mexican cerveza kit. yeasty flavors?

[jomoma]

Ok this was my second batch ever so i pretty much suck at this. i started the kit with a week in primary fermentation at about 80 degrees because i live in south texas where its extremely hot. i then reracked and left for another week. after this i bottled and drank after 2 weeks from priming. my first batch was very cloudy and had a strong yeast flavor which made it very undrinkable. this second batch was very clear but still had a yeasty flavor to it but was much better. does anyone have advice on how to get rid of this flavor????

 

[ramthebuffs]

Brew some this winter, it should get rid of a lot of that.

 

[Vuarra]

The next batch you make, you may want to think about where you are brewing it (a basement is usually cooler than the first or second floors), and how you are brewing it (look up swamp cooler in the search, much more info than I can repeat here).

While I have make the Black Rock Mexican Beer kit in 4 weeks, I'm more interested in how you drank it. Straight from the bottle? Did you shake or swirl the bottle in any way?

Worst case scenario is that you need to leave the bottles undisturbed and upright for another week.

 

[BubbaK]

I made a Brewers Best Cerveza kit. I left in primary for 2 weeks, secondary for 3 weeks and in the bottles for minimum of 2 weeks before tasting. No yeast flavors. I think you rushed it. I've only been brewing for about 8 months, but the biggest thing I've learned is patience makes the brew soo much better. It was a hard hump to get over, but its worth the wait.

 

[Revvy]

Ok this was my second batch ever so i pretty much suck at this. i started the kit with a week in primary fermentation at about 80 degrees because i live in south texas where its extremely hot. i then reracked and left for another week. after this i bottled and drank after 2 weeks from priming. my first batch was very cloudy and had a strong yeast flavor which made it very undrinkable. this second batch was very clear but still had a yeasty flavor to it but was much better. does anyone have advice on how to get rid of this flavor????

Yeah, don't rush through the process... if you have yeasty flavor than you are not letting the yeast fall out of your beer....rathr than racking after a week, the leaving it for a week and drinking it after only 2 weeks...try slowing the process down.

First don't move your beer into secondary after a week, if you chose to secondary (many of us don't rather we leave it alone for 4 weeks to let the beer finish fermenting AND the yeast to clean up any off flavors AND to let the yeast settle out of the beer so it tastes less "yeasty")....move it after the beer is finished fermenting, not based on when you want it to be done.

In Mr Wizard's colum in BYO this month he made an interesting analogy about brewing and baking....He said that egg timers are all well and good in the baking process but they only provide a "rule of thumb" as to when something is ready...recipes, oven types, heck even atmospheric conditions, STILL have more bearing on when a cake is ready than the time it says it will be done in the cook book. You STILL have to stick a toothpick in the center and pull it out to see if truly the cake is ready.....otherwise you may end up with a raw cake....

Not too different from our beers....We can have a rough idea when our beer is ready (or use something silly like the 1-2-3 rule (which doesn't factor in things like yeast lag time or even ambient temp during fermentation) and do things to our beer willy nilly....but unless we actually stick "our toothpick" (the hydrometer) in and let it tell us when the yeasties are finished...we too can "f" our beer up.

It will usually taste "yeasty" for one thing.

We forget this simple fact...We are not making koolaid, or chocolate quick, just stirring in and having instant gratification...when you pitch yeast, you are dealing with living micro-organisms...and they have their own timetable, and their own agenda...You have to figure in a wild card.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in.....

You will find Many of us here leave our beers in primary for a month, it is actually very good for the beer to leave it around that long...it improves taste and clarity vastly...

There are several dozen threads about long primary or no secondary, if you wanna know what it does and why we choose to do it, just do a thread search on those key words...there's like at least one new thread on it every 2-3 days so there's plenty of info.

Even John Palmer in "How To Brew" mentions the benefits of waiting...

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

Like I have said repeatedly we are not the bosses of the beer...the yeasts are. They have been doing it for over 4,000 years, so they have tenure.

If You think something is done, then wait another week to 10 days and it will be done better.

If you do choose to secondary, then wait til the beer looks clear. or AT LEAST two weeks. If the beer is clear looking then lest yeast is in suspension....therefore less yeast taste.

THEN when you go to bottle it....don't touch it for AT LEAST 3 WEEKS, or more.....Again, you will find that the longer you wait...the better the beer will taste.

Read this;

Revvy's Blog, Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.


If you chill your beer after it has carbed and conditioned, for a weak, even LESS yeast will be in suspension.

I posted recently about finding a bottle in the back of my fridge that had been in there for 2-3 months, and I upended the bottle, and NO yeast came out....

I hope you get the idea that patience in brewing is what makes the best beer....

Many new brewers forget this simple fact, We are not making koolaid, or chocolate quick, just stirring in and having instant gratification...when you pitch yeast, you are dealing with living micro-organisms...and they have their own timetable, and their own agenda...You have to figure in a wild card.

Like I have said repeatedly we are not the bosses of the beer...the yeasts are. They have been doing it for over 4,000 years, so they have tenure.

If You think something is done, then wait another week to 10 days and it will be done better......As much as I advocate the use of a hydrometer to ascertain done-ness I also advocate that even if the hydrometer shows the beer is done fermenting that the yeast are not done...that they are fastidious creatures, who will, if you give them plenty of time, will go back and clean up any messes they made during fermentation. They will often eat all the crap that most people would say causes off flavors (heck that is what a diacetyl rest is...you warm you beer up enough to get the yeast active, and it will swim around and eat all the chemicals that cause buttered popcorn tastes- It's nothing more than giving the yeast a shot at cleaning up it's own garbage.

So, if you want to have you beer taste less yeasty, then give it more time before you drink it.

Your beer will thank you...and you will enjoy the hobby more, when your beer taste better...because you didn't rush things.