Green Apple/Cider-y taste to first two brews

[PfreakingJ]

Hi all! I've asked a bunch of friends and merchants about my problem, but figured that I'd ask here, since I lurk on these amazingly helpful pages all the time.

I'm living in a third world country (I dont want to say where) and brewing my beer because its the only way to get good brew here. Anyway, both of my first brews have produced a pretty strong green apple or cidery taste to it. I made a Pale Ale and then an Chimay Blue clone. Two different beers, but this aftertaste was there both times. Its a smell and taste, too.

A couple of ideas-- I'm keeping my primary in a climate controlled AC room at 22C, which my beginner kit said was a permissible temp.

It's a semi-transparent plastic carboy and I didn't keep it dark.

The water is bottled and purified, but I bought it from a commercial dealer. This water always tastes fine and I've never had issues from it before.

Any guesses as to what it could be?

 

[pkrath84]

Did you use a lot of added sugars? (I dont mean malt) I mean corn sugar, table sugar, etc?

 

[RM-MN]

How long did you leave it in the fermenter? The green apple taste is acetaldehyde, an intermediate product of fermentation and if given time the yeast will break that down into alcohol. It will also be broken down in the bottle so if you have bottled, leave them alone for another couple weeks before you sample again.

 

[PfreakingJ]

Thanks guys!!

For sugars I used the amount that came in the kit for the boil/wort.

For priming my first brew I used the coopers sugar pellets that came in my beginners kit. They were all premeasured out. The second batch I used some of those, I used table sugar and I experimented with a few and used pure maple syrup. Same taste for all of them.

My first batch (which had a stronger apple taste) was in the primary for a week. The second batch was in the primary for 12 days.

I've noticed that the second batch is settling better, but I can still taste this flavor more than the intended flavors of the beer.

 

[BeerGrylls]

I know you've probably seen this before, but I can never get away from looking at it. “Off” Flavors In Beer
Their Causes & How To Avoid Them
http://morebeer.com/themes/morewinepro/mmpdfs/mb/off_flavor.pdf [PDF file]

It echoes what RM-MN said:

Acetaldehyde
• Tastes/Smells Like: Green apples, rotten-apples, freshly
cut pumpkin.
• Possible Causes: Acetaldehyde is a naturally occurring
chemical produced by yeast during fermentation. It is
usually converted into Ethanol alcohol, although this
process may take longer in beers with high alcohol
content or when not enough yeast is pitched. Some
bacteria can cause green apple flavors as well.
• How to Avoid: Let the beer age and condition over
a couple months time. This will give the yeast time
to convert the Acetaldehyde into Ethanol. Always use
high quality yeast and make sure you are pitching the
correct amount for the gravity of the wort or make a
yeast starter.

Edit: Where are you sourcing your yeast? Maybe in a place where access is dodgy, or if you have long shipping times on liquid yeast, that may be negatively impacting your pitching rates.

 

[unionrdr]

What that article doesn't say is that,being a by product of a normal fermentation,high initial ferment temps can cause excessive production of acetaldehyde,the green apple smell/flavor. Keep initial ferment temps down to mid 60's in general for ales to avoid this kind of thing.
Yeast health & pitch amount can be part of it. But most of the time it's high initial ferment temps &/or amount of added sugar(s) in the wort.

 

[BeerGrylls]

Good point, but I thought you'd find excess fusels, phenols, and esters before you found acetaldehydes? I wonder if he's finding those as well..

 

[unionrdr]

Those other by products of fermentation can be produced as well. But they too depend on how high ferment temps get & for how long ime. A little high & you get yeast esters. A little higher,& you start getting acetaldehyde. More heat & longer into initial fermentation & beyond & you get fusels,etc. They also want to hang around longer in these greater amounts as you get past initial fermentation & into finishing. So the sooner you correct high ferment temps,the better. Or prevent them to start with as much as possible. Otherwise,even 3-5 weeks bottle time won't be able to clean up all of it. The more by products you have,& at higher levels,tyhe harder it is to get rid of them completely.

 

[Beernik]

It's not just ferment temps that will give you green apple. If you pitch yeast too hot, it will form during the lag time. I pitched my first brew at about 37C. It was an acetaldehyde bomb.

 

[BigFloyd]

It's not just ferment temps that will give you green apple. If you pitch yeast too hot, it will form during the lag time.

Agreed. Even if the thread starter didn't pitch too hot, he's fermenting at about 72*F ambient which is simply too warm. It likely got up to around 80*F inside the fermenter the first few days.

