Cucumber Honey Summer Ale

[boomtown25]

Ok Ninjas:

Just a update and feel free to comment. I bottled my Cucumber Summer Ale last night and while I know the rules that beer needs carbonation and conditioning to allow all flavors to mend together, I gott be honest when I say I have some initial concerns on if this is going to turn around. I built the grain bill myself so that could easily be the problem if there is one, but it smelled/tasted like cucumbers and oddly enough peanut butter. Beautiful light amber/straw color, but I had a hell of a time racking it and lost a great deal of the 5 gallon batch to absorbtion into the cucumber as well as the trub/yeast just gave me hell at the end. I rack into the bottling bucket using an auto siphon with a paint strainer bag around end with a zip tie holding it on. While I have done this before and racking went easy, this time the paint strainer bag kept getting clogged and cutting of the siphon within minutes. My strained wort was still very cloudy. I finally got about 4 to 4/12 gallons and quit. I think I bottled about a case and 3 six packs. Here is the recipe I used so let me know if your thoughts on this grain bill. I was super excited at first, but not so sure now. WIll definitely be giving this one three weeks in the bottle plus a few days in the fridge before sampling:

6 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Vienna
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb Honey Malt
Yeast: Nottingham dry yeast
OG was around 1.050
FG was around 1.010

Fermented for 10 days
Added 3.5 lbs peeled and de-seeded diced cucumbers after fermentation for probably around another 12 days
temp was around 70 degrees (I'm sure it sometimes got higher, maybe even up to 75)
I was going for a light crisp cucumber flavor with a clean finish, but I think there is going to have to be a lot of clearing and mending of flavors for this to happen. Thoughts and comments are welcome!

 

[JLem]

Interesting idea, though not sure I would pair cucumbers with beer. What was your hop schedule?

Other than too high a fermentation temp (though not too bad), I don't see any red flags or why you would taste peanut butter. I suppose there could be some oxidation from your siphon/strainer issues, but even that's a reach I think. Give it more time to condition. Might turn out to be a keeper.

PS I'm a pirate, not a ninja

 

[boomtown25]

Same thoughts I had about the oxydation. Completely forgot to mention my hop schedule:

.25 oz saaz- 60 minutes
.75 oz saaz- 30 minutes
.50 oz saaz- 10 minutes

 

[nilo]

I agree that oxydation may have been an issue in your case. I found that installing a spigot to the fermenter and transferring the beer by gravity is so much easier than a siphon, even though some argue on the extra contamination issues that a spigot can cause ( I had none after 70 batches using a spigot).
Regarding off flavors in your beer, just give it time. I had batches that I would dump after 2 weeks bottle conditioned that turned very drinkable with just extra 2 weeks.

 

[boomtown25]

Well I don't think oxydation is a problem YET, but may be. I did not rack into a secondary. The problems I had with racking was last night when I was racking into the bottling bucket, so yes- I think that could have introduced oxygen into my beer, but we are not yet to that point.