drive the fermentation, and the yeast are going to create heat and perhaps drive that temp even more. I would expect a lot of off flavors pitching at 76.

*Ditch the 5.2
*Find a way to chill further. Why can you only get to 80??? Is your tap water 80 degrees?
*The bottled water may be ok. eventually, you will want to learn a little more about your water - Brew Science Sub Forum - There is a Water Primer under the stickies - simple starting point.

 

[crawlspacestudios]

I just drank a 10 ounce glass of 7 day old pale ale out of my fermenter today - it tasted very good, but, it was flat, and I still need to dry hop it. I could have easily drank 2 or 3..... but it is going to be a lot better in another week or two when it is dry hopped and properly carbonated. Yooper and others are right on the money - beer should taste fine/good at day 7-10. It is not necessarily "finished" and it is obviously not carbonated - but, the "off flavors" the OP described are not flavors associated with incomplete fermentation, or the need for "aging." They are water and process problems.

5.2 is no good.... it is really no good if you don't know precisely what you are dealing with in regard to your water - what minerals are in it to start with? what are you adding? what is your mash pH...... if you don't know that stuff, you definitely don't want to just throw 5.2 in. If you do know that stuff - you don't need the 5.2.

You mentioned you are pitching yeast at 76 degrees - that is a big problem. That is way to warm. That warm temperature is going to drive the fermentation, and the yeast are going to create heat and perhaps drive that temp even more. I would expect a lot of off flavors pitching at 76.

*Ditch the 5.2
*Find a way to chill further. Why can you only get to 80??? Is your tap water 80 degrees?
*The bottled water may be ok. eventually, you will want to learn a little more about your water - Brew Science Sub Forum - There is a Water Primer under the stickies - simple starting point.

Thanks for the input. I will definitely ditch the 5.2. I think also maybe investing in a plate chiller, or larger (50ft) immersion chiller. Our tap water here is notoriously awful which is why I have tried the bottled water. I am going to start from scratch with all the advice and hope things turn out a little better.