Stale/Cardboard taste

[The_Bearded_Tracy]

I just recently started this fantastic hobby. I tried to make a coffee stout but i'm worried it's ruined..... I let my girlfriend help with the brewing process and she dumped all off the spent grains, hops, and coffee grinds into the fermenter. The fermentation was very aggressive and shot the grains up into the blow off tube which clogged the tube up. The stopper and tube was blown off of the fermenter for either 3 to 6 hours. I let the beer sit in the primary for three weeks to ferment. During bottling I had a hard time siphoning the beer into pint bottles which took a long period of time. Then last Friday I decided to try one of the bottles and it tasted pretty stale. I was wondering if the crap that didn't get filtered out caused the staleness or if it was just the oxygen that got to it. I plan on getting a secondary/ bottling bucket and filter the next batch. Any suggestions are welcomed. I can include the recipe if that would help.
Thanks for the help in advance and cheers!

 

[Kerrbrewer]

Cardboard taste is usually caused by oxidation. Having a girlfriend that wants to help is a gem, so tread lightly. When you say she dumped the spent grains etc in the fermenter, do you mean kettle trub or she dumped the whole mash in? Bottle conditioning can do miraculous things, and if I were you I'd let some of it ride for a few months and see what happens as long as there isn't a half an inch of trash in the bottles. Doing that will give you something to share with a Brewer that may be in the same spot you are now. In the meantime you've got a great reason to start another batch!

 

[Queequeg]

If she dumped the mash in they i would say its one of those few instances to chuck it. If its the trub, the no worries and staleness is most likely oxygen

 

[McKnuckle]

Fermenting the mash would be reason for a vigorous face-palm. But I agree with the "tread lightly" comment nonetheless.

Having the fermenter come unplugged for a few hours during active fermentation would not likely cause oxidation; the CO2 would present a steady outflow of gas and would resist any incursion of O2. But the post-handling during bottling is another story. Plenty of opportunity there to oxidize. Again, if you fermented mashed grains then sky's the limit on potentially undesirable flavors.

 

[andy6026]

Girlfriends are a dime a dozen... but each beer is precious. Do not take the incident lightly!

 

[unionrdr]

The wort resulting from mashing or steeping should be drained off the spent grains. Oxygen getting into the fermented beer during racking to a secondary or bottling bucket can oxidize the beer & cause those flavors & aromas. In my experience, it doesn't go away, but, rather, get worse.

 

[fuelish]

Have never had the "pleasure" of an oxidized batch ....can't relate, and to folks who say it tastes like cardboard, what kind??? Corrugated?? Flat shirt-box type??? .... cardboard is not in my diet, dunno what it tastes like ...or maybe in the past I've had an oxidized batch o'beer and relish the flavor??? Dunno...

 

[raysmithtx]

Have never had the "pleasure" of an oxidized batch ....can't relate, and to folks who say it tastes like cardboard, what kind??? Corrugated?? Flat shirt-box type??? .... cardboard is not in my diet, dunno what it tastes like ...or maybe in the past I've had an oxidized batch o'beer and relish the flavor??? Dunno...

Cardboard is not part of my regular diet either. However, if you have ever smelled wet cardboard then you know the flavor of oxidation. It will certainly remind you of the 'wet cardboard' smell. The severity of the taste depends on the severity of the oxidation.

Very distinctive.... not that I would know.

 

[unionrdr]

It smells like wet or damp cardboard that's getting that moldy, musty basement smell & flavor to it. It was unmistakable to me. My old Red Baron capper's bell wore out, sort of stretching out just enough to where the caps didn't seal well enough. Some beers got that flavor/smell to them. gag, yurp, wretch...

 

[Queequeg]

Or sherry flavour, i had a wheat beer bottled in screw cap bottles where the caps had worn not forming a proper seal. Literally tasted like sherry, and was completely flat

 

[chickypad]

Trying to envision how this happened. Are you saying that after you transferred the wort to the fermenter she went and got the spent grain bag, opened it up and just dumped them in loose? You said she dumped in the hops too, which makes it sound like you had all that stuff in the boil kettle. You weren't boiling grains, were you? Unless you're planning to harvest yeast, hops in the fermenter are actually not an issue, lots of us throw loose hops in the boil and then dump all the hops and trub into the fermenter.

I plan on getting a secondary/ bottling bucket and filter the next batch.

Just clarifying what you mean by filtering. The only way to truly filter fermented beer is pushing it with CO2 through a filter system. If you mean you want to pour it though a screen or strainer to remove large particles then the time to do that is transferring from kettle to primary. After primary you want to rack gently and avoid exposure to oxygen. As I mentioned though straining into the fermenter is optional, it should all still settle out if you transfer everything (not including dumping grains in there!).