Extended bottle conditioning (like an extra couple of months) might possibly help. Next time, keep the pitch/fermentation temps about 5-6*C cooler.

 

[PfreakingJ]

This has been helpful. I saw a bunch of stuff that said fermenting at 70 was OK, but in real situations, all of you more experienced people are saying that lower than 70 is always better.

Also, what temp should I store my yeast? I didnt know that could have an effect on the beer either.

You guys are great!

 

[PfreakingJ]

OK also I wanted to double check. Noob alert here. I've been storing my yeast at room temp. When I went to the brew store back in the states I saw that they were keeping all of their yeast in a fridge. The brewing store in OZ that I bought my kit from wasn't doing this. Could this have been caused by the yeast being stored at room temp?

After reading what you guys have said, though, I'm definitely pitching and fermenting at too high a temp. WHats the best temp to pitch at? Ferment?

 

[KepowOb]

OK also I wanted to double check. Noob alert here. I've been storing my yeast at room temp. When I went to the brew store back in the states I saw that they were keeping all of their yeast in a fridge. The brewing store in OZ that I bought my kit from wasn't doing this. Could this have been caused by the yeast being stored at room temp?

After reading what you guys have said, though, I'm definitely pitching and fermenting at too high a temp. WHats the best temp to pitch at? Ferment?

First off, if yeast is being stored On the shelf of the brew store... It's not a very good sign. If its dry yeast it can stay at room temps a little bit, but storage should always be done in the fridge. Liquid yeast should always be in the fridge... A lot of suppliers ship (or give you the option to ship) their liquid yeast with a chill pack to try and keep it cool.

High temps will definitely give you off flavours. Every yeast strain has it's own temp range, if the pack doesn't have info their website will. A lot of people here suggest pitching a few degrees below your ideal fermentation temp... So say you want to ferment at 65, you get the wort to 62-63, pitch and then slowly bring it to 65. Once active fermentation is done, you can then bring it up more, to say 68-70, which will help the yeast clean up after itself.

That's an ideal set up though. I use a swamp cooler for temp control, so I get my wort to 65ish and pitch, then just maintain that the best I can. It's not ideal, but I keep my temps between 64-66 for the first 7-10 days, before letting it come up to room temp on its own... I'm sure I could get better results with a real fermentation chamber, but for the time being this works well and I've had good results.

 

[unionrdr]

I always store my yeast in the lil butter cubby on the fridge door. Odd that down there they don't fridge their yeast. That'll def lower viability some. And mid 60's is fine for most ales. Rehydrating dry yeasts & pitching the whole thing when it's at high krausen & within 10 degrees of current wort temp is the best thing to do. It'll cut lag time & give a healthy ferment.

 

[BigFloyd]

Obviously, dry yeast will tolerate being at room temp for a much, much longer time than liquid yeast. It's still best to store it in the fridge (where it reportedly only loses 4%/year of it's viability).

 

[Yooper]

Fermenting at 70 degrees is fine- but we're talking about beer temperature, not room temperature. I've personally seen fermenting beer be 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature- and that would mean in a 70 degree room that the beer could be 80 degrees. That's way too warm.

A "stick on" thermometer is great, so you can see at a glance the temperature of the beer.

Generally, use good quality yeast (not cooper's or Munton's little dry yeast packages), and ferment at 65-68 degrees beer temperature, and that apple flavor will go away in the next batch.

 

[PfreakingJ]

Ok thanks guys!! I think this helps. Whether it hurts my dry yeast or not, I'm gonna take them out of the room and stick them in the fridge. I'll check in after brewing my next batch next week. Thanks!!

 

[PfreakingJ]

just an update--

I ended up getting one of the big tubs of water and sticking my primary in there. I've been icing it down with water bottles three times a day and the water temperature stayed consistently at 19C, which is pretty good.

The room is A/C and I put a fan blowing over the top of the fermenter.

I racked to the secondary yesterday and there was no cider smell. So the temperature of the beer during fermentation was definitely the problem.

Thanks so much for all your help

 

[BigFloyd]

just an update--

I ended up getting one of the big tubs of water and sticking my primary in there. I've been icing it down with water bottles three times a day and the water temperature stayed consistently at 19C, which is pretty good.

The room is A/C and I put a fan blowing over the top of the fermenter.

I racked to the secondary yesterday and there was no cider smell. So the temperature of the beer during fermentation was definitely the problem.

Thanks so much for all your help

Excellent. Thanks for the good report.

Let us know how it tastes after 3 weeks of carb/conditioning.