"I can taste the priming sugar"...huh?

[imaguitargod]

Okay - Cock punch for the win - but only after you have made him make a total a$$hat of himself by doing the label switch. I'd just stop giving him beer or tell him to bbuy you a kegging system.

Bottom line is he is full of it.

EAC = Erroneous Alcohol Consumer, I thought everyone knew that this was the official acronym for beer tasting bull$h*ters.

Erroneous Alcohol Consumer....I'm going to have to use that one!

 

[Nostrildamus]

Alright, I think I can add something to this conversation and it may... MAY help you understand what this dingbat is saying about your beer.

I had a buddy who always said of both of our homebrews that it still had that, "homebrew note" and I had to agree at the time. There was just something that it had that didn't taste like mass brewed swill but was not an off-flavour. I found when I switched base malts that the "homebrew note" disappeared. It was never a bad flavour only one which was slightly sweeter than what I was used to tasting in commercial brews.

If you are using different base malts than your foolish friend who scoffs at a free beer he may be commenting on the residual sweetness of your base malt or some other malt common to many of your brews. In any case, only a true ass-hat derides free homebrew.

Cock punch the bastard.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Erroneous Alcohol Consumer

I can assure you that a true EAC would take serious issue with that.

 

[ElPresidente77]

While I'm not familiar with the HBT usage of EAC it makes me chuckle. Several years ago I dated a girl who had a pair of friend (females as well) who were vulgar and hilarious. One of the first times I partied with them they used the word "anus" more times in one night than I had previously heard in my prior 20 something years of life. They also lived in Elgin, IL. So, my friend Mikus and I dubbed them the EAC or Elgin Anus Crew.

+1 to cock punch btw. And I'll give you a bonus 10 points if you do it from one knee like the guy in the animated .gif a couple pages back.

 

[ceannt]

Just a suggestion…. Take a bottle of your beer, open it and pour out about half and drink it. Take 5 or 6 Habenero peppers, cut ‘em up and boil for a few minutes in about a half pint of water. Pour through a strainer and top off the half bottle of beer, re-cap and stick it in the fridge (where you won’t mistake it for a non-“modified” bottle!!!). The next time the ingrate comes over to bad-mouth your beer… tell him you have a strange off-flavor in your latest batch you can’t identify… (I mean if he can taste priming sugar, he should be able to tell what it is….. right??) and pour him the “modified” bottle…. More fun than the fourth of July.

 

[imaguitargod]

Just a suggestion…. Take a bottle of your beer, open it and pour out about half and drink it. Take 5 or 6 Habenero peppers, cut ‘em up and boil for a few minutes in about a half pint of water. Pour through a strainer and top off the half bottle of beer, re-cap and stick it in the fridge (where you won’t mistake it for a non-“modified” bottle!!!). The next time the ingrate comes over to bad-mouth your beer… tell him you have a strange off-flavor in your latest batch you can’t identify… (I mean if he can taste priming sugar, he should be able to tell what it is….. right??) and pour him the “modified” bottle…. More fun than the fourth of July.

Nah, we're both chili-heads and have concocted beer far hotter than that.

 

[ceannt]

Darn. how about gasoline? oh, never mind, too expensive.... cock punch it is.

 

[imaguitargod]

Darn. how about gasoline? oh, never mind, too expensive.... cock punch it is.

ROFL10characters

 

[IrregularPulse]

To everyone jumping on the cockpunch wagon, this could be a valid off flavor. I had a very repeating off flavor in all the batches I bottled. Stopped when I went to kegging. I attribute it to Boiling the priming sugar in the water as apposed to boiling water, then removing from heat and dissolving the sugar into solution. I wouldn't call it a sugar taste. It was a very twangy flavor and was in extract, PM and AG batches alike with bottled and tap water both. I've tasted other naturally carbed homebrewers beer with the same flavor and ask if that is how they prep their priming solution and it was.

So as nice as it is to just take the forum members side and cockpunch the guy, you can't dismiss the off flavor completely as being related from priming sugar.

 

[weirdboy]

Maybe you were tasting some residue that was left after cleaning and sanitizing your bottles.

 

[Homercidal]

I think you should send me some of your beer and I'll test it for you.



(Gads, am I the only one around here willing to help this poor guy out?)

