Help me figure out why all my beers seem to have acetaldehyde

[h22lude]

I just wrote a long post but the app said I didn't have permission to post and deleted it. I'll see if I can rewrite it when I get home.

I would recommend brewing a SMaSh Pale Ale, lighter with less ingredients, then use 1 package of US05 (plenty of GOOD yeast for this beer!). Ensure the air/water is around 62-63 for a couple days AFTER activity is noticed. Raise to 65 on day 3 then room temp for remaining time. Do a check of the beer around day 7 (I'm not a fan of doing this normally but will do when troubleshooting issues) then see what you have.

Make sure your pitching at a good temp, <80F maximum, and not killing off yeast.

After cooling and transferring to bucket, I'll (all sanitized mind you!) transfer between containers a couple times to aerate, get a nice rolling foam before pitching.
Good Luck!

This last brew was a blonde ale which I figured was good to test for off flavors. A smash would be good too using only 1 ingredients for each.

I pitch right at fermentation temp. I thought I was pitching the right amount of yeast. I always use a calculator. My thought is maybe age of yeast. If the vials are older, even with a starter maybe the yeast were causing off flavors. I do use a stir plate with my starters. Maybe I need to leave my starter going for 2 days instead of 1. I do 24 hours then cold crash and decant.

When you say room temp after 3 days, is 75 ok? That's what my basement is at right now since it has been so hot.

Aeration may have been an issue though I was shaking my bucket for a minute or so which I thought was enough. I have since bought pure o2 which I used for this stout.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

I just wrote a long post but the app said I didn't have permission to post and deleted it. I'll see if I can rewrite it when I get home.

Yeah, HBT app is not very good. I have the same issue from time to time, usually after a long essay like you! I have to reset the app everytime I want to look at messages also. Sometimes it say's I cant post a picture on a thread when I just did 2min ago on another...

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

When you say room temp after 3 days, is 75 ok? That's what my basement is at right now since it has been so hot.

Aeration may have been an issue though I was shaking my bucket for a minute or so which I thought was enough. I have since bought pure o2 which I used for this stout.

I live in Central Texas so understand high temps. Basically yes, 75F is fine AFTER most fermentation completes. You seem to be doing everything properly. I had the green apple flavor only once and it was due to under pitching for a heavy barleywine. Personally, I recommend sticking to dry yeast and lighter less "sophisticated" beers for now until the issue is resolved, especially if your $$-dumping-$$ them. Then add back 1 thing at a time, liquid yeast, or more complex malt or more complex hops. Make sure all is sanitized. For me, we drink a shot of star-sans in every pint! HA!

 

[h22lude]

I live in Central Texas so understand high temps. Basically yes, 75F is fine AFTER most fermentation completes. You seem to be doing everything properly. I had the green apple flavor only once and it was due to under pitching for a heavy barleywine. Personally, I recommend sticking to dry yeast and lighter less "sophisticated" beers for now until the issue is resolved, especially if your $$-dumping-$$ them. Then add back 1 thing at a time, liquid yeast, or more complex malt or more complex hops. Make sure all is sanitized. For me, we drink a shot of star-sans in every pint! HA!

No dumpers yet. Every beer is drinkable, it just has this slight off flavor (I perceive as green apple). I've replaced a lot of plastic pieces thinking it could be an infection that I can't get ride of. I'm going to try my keg tonight to see if it has the flavor in it.

I think I need to take it back to stove top extract and add from there. I would be shocked if it was my process. I'm hoping it is either yeast health/under pitching or under aerating.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

No dumpers yet. Every beer is drinkable, it just has this slight off flavor (I perceive as green apple). I've replaced a lot of plastic pieces thinking it could be an infection that I can't get ride of. I'm going to try my keg tonight to see if it has the flavor in it.

I think I need to take it back to stove top extract and add from there. I would be shocked if it was my process. I'm hoping it is either yeast health/under pitching or under aerating.

I'm curious. Keep us informed!

 

[h22lude]

I'm curious. Keep us informed!

I will. If I move my carboy out of my fridge after 3 or 4 days, I can brew more often. I may do small batches to start testing everything. This batch is fermenting at 65 now. I'll bring it up to 68 after a few days then take it out a few days later.

 

[h22lude]

Looks like this batch had enough yeast and enough o2. Fermentation took off nicely within 24 hours. I'll let it keep going at 65 for a few days then raise to 68 for a day or two then take it out of the fridge.

View attachment 1472929770836.jpg

 

[jcav]

Looking good! Let us know the results when it's time to taste it. Good Luck!

John

 

[Yesfan]

I might be late to the party, but go back over your notes for those batches that were off. Chances are you might find a common denominator to your problem and focus on eliminating that from the next batch.


I had issues with some of my beers over attenuating. I never had a beer with a FG above 1.010, no matter the grain bill or the mash temps. They all had no body and or thing with that green apple-ly taste to them. Turns out a lot of those beers I was using the slurries from the previous yeast. The last two batches I used fresh dry yeast and they came out good. I used to just sprinkle the yeast on too but have noticed that re-hydrating produced better results especially with the last beer being a black IPA.


My notes for those bad beers weren't the best, but it was just enough to tell me what I needed to know. Now I'm more diligent. I'll write down the time I pitched, temps, the time fermentation started, how long I fermented, ramped up temps, etc. This way if another problem comes up I may be in better shape to deal with it. Hope this helps.

 

[h22lude]

My notes aren't that specific. I take good note on volumes, gravity, mash ph, and temps. I should start taking better notes. I do know my gravity readings are usually very close (few points off in either direction). I have been dialing in my system so my readings are even closer than before.

I have been using liquid yeast. This is my first batch in a long time with dry yeast. Just looking at it, it seems to be fermenting better than my batches with liquid.

I'm thinking aeration has been my issue. I emailed Danstar and they basically said their dry yeast don't need as much dissolved O2 as liquid yeast because of the way they propagate dry yeast. I aerated with pure O2 and used dry yeast. This batch took off very quickly and seemed to ferment much better than my last batches with liquid. I did always make starters and use a stir plate but I wonder if I didn't aerate that enough before pitching.

I should do a 5 gallon batch and then split it using dry yeast and liquid yeast to see what happens.

 

[h22lude]

I use a starter calculator so I figured I was but maybe something was going wrong with my starters. Every batch seemed to take off pretty quickly.

This batch may be tough to tell if I got any off flavors but my next batch is the same blonde I made before but with US-05. I think this will be a good indicator. Dry yeast don't need as much O2 and it is easy to pitch the right amount of dry yeast.

 

[jddevinn]

FYI odanoy is a bot that is copying posts and attempting to insert backlinks as images.