It's official. My sanitation sucks.

[shoengine]

I wasn't thinking stale DME was the issue anyway.

 

[Homercidal]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=543547

In the above thread, the guy had a bag of DME open for a few months that turned into a brick and most responses said to go ahead and use it. For what it's worth, I've never had so much as one little clump in any of my leftovers. It is always still exactly the same as day one, in scent, consistency, appearance, and even taste.

I should have said LIQUID extract can go bad. Generally DME can be stored a long time by just sealing the bag up well.

I've also opened cans of LME that were very obviously darker than original.

 

[passedpawn]

I should have said LIQUID extract can go bad. Generally DME can be stored a long time by just sealing the bag up well.

I've also opened cans of LME that were very obviously darker than original.

I stored a couple of quarts of LME at room temp for a year and it developed a thick green mold on the top. I used it and the beer turned out fine. I believe I made a 0.5-assed attempt to skim the offending fungus.

 

[brewcat]

.

You shouldn't have a problem with fusels. 3068 recommended temp range is 64-75. What I'm thinking you're wanting is more banana character. So according to Wyeast, higher fermenation temps and not overpitching.

The steep seems fine. Only doing 4 oz you may want to steep just in .333 quarts. I just find Munich as a steeping grain curious.

Smack packs say to use within 6 months. Older than 4 months may take longer to swell. I probably use them between 1-2 months old.

 

[cloudybrewer]

Well, I finally made time to make the Nut Brown kit. Everything went well, really well actually. Cooled from boiling to 70F in record time for me. So, in ten days or so I'll check gravity and have a taste and report back.

 

[cloudybrewer]

So, at 11 days I checked gravity. It was 1.009, 1.010, basically done. Tasted ok, no tart or weird flavors. Today is 2.5 weeks, and I finally got around to bottling. I'm impressed. It's not "I'll never buy beer again" quality, but actually drinkable. I may have a winner. On a side note, I tried the sanitation test that was mentioned earlier. I put about 200 mL in a flask on Brew day after cooling, transferring to fermenter, and aerating. So the sample had every opportunity to become infected. It took EIGHT DAYS for any bacteria colonies to form, and that's with me taking off the foil three times over the week to smell it. Sooooooo, I guess my sanitation DOESN'T suck! For anyone reading this in the future, I'll report back again after carbonation.

 

[cloudybrewer]

As promised, here's my report on the nut brown.

I've had about 20 of them now. At first, they were just drinkable. No distinct off flavors, but not great. After about 4 weeks in the bottle, it is better. It has a good nutty nose, but the flavor doesn't back it up for some reason. But more to the point, the tart flavor of my previous batches is gone and there is definitely no infection aftermath. so I guess I'll blame the previous problems on my ingredients for the recipe. It had 15 pages worth of responses from people singing it's praise, so I don't know why I couldn't pull it off, but things are looking up.

 

[jlinz]

Any updates?

 

[Jayjay1976]

Skip using the whisk to aerate. Besides having a ton of surface area and lots of nooks, most of them have hollow handles where water can collect and breed bad things, and then dribble out into your beer during vigorous use. Since you are using it in room temp wort when it is most susceptible to infection, this seems to me a likely culprit.

 

[hawkbox]

Just to put a bit of context for you too, I think you're going to be fine. I did a batch of Sierra Nevada last week and after 5 days in the secondary this is what I woke up to.

After some fellow brewers over at Brewers Friend told me it would be fine (And to not be a wimp) I transferred to my keg and burst carbonated it. While I'm not entirely happy with the flavour it actually came out pretty decent.

So just keep at it and remember that they brewed hundreds of years ago and it was still drinkable.

Check out these 2 youtube videos, they put a lot of our fears into perspective.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLxNWWeEAlw[/ame]

https://youtu.be/eWmstIC5Sps

 

[cloudybrewer]

Any updates?

Well, the nut brown got better with some age. I'm drinking the second to last one now. Not something I offered to family or friends, but okay. None of that tart flavor, though.

Decided to switch to BIAB.

The next batch was a 2 row, Marris Otter, Amarillo recipe I found online, and who knows if it would have been good or not because I made a accidentally left a light on it all day after hurrying out the door to work and it tastes skunky as hell. Such is my life, apparently.

In the next couple days, I'm bottling Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde. All went well, no glaring F-ups. Here's hoping!

I can say that I like BIAB. On my first two tries, I got 85% efficiency in the fermenter according to all the online calculators, which blows my mind. Guess SOMETHING has to go right!

 

[jlinz]

Second to last one??? That's three and a half months give or take. Drink faster !!! :rockin: Seriously though, sounds like things are heading in the right direction.

 

[cloudybrewer]

Second to last one??? That's three and a half months give or take. Drink faster !!! :rockin: Seriously though, sounds like things are heading in the right direction.

Yeah, I know. The problem is that I also like rum, whiskey, and this local chocolate stout I can't stop buying! I won't be able to brew again until after Thanksgiving when the field work is done, but am excited to try my hand at a stout or Porter next.