 

[m00ps]

cardboard = oxidation. Any 2 second google search can confirm this in spades

Likely, you heavily oxidized yoru first beer in transferring/sampling due to inexperience. You need to be careful with the wort once it has started fermenting. But dumping all the spent grain into the fermenter is an absolute no-no. Also, this seems to suggest that you boiled your wort with the grains still in it. This is very bad. I would definitely dump it out and start again after doing several hours of reading

 

[MuddyCreek]

An Ri Red!

An Irish Red Ale that I try to have ready for St. Patricks Day. It's almost always ready by July.

Are you picking up what I'm puttin' down here?

As poster #2 said, time can very often be your very best ally. Let it sit and see if it improves. If not - Chalk it up to a bad day at the office, but a lesson learned. If it does, well you've got a well aged product. Win/Win!

 

[The_Bearded_Tracy]

OK I seemed to have confused some people with my lack of knowledge and not wording my question correctly. I apologize I am a beginner at this....

My recipe is as follows. I was a 1 gallon brew.
-1 lb Dark Dry Malt
-5 oz Pale Ale
-1 oz Black Barley
- 2 oz Caramel 60
- 1 oz Chocolate Malt
- 3 oz Flaked oats.
I stepped all of my grains in a sock for about 30 min. Then I added the dry malt extract. I also boiled 0.2 oz of fuggles hop pellets for 53 min. as the wort chilled I poured the coffee freshly brewed into the wort when the coffee had cooled down to about 75 degrees F. When I went to pour the brew kettle into the fermenter the wort started to run down the side of the kettle. I held the carboy/ fermenter and the funnel and let my girlfriend pour the wort which ended up pouring the hops, grains that got out of the sock and the coffee grains. Then her and I went to teach our classes. She lefted the morning at around 6 and she said everything looked good. When I got home at noon the stopper had been blown off and wort was blown around everywhere. I scrambled to sanitize the stopper and blow off hose and put it back into the carboy. It sat for three weeks and then I struggled to siphon the beer into bottles. Hopefully this makes a little more sense. I pan to try the beer another bottle Sunday. If the flavor hasn't improved I plan to make another batch. I'm going to buy a better scale, an Auto Siphon, and a second ferementer/ bottling bucket. I also plan on using grain socks to steep and cheese cloth to filter out the coffee grinds next time. Thanks for the positive words of encouragement.

 

[Kerrbrewer]

Buy "The joy of homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian. It will help a lot! Relax have a homebrew. I would leave that beer in bottles at room temp 68 to 72 for another couple weeks before giving up on it. YMMV. Brew on TBT!

 

[freisste]

Your process actually sounds pretty solid. No worries about little bits of crud from the boil kettle getting into the fermenter - just not the entire grain bag. Sounds like you probably oxidized when bottling. Not the worst thing in the world...you've probably got about a dozen beers that aren't as good as they would have been. Learn from your mistakes. Enjoy the hobby.

If possible, keep the fermenter cooled. This will reduce the severity of fermentation. Search swamp cooler (basically a tub of water that you add ice to). Try to hold your fermenting batch in the ideal temp range of the yeast, which should be listed on the package. If the swamp cooler seems too hands-on, remember it's really only critical for a couple days.

 

[chickypad]

Your process actually sounds pretty solid. No worries about little bits of crud from the boil kettle getting into the fermenter - just not the entire grain bag. Sounds like you probably oxidized when bottling. Not the worst thing in the world...you've probably got about a dozen beers that aren't as good as they would have been. Learn from your mistakes. Enjoy the hobby.

Yeah I agree. I dump all that junk in the fermenter, it settles out and is not a big deal. We were worried you had boiled the whole contents of the grain sock and then also dumped it all in the fermenter. I don't blame you for having trouble siphoning, it always takes a little practice and I think its probably tougher doing a 1 gal batch than a biggeer one. You'll get it!

 

[The_Bearded_Tracy]

Good news guys! The beers flavor developed and it tasted just fine and my girlfriend enjoys it!!!It needs a little more coffee flavor for my liking but other than that I'm very content with my first beer recipe that didn't come from a kit. Thanks for all the suggestions and help.
Cheers !

 

[Snowmanii]

Not sure if you were doing coffee in the bill or in fermenter, but should be in fermenter. I use whole beans do don't have to worry about grounds getting through. It takes a little more or a little longer ( I use about an ounce of whole beans for 24 hours and get plenty of flavor).