yeasty "homebrew" taste

[dsherburn]

I've brewed about 15 AG 5 gallon batches. All have been resonably good and "clean" tasting. I've also done about 10 5 gallon BIAB batches with equally good success.

My last brew was a Holiday spiced Ale. It was a bit heavy (1.074 SG) so I pitched with 2 packets of Safeale 05. The resulting beer was "OK", but had a slight yeasty homebrew taste. My lean/sterilization has never been a problem. Do you think I over pitched and would that create the taste? Or, did I get an infection somehow? I did hydrate the dry yeast.....

It did ferment normally from 1.074 to 1.018.

Thanks in advance

 

[DurtyChemist]

I think you didn't let all the yeast drop out of solution and drank it too soon. I have a holiday ale in a keg right now and except for the two pints I poured to taste it, I haven't touched it. I believe a Holiday Ale should be something you drink one year while brewing next years.

 

[cjgenever]

I wouldn't say you overpitched. I will sometimes pitch high with a spiced ale so the esters don't fight the spices. Leave a bottle in the fridge for two days or more to crash it. Then taste it. I sometimes get a stronger yeast flavor in young beer, when it wasn't there at that point in a previous (identical) batch. It probably just needs to Flocculate.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[kanzimonson]

I blame high fermentation temps for most "homebrewy" flavors.

 

[RichBenn]

We need to know more to diagnose/explain the flavor. What temperature did you ferment at? How long in primary? Secondary? Did you use whirlfloc or any other clarifiers? Did you bottle or keg? How long since bottling(or kegging)?

Big beers take way longer to ferment, for the yeast to clean up, for the yeast to settle, and, IMHO, for carbonation and the flavors to meld. The ferment in bigger gravity beer produces a lot of temperature rise, so if you aren't controlling ferment temps(crucial to good beer), you could be producing undesirable flavor compounds.

 

[Cyclman]

My +1 is that it's too young, sometimes my big beers take months to be good, many many months to be great.

 

[RM-MN]

We need to know more to diagnose/explain the flavor. What temperature did you ferment at? How long in primary? Secondary? Did you use whirlfloc or any other clarifiers? Did you bottle or keg? How long since bottling(or kegging)?

Big beers take way longer to ferment, for the yeast to clean up, for the yeast to settle, and, IMHO, for carbonation and the flavors to meld. The ferment in bigger gravity beer produces a lot of temperature rise, so if you aren't controlling ferment temps(crucial to good beer), you could be producing undesirable flavor compounds.

This plus the spices you add to a holiday spice ale will stay suspended for quite a while and until those settle they will give you some odd flavors and may keep yeast suspended with them. You don't say how long it has been since you brewed but I'd expect this beer to become pretty good at about 4 months from pitching the yeast based on my own experience with the recipe.

 

[BigFloyd]

I blame high fermentation temps for most "homebrewy" flavors.

This is a possibility. What were your pitch/ferment temps?

How long did you let it spend in the primary before bottling? Do you cold crash?

How much did you move the fermenter around just prior to racking to the bottling bucket?

After carbing, how long did you leave them in the fridge before drinking?

You didn't over pitch.

 

[dsherburn]

Thanks for the replies. It was brewed December 7th. I ferment in the basement (Michigan) and it's been a pretty constant 68 degrees. I initially kegged it and used a beer gun about a week ago to bottle. I'll let them age a while.

It sat in the primary for about 14 days (SG was steady for about 4-5 days) and almost 4 weeks in the secondary.

 

[Kremlock]

Unless I dry hop or need to add anything to secondary I just leave the beer in primary. It may be possible that the yeast did not have time to clean up after itself once you raked it to secondary.

 

[zachattack]

I would aim to keep the beer in the high 60s with US-05. If your basement was 68, the beer could have been up in the mid 70s. This could be part of the problem. Also, S-05 can take a while to flocc out; I agree to try leaving a bottle in the fridge for a while and try again. But I'd give it a week, not 2 days.