Hi everyone, I bottled a 1 gallon pilsner 3 weeks ago and noticed it had an off flavour that wasn't present earlier. The best diagnosis I could come up with was diacetyl and I asked around here and that was the general vibe. I did do a diacetyl rest sor a few days before cold crashing, but since this was my first lager I put this down to a learning experience.
Then my second lager came out with the same flavour, though not as strong. This one annoyed me a bit since I had carefully started ramping up the temps well before full attenuation and given it a very good d-rest at ale temperatures. Again put it down to learning, decided to leave it a while before I do any more lagers.
Imagine my surprise when I take a gravity reading on my ESB and it also has the same flavour! I didn't even realise diacetyl was a thing with ales. This ESB was given a good healthy pitch of Wyeast 1450 Denny's favourite and took 7 days to hit FG. It's now day 16, it's been on the temp controller the whole time at 19-20c. I was planning to cold-crash it now and bottle on day 19.
The off-taste itself is subtle, less of a flavour but a strange texture in the mouth. Best I can describe it is that it feels like something coating my teeth and lips when I drink, maybe an oily / soapy feel to it. It makes the beer taste a little uncomfortable. I could have diagnosed this incorrectly, I have no other experience with diacetly to compare with.
Now this is just the gravity sample and maybe I need to RDWHAHB, and to be fair I haven't tasted the pilsner yet to see if those flavours cleared up. Sometimes things just get better after carbonation. But if there's something wrong with my process then it would be good to get it sorted before I do too many more batches. Aside from these 3 batches, other brews have come out really great.
I have been very careful with sanitation, anything touching the beer post boil gets cleaned and liberally sprayed with starsan. There is no funky residue on the top of the beer or any other signs of infection.
If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate the input, otherwise I guess I'll bottle it and see if this goes away over time.
Then my second lager came out with the same flavour, though not as strong. This one annoyed me a bit since I had carefully started ramping up the temps well before full attenuation and given it a very good d-rest at ale temperatures. Again put it down to learning, decided to leave it a while before I do any more lagers.
Imagine my surprise when I take a gravity reading on my ESB and it also has the same flavour! I didn't even realise diacetyl was a thing with ales. This ESB was given a good healthy pitch of Wyeast 1450 Denny's favourite and took 7 days to hit FG. It's now day 16, it's been on the temp controller the whole time at 19-20c. I was planning to cold-crash it now and bottle on day 19.
The off-taste itself is subtle, less of a flavour but a strange texture in the mouth. Best I can describe it is that it feels like something coating my teeth and lips when I drink, maybe an oily / soapy feel to it. It makes the beer taste a little uncomfortable. I could have diagnosed this incorrectly, I have no other experience with diacetly to compare with.
Now this is just the gravity sample and maybe I need to RDWHAHB, and to be fair I haven't tasted the pilsner yet to see if those flavours cleared up. Sometimes things just get better after carbonation. But if there's something wrong with my process then it would be good to get it sorted before I do too many more batches. Aside from these 3 batches, other brews have come out really great.
I have been very careful with sanitation, anything touching the beer post boil gets cleaned and liberally sprayed with starsan. There is no funky residue on the top of the beer or any other signs of infection.
If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate the input, otherwise I guess I'll bottle it and see if this goes away over time.