Home Brewish Taste

[BigEd]

Kidding- just having fun BigEd.

No prob. Sorry, but I didn't recognize the family squabble.

What is attenuation ? Do some yeasts eat sugar better?

In a word, yes. Basically there are small differences between yeast strains in how much they will metabolize. There are other factors involved too, like the ingredients in the beer and at what temperature the grains were mashed.

 

[harding70]

Scheduling difficulties are postponing my brew session until tomorrow night, but that should work out since I heaped a little more into my starter (same proportions of dme to water) and tomorrow night will just give it more time to... well, start. It's doing nicely in the low sixties and bubbling once every few seconds in the airlock.

shooting for a brew time tomorrow night with good documentation.

 

[CoalBrew]

Without question the single best virtue of a succesfull homebrewer is patience.

There are no more profoundly accurate words spoken!

 

[CoalBrew]

It will...but, not to be a pain in the butt, but if the pitching calculator called for a 3 quart starter, why do a 1 quart starter? Did you not have a 3 quart vessel lying around?

I normally just do starters in a growler (2 quarts) and put some sanitized foil over the top. No need for an airlock. But I went out and bought a 1 gallon jug for doing larger starters. Just a suggestion, if you like big beers.

Ha Ha... you got busted!

 

[CoalBrew]

This is so wierd ... its as if my non-cyber world is somehow carrying over into these forums. I mean in person I constantly talk without thinking, and as you all can see here, I'm doing a much better job on the forum.

I am sorry for all the lame responses, I am still learning how to quote, quick response, and become generally adept at communicating in this fasion. Thanks for the patience and most of all, thanks for all the customized, HUGELY relevant information.

Lastly, please don't worry about me giving Harding70 some well intentioned ribbing. I promise you all if you knew him you would approve and join in!

 

[aeonderdonk]

I would echo what has been said about your pitching temp and fermenting temps. Temperature control has a huge impact on the beer.

 

[harding70]

Alright, I'm too lazy to video this (and it would probably be boring. I mean who wants to watch me drink too much beer and brew beer at the same time?) so I'm going to attempt a play by play as I go. Too bad I can't host a video conference. Maybe that's how I'll make my millions... come up with a brew video conference! Brewpe? Burpe? Beerpe? I don't know, something like Skype. Anyway, I have 5.5 gals of filtered water warming to boil in the keggle. I just bought one of those new cool P.E.T. Carbuoys which already seems much easier to handle, and plan to primary in that.
break

 

[harding70]

my new best friend just might be:

Summit Hops 1oz (60 min), 16.7%

They smelled so good I had to bring them in and let my wife and little boy smell them. They both asked for seconds.

 

[harding70]

2oz Crystal Hops (30 min), 4% so good when it hits your nose

 

[harding70]

3.15 amber malt (20 mins) now it smells like brew!

 

[harding70]

15 minutes to go... and the remainder: 6# amber malt

 

[harding70]

Holy S___ The back half of brewing gets intense.
Summary:
6# amber malt(15 mins), 1 oz Chinnook (10mins), 3 oz Cascade and 2 grams Paradise Seeds (5mins), 1# Blond Candi Sugar (1 min)

Chilled the wort in about 10mins to 66F. O.G. 1072 as the recipe dictates (prior to pitching my 1/2 gallon starter (2 cups lt dme) Starter and wort pitched at exactly 66F for both.

Let the Beer Gods favor my methodical attempt to please them.

 

[harding70]

Temperature check this morning read 62F, 8 hours post-pitch. Fermentation is very slow. Normal stratification of sediment, liquid, and yeast from bottom to top. I've had most of my fermentations take off a lot faster than this one. Temp is a little low, and maybe slow but steady kickoff is a good thing.

 

[jds]

Temperature check this morning read 62F, 8 hours post-pitch. Fermentation is very slow. Normal stratification of sediment, liquid, and yeast from bottom to top. I've had most of my fermentations take off a lot faster than this one. Temp is a little low, and maybe slow but steady kickoff is a good thing.

I completely agree with this, if you're brewing a fairly neutral style. I find my beers are better when I pitch cool (around 60F), and allow the beer to warm to 65 or so overnight. Afterward, I use a water bath and ice packs / frozen bottles to hold the temperature between 65 and 70.

My basement keeps a pretty steady 65F throughout the year, so most of my cooling is only to remove heat produced by the yeast. YMMV and all that.

 

[grammatron]

edit: wow I did not realize this was an 8 page thread.

