Beer tastes like meat????

[Calder]

Roughly brew number 400. Just racked to secondary (to harvest yeast before dry hopping), and sampled the beer.

I don't really know how to characterize the flavor, but it tastes like meat to me. Not very pleasant, maybe similar to meat that came out of the freezer and is oxidized (old, stale).

Brew is a Pale Ale with Citra and home grown Cascade. Used yeast from Bruery HUMULUS TERREUX beer. It is brett yeast, first time I have used this particular yeast. The commercial beer was great. Fermented in the low 80s.

The recipe is very similar to a beer I made a couple of months ago that is excellent. It used homegrown Cascade with Amarillo, and Trois yeast fermented at 76 F. Otherwise the recipes were very similar.

This taste is so bad that I'm wondering if it is destined for the drain. I'll wait a couple of weeks to decide that. I'll drink almost anything, it has been over 300 brews since I last poured a batch down the drain ... it is that bad.

I wish I could describe the taste/flavor better. Any thoughts?

 

[bueschen]

Well, you did mention that it tasted like "meat that came out of the freezer and is oxidized".
Could you have gotten a bit splashy when you transferred it to your fermentation vessel?

 

[JimRausch]

You harvested the yeast from a bottle? Then grew it up, I assume? Unless you were exceptionally careful, then a contamination is quite possible. I suspect you might have some foul-tasting bugs in there. I've harvested twice in the past, and used a microscope to check on what I got. The 1st attempt had a mix of yeast and a couple different types of bacteria (wasn't supposed to be there). The 2nd time I was more careful and treated with chlorine dioxide before growing things out (read about this technique somewhere). Much more successful the 2nd time around.

 

[JimRausch]

Hopefully, if you give it some time, the off-flavor will moderate.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

Hopefully, if you give it some time, the off-flavor will moderate.

...or get worse...


It doesn't sound to attractive, Best of luck.

 

[Yooper]

“Meat” or even “hot dogs” is a classic description of autolysis.

 

[SleepyCreekBrews]

“Meat” or even “hot dogs” is a classic description of autolysis.

That's very interesting Yooper.

Calder, care to comment on the temp and duration of the primary fermentation ?

 

[Hayden512]

I get bacon or smoke out of some Brett beers. Could possibly just be part of the yeast character

 

[Sailingeric]

Some carbed in bottle beers use different yeast for the bottle carbing. Brulosphy had a write on a beer that he used some dregs and the beer came out awful because of the different yeast.

http://brulosophy.com/2014/12/04/seeking-the-source-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Murphys_Law]

I get that every time I dry hop with beef jerky.

 

[Calder]

You harvested the yeast from a bottle? Then grew it up, I assume? Unless you were exceptionally careful, then a contamination is quite possible. I suspect you might have some foul-tasting bugs in there.

I don't think contamination is an issue. Yeast dregs took off quickly. Yes, there are probably other bacteria in there, but the yeast took off so well that there is almost zero chance of some other bug causing the off flavor in such a short time. Thanks for the suggestion.

That's very interesting Yooper.

Calder, care to comment on the temp and duration of the primary fermentation ?

Primary was 2 weeks. My standard process. I usually go 4 weeks from brew to bottle; just the schedule I have.

Fermentation was in the low 80s. I am not familiar with this particular Brett, but most like it in the 80s.

Nothing happened to this brew to oxidize it (nothing different from normal - went just like normal).

 

[behindthetimes]

I got a similar profile once from a brew session with a lot of homegrown/homedried Cascades. I decided it was isovaleric acid from the hops. It did age out.

 

[jtrentpearson]

I had a beer recently that reminded me of salami. they said it was a combination of the smoked malts and simcoe. it was odd but i enjoyed it.

 

[jtp137]

I actually get that flavor from great lakes dortmunder gold