 

[TeufelBrew]

So as nice as it is to just take the forum members side and cockpunch the guy, you can't dismiss the off flavor completely as being related from priming sugar.

Again, Cockpunch the sanctimonious sh!thead. Then give IP one for good measure too!

Seriously though, IP makes a good point. See if you can track down any causes for an off flavor. See if he can identify the flavor in something else.
If you rule everthing else out, then you have good cause to tell your friend that you appreciate his input, but if it's going to be the same thing all the time, maybe he could just enjoy the beer and be quiet.

 

[imaguitargod]

Again, Cockpunch the sanctimonious sh!thead. Then give IP one for good measure too!

Seriously though, IP makes a good point. See if you can track down any causes for an off flavor. See if he can identify the flavor in something else.
If you rule everthing else out, then you have good cause to tell your friend that you appreciate his input, but if it's going to be the same thing all the time, maybe he could just enjoy the beer and be quiet.

I've looked and looked and tasted and tasted, there is no single flavor in my beers that I would say is a consistant taste that my friend might be talking about. No one else has even mentioned it......ever.

 

[TexLaw]

T'hell with guy. It sounds like something something worth enjoying. It's like the old guy that sits at the lunch counter, asks about the special, looks at the menu for 10 minutes, then orders the same sandwich every day. I'd just chuckle at the guy a little, maybe inside, and move on.

Either that, or cockpunch him like a piñata.


TL

 

[Brew-Happy]

Try bottling a few separate beers with different sugars and one without sugar. Then have him do a blind taste test.

He might be confusing flavors. I can't tell many of them apart but I can at least admit that.

 

[NTOLERANCE]

I assume this guy force carbs/kegs his beer? Is that why he claims to taste it?

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I've got a friend that i taught to brew. He's kinda weird that way, too. He doesn't like my Roquefort clone because it is "winey tasting". Whatever. More for me.

 

[imaguitargod]

I assume this guy force carbs/kegs his beer? Is that why he claims to taste it?

Yep, he force carbs/kegs. He's all snotty about it too.

 

[NTOLERANCE]

Yep, he force carbs/kegs. He's all snotty about it too.

I figured as much.

I keg/force carb as well. But sometimes I ask myself if I shouldnt be adding priming sugar. It a natural way to carbonate beer. Two batches ago, I used priming sugar.

Many (most?? All??) of the recipes, methods and styles of beer we produce are based on the european styles/methods of the last 300-400 years. I dont think that compressed CO2 was around in jolly old England in the 1800's.

To me, youre just making beer the way its been made for many hundreds of years. Might not hurt to remind him of that.

 

[MBasile]

Once your beer is carbonated, there is NO priming sugar in it. Sounds like he could cover the back forty all by himself.

I'm sure he could throw a football over those mountains over there too.

 

[IrregularPulse]

It does sound like you just have a snotty friend who mostly likely hates the fact that your beer is better than his even though he has the cool kegging setup. But don't always dismiss criticism, it'll turn you into the same kind of guy. Not saying you are, just as a message to everyone who was so quick to dismiss the chance of it.
If his friend would have posted his side on here instead, everyone most likely would have said how his friend (you) won't accept common criticism and try and make his beer better, just because he was a member of the community.
We're quick to protect our own here, like a good community should be, but sometimes we can be the one who are wrong.

 

[Brew Runner]

I just got an idea that won't technically cost any extra if you planned on kegging anyway...

Keg a batch, but carb it naturally and don't say anything. Serve it to the friend in question from the keg and see if his feedback is the same. If it is, perhaps the off flavor is real. If he says the sugar taste is gone, then perhaps he's not really a qualified taster. This also has a side benefit; he will probably be smug about you "taking his advice" on switching to kegs. You will then have the option of turning that smugness into humiliation upon revealing that absolutely nothing is different about your brew. Just be sure that the kegged batch doesn't actually taste better than the bottled batches...

 

[Ksosh]

Prior to cock-punching, I'd submit a bottle or two to a competition and see if the BJCP judges taste anything odd, or bring it to a LHBS and see if they taste something similar. As IrregularPulse said, it might be a legitimate off flavor that your friend just doesn't know how to describe correctly. If you win BOS with it, then by all means go ahead with the cock punch.

 

[Nerdie]

Two words- cock punch.

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