assistance identifying off flavor

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jack_a_roe

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I brewed up a dechutes obsidian stout a couple weeks ago in my new fastferment conical fermenter and tried it out today and was pretty disappointed with whats goin on.

So it tastes like it's got a big alcohol bite, real hot, and it was only supposed to be ~6% ABV. (fermented wyeast 1028 @ ~63) It's also got something else going on as well on top of that I can't quite put my finger on. It's almost tart like and the beer has what seem like NO body which seems pretty odd considering the style and mash temp (154).

I was worried about the top not being completely closed during fermentation because the screw cap is a complete pain to get on all the way. Would it be possible to get oxidation from that? or would you need a bigger opening for such a thing like the top being completely off?

I also ground my grain finer than I normally do...didn't think it was really THAT overdone but there was a good amount of dust I noticed while milling...but that could be tannins if overdone if i'm not mistaken?
 
I think the BIAB crowd would tell you that you can mash with grains crushed to flour and not extract tannins. It's temperature and PH that matter.

As far as the top being off. I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell you if oxygen could cause your problems, but anything other than "air tight" would let oxygen in. This would definitely affect yeast activity and the resulting flavors. You need to introduce lots of oxygen for your yeast at the beginning of fermentation, but once things are really rocking you don't want ANY oxygen introduced to the system.
 
I had several types of oxidated beer and it almost adds body, it definitely didn't made my beer more thin.
I would measure OG (without the co2 bubbles) maybe it is an infection.
 
i did my normal sparge which is at 170 and same amount of water for that as well. i used a full pound of black patent so maybe that's what i'm tasting? i've never used more than a half pound, with other dark malts however...

gonna wait till the 3 week mark to check gravity (would have done it before when i opened it up but couldn't find my hydrometer). i'm hoping it'll cool down a bit and clean up some as well.

lol, very nice alane. what would a brett infection taste like?
 
I've found that Patent malt adds quite a bit of astringency not used sparingly. I don't know if that's what you've got going on but I've had that problem before. I don't think that oxygen would have had a great effect yet, maybe down the road but not quite yet. Also, I'm thinking that the CO2 barrier created during fermentation would have protected you from any O2 getting in from a loose cap.

I've gotten away from Patent all together and switched to using Carafa II Special. It's de-husked and provides a nice roast character without all the bitterness and astringency.
 
Brett can throw some really weird flavors but now that you mention it I've never used Black patent in excess of a few oz. Heat usually mellows with time. Whenever I do a dipa it takes about 5 weeks total to really clean up nice. It sounds like green flavors. Give it another week in the primary and another 2 weeks to keg condition/carb and you'll probably be tasting a different beer. Cheers
 
I agree that it is Brett or house bug (worse). My own house bug tasted like what you are describing. Luckily I was able to kill it off. I hope you can cure your problem.
 
If it tastes or smells phenolic (Band-aids) or overly bitter, then it's probably a wild yeast infection. How long was it open? Open ferment's not a problem if it's a week or so, cuz of the CO2 produced purging the system. But once CO2 production slows down, air will diffuse in.
 
i actually kegged it a couple days ago and it most definitely mellowed out quite a bit. very glad i'm kegging now so i can take a chance and just rack to keg instead of bottling for hours just to spend as long emptying out infected nastiness. so we'll see how well it holds up once carbed, however it's looking good.

it must have been all the black malt mixed with a lot of yeast being in suspension, due to pulling a sample slightly over 1 week of fermentation.
 
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