SixFoFalcon
Well-Known Member
I have a problem with my beer, and I believe it may be related to hot side aeration.
I brewed my first batch a couple months ago... an IPA. Before I got started, I read (and re-read) the 1st part of TCJOHB and I read several brief articles on the 'net about "brewing your first batch". Unfortunately, I was never really forewarned about HSA (Hot Side Aeration). Once the beer was fermenting away in the basement, I had a chance to do some more in-depth reading and surfing of the 'net, and I came to realize that HSA is a pretty big no-no. At that point, I started to worry a bit, since I remembered stirring the wort furiously for the final hop additions (I thought the bits of the hops were supposed to be in suspension, and they kept floating to the top, so I just kept whipping up the wort like a mad-man trying to get them into suspension!)
Well, by the time I learned the error of my ways, it was too late to really do anything about it, so I decided to relax and wait it out and see if it would be noticable in the final product. Along the way, I tried to ignore the bitter, rubbery taste I noticed in my gravity samples. I convinced myself it would probably go away by the time my beer was ready to drink. Well, it's been about 10 weeks now and the keg has been tapped. I have to say it's barely palatable! I can almost sense a good beer trying to come out, but there is a strong bite of something very harsh and rubbery overpowering it... that taste just grabs my tongue and hangs there. I know IPAs need time to mature, but this is really bad.
Fortunately, my hefeweizen came out much better (so I've had good homebrew to drink in the mean time!) and I learned a lot during those first few weeks of brewing, so I think the rest of my beers are going to be just fine. I'm just stuck wondering what I can do with this IPA. It's hogging up a whole keg and quite frankly I don't know if I can stomach too much of it. Maybe it will improve over time... any ideas on how long that might take? If we're talking several months I'll just dump it down the drain.
(And just for the record, I'm very familiar with highly-hopped beers-- I'm not just confusing this flaw with a strong hop bitterness. This particular bitterness doesn't seem to have the complexity that a hop bitterness usually has. It's very offensive and one-dimensional, almost like rubbing alcohol.)
I brewed my first batch a couple months ago... an IPA. Before I got started, I read (and re-read) the 1st part of TCJOHB and I read several brief articles on the 'net about "brewing your first batch". Unfortunately, I was never really forewarned about HSA (Hot Side Aeration). Once the beer was fermenting away in the basement, I had a chance to do some more in-depth reading and surfing of the 'net, and I came to realize that HSA is a pretty big no-no. At that point, I started to worry a bit, since I remembered stirring the wort furiously for the final hop additions (I thought the bits of the hops were supposed to be in suspension, and they kept floating to the top, so I just kept whipping up the wort like a mad-man trying to get them into suspension!)
Well, by the time I learned the error of my ways, it was too late to really do anything about it, so I decided to relax and wait it out and see if it would be noticable in the final product. Along the way, I tried to ignore the bitter, rubbery taste I noticed in my gravity samples. I convinced myself it would probably go away by the time my beer was ready to drink. Well, it's been about 10 weeks now and the keg has been tapped. I have to say it's barely palatable! I can almost sense a good beer trying to come out, but there is a strong bite of something very harsh and rubbery overpowering it... that taste just grabs my tongue and hangs there. I know IPAs need time to mature, but this is really bad.
Fortunately, my hefeweizen came out much better (so I've had good homebrew to drink in the mean time!) and I learned a lot during those first few weeks of brewing, so I think the rest of my beers are going to be just fine. I'm just stuck wondering what I can do with this IPA. It's hogging up a whole keg and quite frankly I don't know if I can stomach too much of it. Maybe it will improve over time... any ideas on how long that might take? If we're talking several months I'll just dump it down the drain.
(And just for the record, I'm very familiar with highly-hopped beers-- I'm not just confusing this flaw with a strong hop bitterness. This particular bitterness doesn't seem to have the complexity that a hop bitterness usually has. It's very offensive and one-dimensional, almost like rubbing alcohol.)