 

[harding70]

I just got home from work and checked in on things>>> Temp holding at 62F and fermentation is still slower than I usually get (nearly stand still, but a bit more foam forming on the top. I just put a heater in the room to jack it up a few degrees. I'll see how things progress tonight with the temp at around 66F.

 

[harding70]

Temp went up to 70F and got things moving. Temp is back to 66F and should be fine now. Let's hope.

 

[harding70]

Temp holding at 66.5F and burping away.

 

[harding70]

Still burping and holding at 66-67F

 

[Skoper]

I was having the same problem as you. I would brew a batch(extrac). And come time to drink it, I was not happy with the beer. I wasn't horriable, but I would perfer to just buy and drink better beer. I quit homebrewing for 3 years. Started a new job and a coworker is a homebrewer, and all his beer were great. I did a few brews with him(all grain) and they turned out tasting good also

long story short. For me I just didn't like the tast of the beer from extract. I know some people will argue this, but does the frozen in a can orange juice tast as good a fresh?

Try to find a local brew club and get with them. Most clubs have brew system that members and uses. That way you can try an all grain batch before you have to put out any $$$$$$

 

[boo boo]

I wonder if that 1 pound of candi sugar is giving him the dreaded extract twang... ie cider taste.

 

[BigEd]

I wonder if that 1 pound of candi sugar is giving him the dreaded extract twang... ie cider taste.

No, that wouldn't do it IMO. Sugar mixed at a 50/50 ratio like Prohibition homebrew might. A combination of residual sugars, phenolics and assorted off flavors are the classic combination of bad homebrew. The residual sugars usually stem from the use of liquid extract and the nasty flavors can almost always be traced back to sanitation or fermentation problems.

 

[DD2000GT]

Ah - the old "my homebrew has a HOMEBREW flavor"... I fought that battle for over 6 years. I too know the frustration of trying harder the next time - only to be completely disgusted with the end result. I too changed my aluminum brew pot, water source, yeast, LME to DME, fermentation temps, sanitation, etc - the list went on and on. Over the last 2 years since becoming unemployed - my beer if finally BETTER than the commercial equivalent, and all friends and family actually look forward to coming over and sharing a homebrew (as opposed to being polite). I kept maticulous logs - and I feel a few techniques I learned here have improved my brew - but the #1, hands down, difference I made was going all grain - really. Before the others jump in - YES, you can make good beer with extracts - but obviously it is a struggle for me. My beers instantly dropped the "homebrew" flavor on my first all grain batch. I went all grain to save money per batch - and it turned out to be the best decision I have ever made. I am now proud of my work instead of dissapointed.

A few other smaller changes I feel helped:

Lower fermentation temps - especially early on
Do full boils
Let the beer sit three weeks in the primary instead of two (I also do not secondary)

Don't give up, every failure is experience to help you make much better beer (and it makes the successes much better!).

 

[masonsjax]

Funny, she doesn't look brewish.

 

[harding70]

Definitely headed the AG direction, but didn't want to jump before refining my processes. If this batch is still sub standard in my taste, I will make the jump to AG. If this batch improves dramatically, I will go back in time to recipes that should have been better, enjoy them for what they were supposed to be, and then make the jump. I'll keep the updates coming.

 

[harding70]

Haven't done any late addition Candi Sugar in any other batches so I don't guess so. I'm thinking it may be an extract vs. AG issue, but that is what this batch is going to hopefully decide.

 

[CoalBrew]

Please please be the processes... I just don't have the time or money for AG right now!

 

[Skoper]

These isn't much to invest in goin to all grain. If you are allready a full boil the only thing you need is a mash tun. You can get a 10 gallon igloo at GFS for 50 dollars. You can just use a grain bag if you don't wNt to spend the extra 50 dollars for a ball valve and stainless screen
After that your brews will be much cheeper. Just did an 5.7% pale ale with 3oz of hops for 18.00

 

[Synovia]

SWITCH TO ALL GRAIN. Seriously your beers turn out way better. Extract brewing is too limiting.

If he can't make acceptable extract beer, theres absolutely no way he'll make good AG beer. There will just be more variables, and he'll be further away from knowing what the problem is.

 

[passedpawn]

My extract beers were always overly malty. Might have been a very poor understanding of the balance between sugars and hops. I made many consecutive bad ones over 7 years. I never made one that was really good.

A year ago, I made 2 wheat beers (bavarian hefes with Wyeast 3068) with a partial mash. It was a major eye opener. I made good beer.

I then switched to all grain brewing and all of my beers are really really good. I suggest getting away from extract brewing. If you have a 40 qt. cooler you can do it - it's not hard.