polkaishot
Member
SO and I made our first batch back at the end of May. It was an amber ale made with Muntons LME. Two things that I KNOW went wrong with it after having made two batches since then:
1. What we thought was a boiling temperature (due to our own ignorance at the time) was the most we let the wort go; I don't remember what the temperature was.. but needless to say the wort never actually got a rolling boil like we've let our other batches get to.
2. We misread our thermometer and accidentally pitched the yeast 10 degrees too high; 80 instead of 70.
Well, we had it going in the fermenter for about 10 days (thats what the instructions said to do) and then bottled. At the time of bottling, iirc the taste was fine (maybe a little sweet). Fwiw, we also used Munton's Carbtabs for carbonation.
We finally tried our first bottle a week later (obviously expecting it to be a bit green, but we wanted to see if the carbtabs had worked). The taste at the time was very strongly of alcohol, but we just assumed it was that the beer was too green and not ready. Waited a few weeks.. still tasted a bit strongly of alcohol.
It's been almost two months (on Aug 7th) since we bottled our beer. Its got a sour-ish taste and almost kind of taste too strongly of alcohol still. We want to let it sit to see if maybe it'll ever actually fix itself or if its long ruined.
The SO read about dry hopping "ruined" beer, so we've been considering doing that. Still gonna let it sit around for a few more weeks, just incase it can fix itself, but it worse comes to worse- is this a good idea? Also, does it matter that the beer is already carb'd?
1. What we thought was a boiling temperature (due to our own ignorance at the time) was the most we let the wort go; I don't remember what the temperature was.. but needless to say the wort never actually got a rolling boil like we've let our other batches get to.
2. We misread our thermometer and accidentally pitched the yeast 10 degrees too high; 80 instead of 70.
Well, we had it going in the fermenter for about 10 days (thats what the instructions said to do) and then bottled. At the time of bottling, iirc the taste was fine (maybe a little sweet). Fwiw, we also used Munton's Carbtabs for carbonation.
We finally tried our first bottle a week later (obviously expecting it to be a bit green, but we wanted to see if the carbtabs had worked). The taste at the time was very strongly of alcohol, but we just assumed it was that the beer was too green and not ready. Waited a few weeks.. still tasted a bit strongly of alcohol.
It's been almost two months (on Aug 7th) since we bottled our beer. Its got a sour-ish taste and almost kind of taste too strongly of alcohol still. We want to let it sit to see if maybe it'll ever actually fix itself or if its long ruined.
The SO read about dry hopping "ruined" beer, so we've been considering doing that. Still gonna let it sit around for a few more weeks, just incase it can fix itself, but it worse comes to worse- is this a good idea? Also, does it matter that the beer is already carb'd?