About LME, the "twang" taste, late addition and extract color (again).

[Scooby_Brew]

So I've been brewing AG for quite a few years now, but lately I am also helping a buddy of mine with his first extract brews. Because of that I brewed two extract batches myself and here is what I found out.

First batch I made turned out dark and it had the "twang" taste in it. To be honest with you it's not good at all and I will probably dump out it soon. So I decided to do some reading on this forum and learned a little bit about extract brewing.
For the second batch I did a late extract addition. I added 1/2 LME at 60 min and 1/2 at 5 min. I did a partial boil in 3 gal of water. Half way through the boil I added 0.5 gal of boiling water to make up for the evaporation loss.
The difference in color and taste were just amazing. There is no "twang" taste in this brew at all. Also, the color came out much lighter and is about the same as in AG.

Both batches were all generic LME and partial boil.

 

[Rev2010]

Nice, was the beer the exact same recipe? Since I'd read about the late additions before I even used LME for the first time I just started by default doing half in the full boil and half late addition. Did the Northernbrewer amber ale and it came out great, tweaked the hops a bit though. With DME however I just boil it the full length.


Rev.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

Not the same recipe, but I brew both beers many times before with AG, so I can see the differance. The second one is a very light ale (Honker's Ale clone). I chose this beer so it would have been easier to taste the "twang" if it was there.

 

[FiddleTilDeath]

I'm more and more convinced the only source of "twang" is from using a low quality or old malt extract, not the fact that you used malt extract.

 

[h22lude]

I think it would be interesting to do a comparison to find out where that "twang" comes from.

Get a few buddies over one day and make a few different batches of the same beer. It might actually turn into a weekend thing lol And you would need to like that beer because there would be a lot of it...or just do partial batches. Extract with DME at boil, DME at boil and late addition, LME at boil, LME at boil and DME late addition, and AG.

It would be interesting to then taste each beer after fermenting it at the same temp and time and bottle conditioning it the same...maybe even kegging so you don't have to add priming sugar.

 

[Hoppin_Mad]

I'm more and more convinced the only source of "twang" is from using a low quality or old malt extract, not the fact that you used malt extract.

In my very limited experience, I agree. My first batch was extremely tangy, and was from a Munton's prehopped kit that had been sitting around for god knows how long. Every LME batch since then has been LME from my LHBS that they keep fresh in giant plastic tubs. I have not done any kind of late additions whatsoever and have not had any hint of the twang!

 

[unionrdr]

Well,for one anyway,Cooper's says not to boil pre-hoped kits. They say it changes the flavor profile. driving off hop flavors/aroma,darkening,etc.
I just add the DME & pre-hoped malt cans after making a "tea" with the hops in some heavily simmering water. But I'm just doing flavor/aroma additions that I thought would be needed with the addition of the un-hoped DME. Workin good so far.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

I'm more and more convinced the only source of "twang" is from using a low quality or old malt extract, not the fact that you used malt extract.

I probably should have said that both times the LME came from the same source: it was a no-name generic LME from my LHBS, $2.50/lb.
So you may be right, the "twang" taste may have come from the old LME, but even if that was the reason for the bad taste of the first brew, using a late addition eliminated that problem all together in the second batch. Not to mention it helped with the light color of the beer.