First drain pour: 14oz of hops gone...

[serum67]

I don't get it. I have never had a a bad beer, or at least an undrinkable one. Had an overall normal brew day, but used so many hops that it jammed up my ball valve. Ended up pouring through an un-sanitized strainer (i know, rookie mistake ). Then I pitched some harvested yeast. When I transferred from primary to the clearing bucket, it smelled and tasted a little off. Wanting to be positive, I transferred anyway and dry hopped with 6oz. Fast forward to tasting it: rubber-band / belgian / sour aroma and burnt tire taste. Tears rolled down as I poured the entire 5 gallons down the drain...

And now: did another batch in my new SS conical. My OG was 15 brix and 4 days into ferment, it's @ 19 brix. WTF>!? I'm going to re-calibrate my refractometer tonight and take another reading with a hydrometer too...

 

[middleofnowhere]

how long was it from dry hop to tasting?

 

[serum67]

7 days with 3oz then 5 more days with 3oz. cold crashed, kegged, force carbed then served 24hrs later. I have done this with 6oz of hops before and it was fine. I'm pretty sure it was the yeast. Which is weird because I did another batch with the same harvest and it was fine. I'm pretty sure it was from either the unsanitized strainer or my plastic buckets. I don't know. I'm at a loss...

 

[gubby]

Did you have a newbie brewing with you? If so, they are very bad luck. That could've been the problem.

 

[serum67]

How did you know?! I was teaching my friend All-Grain. Wow, it really must be that...

 

[Bobby_M]

Are you using the post ferment correction spreadsheet for your brix readings? Once it starts fermenting, you can't just read the value on the refractometer directly and expect it to be correct. The alcohol is messing with the measurement.

 

[Walker]

It's not just newbies. I tend to fukc something up whenever ANYONE is there with me, even if they are a veteran brewer. I think my problem is that I tend to talk to that person instead of paying attention to what I am doing.

It's usually small stuff that I miss (forget to add irish moss, get hops added a few minutes later than intended, etc), but there is always SOMETHING that I do wrong.

 

[serum67]

@BobbyM: Yeah, I am using this calculator from Eric in my Homebrew club:

http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml

It always seems to happen to me to. Especially this time b/c he was asking TONS of questions and I was going through everything with him. He is new and jumping straight into All-Grain so he had a ton of "Why are we doing it like this" questions. When my friends are over while i'm brewing I always either forget to add whirlfloc or take my OG etc...

 

[gubby]

It always seems to happen to me to. Especially this time b/c he was asking TONS of questions and I was going through everything with him. He is new and jumping straight into All-Grain so he had a ton of "Why are we doing it like this" questions. When my friends are over while i'm brewing I always either forget to add whirlfloc or take my OG etc...

This guy sounds like a real tool. Let me guess, he's some engineering student that has to know how everything works. They are the worst.

 

[serum67]

LOL. yes, it was. hmm I wonder how you knew GUBBY? Hey AJ, I thought you would be on here by now. It's all good, it was probably the harvested yeast anyway...

 

[drawdy10]

I just bottled a beer that tasted like crap tonight, I'm gonna let it age for at least 6 months tasting it every once in a while before i do a drain pour, who knows it may turn around.....

 

[AmandaK]

Holy Batman this is an old thread!!

drawdy, can you elaborate on the "tasted like crap" diagnosis?