We have been through all the several parts of our brewing process to identify the problem....but since an overwhelming (overwhelming means that the beer is totally drinkable, acceptable...but the still unfermented beer actually tastes better...which is not acceptable. By the way....the beer doesnt smell estery at all..it is just the taste.) estery taste appear at 2nd week of bottlecarbing. It must be something then we do/add at bottling. Here is a recipe just to show that our process is okay when it comes to beer brewing. Our method is BIAB.
We suppose it is ester..because our beer after 2 or 3 weeks tastes like a German wheatbeer or almost like a strong Belgian beer full of fruity aromas...that you dont really want such taste in an American pale ale.
We have tried to troubleshoot ourselves.....our ideas are these:
-we use active oxygen to sanitize during the bottling (also during the cold side of the brewing). Maybe we overdo it or something, but active oxygen doesnt have a taste to start with and on top of this, the spoilage should be present from the very beginning then, right? Not only after 2 weeks or so.
-temperature....the temperature can be really high here in the summer.....basically some of our beers bottlecarbed at 77 F (which is the upper limit for the S05 and safeale S4), but the latest batch bottlecarbed at 68F which is ideal. I must say we have used several strains of yeasts and depending on the yeast, this estery flavour seemed to be more or in some cases less present. S05 seems to produce less of it.
-another think we were considering is the table sugar. I basically go down to the local market here in Spain and grab a 2-pound bag of table sugar. Take it home, boil the amount needed in water for 10 minutes, let it cool and use it for priming. I use an online calculator to calculate how much we need. We usually put around 80 grams 3 oz per batch (really depends on batch size, CO2 volume we want, etc..but that is our average). To be honest......when we tried the latest batch after a week, it had nice little bubbles in it...it tasted smooth and you could identify the extra malts, hops (especially the dryhops), but after 2 or 3 weeks...the bubbles are big like in a soda...and the tastes are difficult to identify....it becomes a simple beer from some good that it used to be after a week.
-oxidazation... I suppose that this could be one problem too, but I know nothing about this. Maybe when we siphon from bucket to bottle....we introduce oxygen that later on damages the beer. I am pretty sure we introduce no oxygen at all when we siphon from the main fermentor to the bottling bucket. We submerge the tube always.
-yeast health. This is one thing that has crossed our minds too....but lately we have been really careful with how we pitch and all the different aspects of rehydrating our yeast. The yeast strain itself should not be an issue because we have used 2-3 different strains and they all seem to produce this estery flavour, but in different strengths.
-scratches in the plastic fermentors? We have a few scratches at the bottom of our fermentor. Maybe the beer gets infected by bacteria we can't remove with active oxygen....but then why does it only appear at the bottle carbing parrt of our process?
-wrong way to bottle condition. We basically wait 2-3 weeks for the beer to carbonate, but then we leave them at room temperature. We actually dont put the bottles in the fridge. So, the yeast doesnt go dormant. Could this be the problem? This is one of the reasons that I find likely.
Well, these are all our ideas. We would really appreciate if someone could help us with this.
By the way....sanitization couldnt be an issue either....we are extremely careful with it.
We suppose it is ester..because our beer after 2 or 3 weeks tastes like a German wheatbeer or almost like a strong Belgian beer full of fruity aromas...that you dont really want such taste in an American pale ale.
We have tried to troubleshoot ourselves.....our ideas are these:
-we use active oxygen to sanitize during the bottling (also during the cold side of the brewing). Maybe we overdo it or something, but active oxygen doesnt have a taste to start with and on top of this, the spoilage should be present from the very beginning then, right? Not only after 2 weeks or so.
-temperature....the temperature can be really high here in the summer.....basically some of our beers bottlecarbed at 77 F (which is the upper limit for the S05 and safeale S4), but the latest batch bottlecarbed at 68F which is ideal. I must say we have used several strains of yeasts and depending on the yeast, this estery flavour seemed to be more or in some cases less present. S05 seems to produce less of it.
-another think we were considering is the table sugar. I basically go down to the local market here in Spain and grab a 2-pound bag of table sugar. Take it home, boil the amount needed in water for 10 minutes, let it cool and use it for priming. I use an online calculator to calculate how much we need. We usually put around 80 grams 3 oz per batch (really depends on batch size, CO2 volume we want, etc..but that is our average). To be honest......when we tried the latest batch after a week, it had nice little bubbles in it...it tasted smooth and you could identify the extra malts, hops (especially the dryhops), but after 2 or 3 weeks...the bubbles are big like in a soda...and the tastes are difficult to identify....it becomes a simple beer from some good that it used to be after a week.
-oxidazation... I suppose that this could be one problem too, but I know nothing about this. Maybe when we siphon from bucket to bottle....we introduce oxygen that later on damages the beer. I am pretty sure we introduce no oxygen at all when we siphon from the main fermentor to the bottling bucket. We submerge the tube always.
-yeast health. This is one thing that has crossed our minds too....but lately we have been really careful with how we pitch and all the different aspects of rehydrating our yeast. The yeast strain itself should not be an issue because we have used 2-3 different strains and they all seem to produce this estery flavour, but in different strengths.
-scratches in the plastic fermentors? We have a few scratches at the bottom of our fermentor. Maybe the beer gets infected by bacteria we can't remove with active oxygen....but then why does it only appear at the bottle carbing parrt of our process?
-wrong way to bottle condition. We basically wait 2-3 weeks for the beer to carbonate, but then we leave them at room temperature. We actually dont put the bottles in the fridge. So, the yeast doesnt go dormant. Could this be the problem? This is one of the reasons that I find likely.
Well, these are all our ideas. We would really appreciate if someone could help us with this.
By the way....sanitization couldnt be an issue either....we are extremely careful with it.
