Drinking my first home brew.

So today I cracked my first bottle of home brew.

It is an IPA. Not gonna lie.. it is not terrible, but it is not great either. lol.

It has a bit of an off flavor. I'm not sure if it is just a bit green or if I can chalk it up to being a learning process and being my first time brewing. If I had to describe the off flavor it say it is a bit soapy. Maybe a little bit of Phenol flavor.

I know it is a work in progress so I'm not really upset. But I have an English Brown Mild in the fermenter right now that I am going to bottle this weekend. I felt a lot more comfortable during that brew so I have higher hopes this time.

Hey at least it looks like beer right?

 

Congrats!

Have you been controlling fermentation temps? If not that will be the #1 way to start making better beer.

 

How long has it been bottled? What temperature did you condition the bottles? How long did you chill?

About 3 weeks for bottle conditioning at close to 70 degrees. Chill for 24-48 hours. At minimum - overnight.

 

it looks pretty good, I am willing to bet the more you make the better it will be.

 

It definitely looks alright...nice work! To be honest, I'm pretty critical of my beers, even the good ones, I think that's part of the curse of homebrewing. But, that's part of what I enjoy, figure out what you can do differently to "fix"the issues you had with the brew and the next will undoubtedly be better. Cheers!

 

Let it flow,
Let it flow,
Beers on tap, ever more.

Let it flow,
Let it flow,
Turn away and gra-ab some more

I don't care,
What your going to say,
Let the beer flow on....

The foam never bothered me anyway.




Something subliminal in your post perhaps ignited something within me.

Looks great. Congrats on your first brew.

 

+1 on fermentation temps. Also, what are you using for sterilization? 20 years ago (I am old), I was getting off flavors from using bleach. Those issues went away with Star-san.

Also, I think an IPA might be a tough style to recreate without kegging equipment (at least to commercial standards). Oxidation is a hoppy beer's enemy, and it's harder to control if you have to bottle v. siphon into a CO2
purged keg.

 

This was fermented a in the basement. Temps fluctuated between 64 and 69 degrees. I've already got a temperature controller and am in the process of converting an old chest freezer to a fermentation chamber.

It was bottled for 2 weeks two days then into the fridge for 36 hours. I'm thinking it is still a little green. So I'm going to let it bottle condition for another week or two and then throw it back in the fridge for a few days.

 

Congratulations! I'm sure your first homebrew will taste even better with more aging.

 

You know, it's funny, they say IPAs are best fresh, and I have made some that were awesome from very early on. Others seemed to take 6+ weeks to come into their own. No idea why, maybe it's the hop combinations, but keep trying it as time goes on, and you may see marked improvement.

 

Congrats!

My first beer had diacetyl and I only collected 4 gal for a 5 gal batch... The takeaway here is that we made beer, its drinkable, mistakes will be mande, and the beer/ process will get better.

Now tie one on with that IPA

 

Thanks Natdavis777.....

yeah i only collected 3.5 gallons on this one.. totally my fault. Perhaps that had something to do with it.

 

Beer has a good color to it. Ive always kegged, never bottled (but I help my buddy bottle) and noticed some of his take time to develop, so that may be the issue of your "off flavor".

 

Keep it going! It took 13 batches before I felt like I hit my stride, but drinking 500+ crap beers makes the good ones in the future all the sweeter!