Getting the beer canned tomorrow, but...

[sstought]

I recently made a Guinness knockoff beer, using LME, soured Guinness, some adjunct grains, and some hops. Its gone from 1.056 to 1.012, and tomorrow its getting canned at the brewery. However, when I took out the bit of beer for the hydrometer test, it tasted like... nothing. Nothing at all. It tasted like water with a slight aftertaste. It wasn't sweet, which was good because now I'm sure its fermented as much as I wanted, and it does have the dark dark black colour I wanted, but it had no taste. It had been chilled for a few minutes, but that was the only thing I did to it when I took it out of the carboy.

Should I worry? Will I not be able to gauge its flavour until its been carbonated?

 

[Kungpaodog]

I'm gonna guess that you have some experience if you are canning at a brewery (cool!!), but here's my experience. Whenever I taste a beer after fermentation and before bottling, it usually has a stronger flavor than after it has bottle conditioned. The hops mellow in the bottle a bit, and some less-than-desirable flavors usually go away. Carbonation also gives the beer an impression of being more bitter than when it was flat, so that changes the profile a bit, as well.

You should probably can it since messing with it right now could be worse than leaving it alone, and then use this batch as a data point for the next batch. But in my small scale batches (5 gal) I don't think I ever had a beer get MORE flavor in bottles

Let us know how it turns out, and good luck!

 

[sstought]

Well, looks like my fears were for not. The beer got bottled (not canned, the machine was broken) in a giant comedy of errors.

It was a small batch, and got over CO2'd, so much of the beer was lost in the initial tinkering to get the CO2 levels correct. The first few attempts to bottle told us that every bottle had to be under filled, which meant I ran out of bottles. However, once I got them home, I opened one up, and it came out fairly well.

Regarding the brewery, its a local U-brew place that let me come in to get my beer CO2'd with their equipment. I'm their only customer for this service, but I'm also the only one who buys malt extract from them. It took a bit of convincing, but they did it for me at a decent price. One day I'd love to have my own kegorator, but its not easy in an apartment.

 

[weirdboy]

Why not just naturally carbonate via priming sugar and bottle the beer yourself?

 

[sstought]

Because I've gotten sick of that fruity yeast taste in all of my beer. I wanted to try force carbonation as a way to reduce it. It's worked fairly well, and next time its going to be filtered before its bottled (heresy, I know).

 

[Airborneguy]

Why not just buy commercial brew?

 

[weirdboy]

I'm guessing the fruity yeast flavor is more likely from your fermentation than from the carbonation.

You might try fermenting with a cleaner tasting yeast strain and/or at a lower fermentation temperature.

 

[patrck17]

I don't have much to contribute here, but I just wanted to say that I think it would be neat to drink homebrew from a can. Not that I typically prefer beer from a can, just is less common in homebrew (at least I'd never heard of it till now).

 

[BrewDocND]

I don't have much to contribute here, but I just wanted to say that I think it would be neat to drink homebrew from a can. Not that I typically prefer beer from a can, just is less common in homebrew (at least I'd never heard of it till now).

Yea. I have a weird fascination with canned beer. I blame Dale's Pale Ale.

 

[Gremlyn]

Because I've gotten sick of that fruity yeast taste in all of my beer. I wanted to try force carbonation as a way to reduce it. It's worked fairly well, and next time its going to be filtered before its bottled (heresy, I know).

Naturally carbonating won't give esters, bad fermentation temps will.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

One day I'd love to have my own kegorator, but its not easy in an apartment.

I live in a 1 bedroom and am anal about organization and clutter and I still manage to keg...

 

[Gremlyn]

I have a 1 bed + den and a 4 tap keezer...

 

[joety]

Yea. I have a weird fascination with canned beer. I blame Dale's Pale Ale.

I blame Surly's Furious.