Cider/ Fruity taste in Oktoberfest

[CDO4life]

This was my second batch of beer and the first time I used the seconday fermentor in a carboy. I let the batch primary ferment for a week then siphoned over to the carboy for two weeks. I bottled and let it sit in my closet for another two weeks. I opened the first one and it poured well and had a good head. The first aroma I got was an odd sweet / cider smell. I then drank it and it had the same taste and I was highly dissapointed. It is about a week later and most of the bottles are in my closet. Will these get any better with time? Should I keep them in my closet or the fridge?

Also I just but a batch of English ole Pecuiliar in my seconday fermantator an I want to dry hopp it. should I bag the hops or just dropp them in?

 

[WBC]

You most likely got a lot of esters which are generated by the yeast at higher temperatures of fermentation. Fermentation for ales are better around a constant 65-67F. Yes the beer gets better with age but if there is too many esters it will only be slightly reduced. If you used sanitizer on everything that touched the beer after the boil then it should not be infected with anything. Most home brewers do not use secondary carboys any more and leave it alone in the primary up to 2 to 3 weeks to let the yeast condition the beer. You can dry hop in the primary after 7 days or in a secondary. I leave the hops in the primary (loose-"no bag") for 7 to 14 days and then keg or bottle.

 

[Yooper]

Good advice there from WBC.

If you want to try to figure out where the cidery taste is coming from, you could post your recipe and your techniques and what you did along with the type of yeast and the temperatures of the wort/beer, and I bet we could pick it out. Or, at least we can try!

 

[GeorgeH]

Traditionally Oktoberfests are lagers, which means their yeast is best at 45-55 deg. F. If you fermented this batch at higher ale temps you would get esters, which are a fruity taste. That's why the people above want to know what yeast you used and what temperature you fermented at.

You can also read about off flavors at http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Traditionally Oktoberfests are lagers, which means their yeast is best at 45-55 deg. F. If you fermented this batch at higher ale temps you would get esters, which are a fruity taste. That's why the people above want to know what yeast you used and what temperature you fermented at.

That explains why I dumped the last batch of mine

Out of curiosity, when bottled, should the temp be 45-55 or higher?

 

[TexLaw]

If you used an "Oktoberfest" yeast, which is a lager yeast, and fermented in your closet, you probably also got some acetaldehyde in there. Acetaldehyde tastes and smells like green apples, so that may be where the cidery aroma and flavor comes from. In time, the yeast also will clean up that acetaldehyde, but it may take a while and it may not all get cleaned up.


TL

 

[CDO4life]

Thaks for the replys. I used A kit and it had coopers LME along with dark DME. I m not sure of the yeast. I feel stupid for not taking closer measures and records. The only contaimanation could have come from a slightly under sterilized siphon. Also the car boy got suck in a bottling bucket and it got shuck up a lot unsticking it, so i was not sure if it was from oxidation.


Also I have a very dark Ole peculier in my closet in the secondary fermenting at about 70( Current house temp). It is a very dark color and looks great. I was wondering if this temp is too hot beacause I do not want the same problem occuring( slight sweet/ cider taste). The ingredients are:
6 lbs dark DME
8oz molasses
Specialty malts steeped
Chocolate mwalt
Crystal Malt - 60 L
Roasted Marley
2 Oz progress bittering hops
1 tablet whirlfloc

Also I have 1 oz of Fuggle Plugs that I am going to add with out a bag 1 week prior to bottleing.


Any suggetions that could improve this method?

 

[CDO4life]

This is the dry yeast I used with the English Ole Peculiar


WINDSOR ALE YEAST 11gm

 

[WBC]

If your closet is 70+ then it is too hot. It is too late to do anything now but on your next batch you can place the primary bucket or carboy inside another pail and add water and ice as necessary to maintain fermentation temperatures. Ales like 65F to 67F You need to keep a very even temperature for best results. When you ferment too high you get more esters produced from the yeast. These are the off flavors you get by doing this. A refrigerator with a temperature control is the best though. Note that it is not easy to make a lager without refrigeration as you need to keep the fermentation at 50 to 55 F the whole time.

 

[Pez]

My first brew was a Light ale kit with Safale-04 dry yeast. My closet was about 75-80 degrees and I ended up with a cidery taste. I'm gonna leave it in the bottle longer to give the yeast some time, but I'm sure the temperature was my problem.

 

[Joe Camel]

This relates to a question I asked a while back. The temperature range quoted for ale and lager yeast is for the wort, not the air.

For the first week of active fermentation, the wort will be 10 - 15F higher than room temperature, so if you want to ferment the wort at 65-70F, your closet should be around 50 - 60F. Any higher than that and the yeast will start producing off flavors.

After krausen drops off, the wort temp and air temp will be more or less the same.

 

[mykayel]

This relates to a question I asked a while back. The temperature range quoted for ale and lager yeast is for the wort, not the air.

For the first week of active fermentation, the wort will be 10 - 15F higher than room temperature, so if you want to ferment the wort at 65-70F, your closet should be around 50 - 60F. Any higher than that and the yeast will start producing off flavors.

After krausen drops off, the wort temp and air temp will be more or less the same.

The BEER temp (it is beer once you've added yeast, right?) is only about 2-3 degrees higer than the outside air temp from my experince; get a stick on thermometer and that will give you a very close temp reading of the beer that you can compair to the air temp.

You many consider making a fermentation box (son of a fermentation chiller http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF) so that you can control your temps better.

Take good notes of your process when you brew, this will allow you to look back at what you did and adjust for the next time.