After boil is complete and the wort is chilled to 75 degrees I add three gallons of bottled spring water (Talawanda if it matters) to my wort to bring it up to 5 gallons. Does that last three gallons added after the boil need to be boiled as well and then cooled before adding or is that good to go right out of the jug? I got a funny green apple type taste/aroma and was thinking about the cause. Everything else gets Starsan to death. Only thing going in or in contact with wort is the top off water. Is that likely the culprit?
Boil all water for partial mash?
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If you're using bottled water, no need to boil it.
A "funny green apple taste/aroma" usually comes from two places- one is in young beer, as it's an intermediate flavor compound. If that's the cause, a bit of aging will fix it. The other place it can come from is in the form of "esters"- generally caused by a too high fermentation temperature. That usually doesn't age out, but it could fade a tiny bit.
Thank you Yooper. The only other thing I can think of is the time it took to cool to pitching temp. When I moved up to 5 gallons my sink did not do the trick and that green apple smelling batch took about an hour to cool. This time I used a swamp cooler filled with ice/water and that brought it down in about 20. Just brewed a chocolate stout. I hope it works this time.
Might have been esters. I was making an oktoberfest marzen kit from ahs. The yeast that came with it was a lager yeast but they specifically said in directions that it could also ferment at room temperature. Now the days I brewed it, it was very warm and the basement might have been around 74 degrees plus that batch took an hour to get to pitching temp, that might have been a double wammy. The airlock did not go crazy as my other batches had but those were 1 gallon batches in a one gallon carboy. That bad batch I moved up to five gallons in a 7 gallon bucket so I would not need a blow off tube. It did not have nearly the same airlock action or bubble for nearly as long. I attributed that to the extra head space in the bucket and figured that was the reason. Starting to think it never even fermented properly.
On that Oktoberfest Marzen, AHS recommned White Labs 820. It was a liquid, I had it sent with cold pack, and I used a yeast starter they recommended. I am thinking it was the overall heat of the house and time to cool to pitch...any other ideas?
That seems right. And, if you only used one package, it could have been underpitched besides, and that would add to the stressed yeast.
A too-warm fermentation temperature, too warm pitching temperature, and underpitching could easily combine to create some off-flavors. In fact, I would expect it with fermenting a lager at room temperature. 74 degrees room temperature is even too warm for an ale yeast, usually.
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