Bottle headspace affects flavor?

[Timberline]

I'm drinking some of the last few beers from my first ever batch. I've been pleased with how it turned out and exceeded my expectation for my first attempt. I'm even more pleased that a couple of my fellow beer snob friends literally raved over the beer and were blown away by it. I think that might be more an indication of me, than the beer - "YOU made this???" If it matters it was a BB extract kit for their hazelnut winter amber.

Being my first batch, I did not get uniform headspacing in the bottles. Out of nine bottles a couple were out of spec with the headspacing less than 10mm below the cap. I did much better in my second batch after a few tips here.

In drinking them, I intentionally left the poorly headspaced ones toward the end - mostly because I wanted an apples-to-apples comparison as I evaluated the changes over time. What I found is the poorly headspaced beers were notably inferior in taste, not drastic but certainly noticeable to a noobrewer. I expected the carbonation to be different and I think it was but why is the flavor of the beers so much different for a too little headspaced bottled beer?

 

[Pantherjon]

No where for the yeasties to put their CO2? Essentially they can't fart properly..Just a WAG..

In other words, I don't know, but seems plausible..

 

[helibrewer]

Leaving them until the end might be part of the problem. Maybe the "proper" headspaced beers would taste different also after the same amount of aging. Flavor definitely changes with time, particularly if flavor extracts were used (hazelnut for example). Beer tends to get sweeter/maltier with age and the hop influence decreases with time also.

 

[Timberline]

No where for the yeasties to put their CO2? Essentially they can't fart properly..Just a WAG..

Just the opposite - the low headspaced bottles were slightly over carbonated compared to the "normal" bottles. So they farted just fine and with less headspace more of it was absorbed by the beer. I wish I'd thought about in advanced to see if I noticed a difference in the "pssht" sound opening the two beers though.

Leaving them until the end might be part of the problem. Maybe the "proper" headspaced beers would taste different also after the same amount of aging.

Well I had two back to back - one with improper headspace and one with proper headspace, same age. The latter tasted significantly better.


Hell, I don't know ....maybe it's just my imagination or the extra carbonation playing tricks on me.

 

[oceanic_brew]

Carbonation always brings out a different flavor profile as it increases. My Belgians are boring a lifeless until highly carbonated. On the flip side I've had brews that tasted delicious in the hydrometer (I wasn't in there personally) but then when carbonated a lot of off flavors came to the front.

 

[GrizzlyBrews]

I'm drinking some of the last few beers from my first ever batch. I've been pleased with how it turned out and exceeded my expectation for my first attempt. I'm even more pleased that a couple of my fellow beer snob friends literally raved over the beer and were blown away by it. I think that might be more an indication of me, than the beer - "YOU made this???" If it matters it was a BB extract kit for their hazelnut winter amber.

Being my first batch, I did not get uniform headspacing in the bottles. Out of nine bottles a couple were out of spec with the headspacing less than 10mm below the cap. I did much better in my second batch after a few tips here.

In drinking them, I intentionally left the poorly headspaced ones toward the end - mostly because I wanted an apples-to-apples comparison as I evaluated the changes over time. What I found is the poorly headspaced beers were notably inferior in taste, not drastic but certainly noticeable to a noobrewer. I expected the carbonation to be different and I think it was but why is the flavor of the beers so much different for a too little headspaced bottled beer?

Unless you're purging bottles with CO2 before bottling, you're going to have some oxygen in there . The bottles with more head space may well be slightly more oxidised than those with less head space.

Oxidised beer can range form having diminished flavours to full on wet cardboard tastes.

As others have noted, the carbonation also lifts flavour. You could have an oxidised beer that was well carbonated that would have better flavour than similar beer that was less carbonated.

Flavour is a complicated interplay between so many different factors.

Hope this helps.