Deacon1856
Well-Known Member
If there's one thing I can say about this hobby of ours, it's that to brew is to learn. Well friends, I have learned about extract twang.
I brewed a Rogue Hazelnut clone a couple of weeks ago. Everything went ok except for the fact that my cousin (non-homebrewer of course) came over during my mash and started the 20 question routine. He's my best friend and best man in my wedding, so I wanted him to try and understand my obsession. Long story short - I forgot to put my immersion chiller in the boil at 15. I put it in at flame-out. It had been sitting in Star-San for a couple of hours so I'm pretty sure it was ok...just one of those things that works on my psyche.
I digress..
Fast forward 3 weeks when I'm putting it into the keg. Now instead of putting in the 1/8 oz of hazelnut extract the recipe calls for, I decide to put in 1 oz of pure vanilla extract. Because seriously...who are they? Who knows better than me?? Sure I got the recipe second hand from THE GUY WHO DESIGNED IT BUT WHAT COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW THAT I DONT??
I'll tell you what he knows. 1 oz of ANY extract would be too much in this beer. It is a VANILLA BOMB. I love vanilla. It's my favorite scent. It is NOT, however, my favorite flavor in this beer. It's overpowering. It's like a sasquatch crawled into my mouth and took a giant vanilla-flavored ****e. And the aftertaste...OH THE AFTERTASTE. Extract. Twizzle-twangy-cover-your-eyes-awful. I keep hoping that it will recede a bit given some time, but I am unconvinced.
The ****e of it is that the beer would have been REALLY good without the vanilla. Maybe one of the best I've brewed thus-far. But one would find it almost impossible to look past the vanilla.
I've let two of my friends try it and they actually like it. Which is surprising because they are straight BMC all day long. I, on the other hand, am considering dumping it even though it would hurt my soul immensely to do so.
Just thought I'd share. Learn from me. 1 oz of vanilla in a brown ale is TOO TOO TOO TOO MUCH. I'm sure I didn't have to tell anyone that. It's probably common knowledge to everyone but me, but hey...if I ain't doing it the hard way I ain't doing it.
/vent
I brewed a Rogue Hazelnut clone a couple of weeks ago. Everything went ok except for the fact that my cousin (non-homebrewer of course) came over during my mash and started the 20 question routine. He's my best friend and best man in my wedding, so I wanted him to try and understand my obsession. Long story short - I forgot to put my immersion chiller in the boil at 15. I put it in at flame-out. It had been sitting in Star-San for a couple of hours so I'm pretty sure it was ok...just one of those things that works on my psyche.
I digress..
Fast forward 3 weeks when I'm putting it into the keg. Now instead of putting in the 1/8 oz of hazelnut extract the recipe calls for, I decide to put in 1 oz of pure vanilla extract. Because seriously...who are they? Who knows better than me?? Sure I got the recipe second hand from THE GUY WHO DESIGNED IT BUT WHAT COULD HE POSSIBLY KNOW THAT I DONT??
I'll tell you what he knows. 1 oz of ANY extract would be too much in this beer. It is a VANILLA BOMB. I love vanilla. It's my favorite scent. It is NOT, however, my favorite flavor in this beer. It's overpowering. It's like a sasquatch crawled into my mouth and took a giant vanilla-flavored ****e. And the aftertaste...OH THE AFTERTASTE. Extract. Twizzle-twangy-cover-your-eyes-awful. I keep hoping that it will recede a bit given some time, but I am unconvinced.
The ****e of it is that the beer would have been REALLY good without the vanilla. Maybe one of the best I've brewed thus-far. But one would find it almost impossible to look past the vanilla.
I've let two of my friends try it and they actually like it. Which is surprising because they are straight BMC all day long. I, on the other hand, am considering dumping it even though it would hurt my soul immensely to do so.
Just thought I'd share. Learn from me. 1 oz of vanilla in a brown ale is TOO TOO TOO TOO MUCH. I'm sure I didn't have to tell anyone that. It's probably common knowledge to everyone but me, but hey...if I ain't doing it the hard way I ain't doing it.
/vent