Never dump your beer!!! Patience IS a virtue!!! Time heals all things, even beer!

[lebucheron]

Will time help the 'cidery' taste of my only dextrose pre-hopped kit? Beuuah. Won't make that mistake twice.

 

[Trail]

It depends. If you're dealing with an actual cidery taste - that is, from adding too much sugar or something - it'll probably fade to some extent, eventually. If it's just green beer, though, that green apple flavor will definitely clear up.

Edit: ...Whoa. Missed the dextrose-only thing. Um, you might see some improvement but I wouldn't be too hopeful. Maybe you have a new cooking beer?

 

[BoomerHarley]

I don't know if I agree with this thread. I just dumped five gallons of mead and am about to dump five gallons of a spiced stout. The mead was just nasty. And even if it wasn't I realized it just isn't something I would ever drink. Ever.

The stout, welllllllll. Technically it came out great. But the spice mix gave it a flavor very similar to Jaegermaister. Once again, not somthing I would ever drink for enjoyment. Ever. I've tried everything. I tried putting vanilla in it and it helped, but still tastes like crap. Most recently I soaked some oak cubes in Maker's Mark and added that. Still tastes like satan's butthole.

My point is that how long do I want to tie up the space and keep a keg occupied when I could brew up another great beer in no time. The stout sucks.

 

[VladOfTrub]

I've dumped a lot of beer over the years. Many didn't live up to my expectations and many went funky. I never had the patience to age out a funky beer. However, there were times that I surprised myself by finding bottles of stashed beer that were funky at 6 months, but were great at a year! I have also, had some beer that was funky, right to the bitter end. So, I'd say if we have the room, we don't need the fermentor, keg, or whatever we put the beer in. Age it out. See what happens. There's probably some kind of learning curve type thing that may come into play. But, right now, I can't figure out why?

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

Will time help the funky tart aftertaste in the pale ale that fermented in the 70's with notty?

I guess I get to wait and find out. 5 gallons of it. Tried one of the 6 bottles i put up and it was sorta funky. Got about 4.5g in a keg. bah.

 

[makomachine]

Will time help the funky tart aftertaste in the pale ale that fermented in the 70's with notty?

I guess I get to wait and find out. 5 gallons of it. Tried one of the 6 bottles i put up and it was sorta funky. Got about 4.5g in a keg. bah.

Notty tartness usually subsides in a month or so - but you gotta keep it cool, and 70's is too warm. It gets low 60's or even high 50's when you want it clean.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

Notty tartness usually subsides in a month or so - but you gotta keep it cool, and 70's is too warm. It gets low 60's or even high 50's when you want it clean.

Yeah, I'm aware, now.

but it's honestly been in the bottle for over a month now.

It was a "clean out the freezer" brew of spare malts and hops with no late hops so i am looking at adding a hop tea to the keg. I've got 5 more bottles, but the 1st one wasn't really pleasant.

I talk like i know **** but really I am just a sponge for information I'm interested in, and I've been brewing for less than a year now.

 

[bottlebomber]

I don't know if I agree with this thread. I just dumped five gallons of mead and am about to dump five gallons of a spiced stout. The mead was just nasty. And even if it wasn't I realized it just isn't something I would ever drink. Ever.

The stout, welllllllll. Technically it came out great. But the spice mix gave it a flavor very similar to Jaegermaister. Once again, not somthing I would ever drink for enjoyment. Ever. I've tried everything. I tried putting vanilla in it and it helped, but still tastes like crap. Most recently I soaked some oak cubes in Maker's Mark and added that. Still tastes like satan's butthole.

My point is that how long do I want to tie up the space and keep a keg occupied when I could brew up another great beer in no time. The stout sucks.

Lol.. It sounds like you need to change towards brewing beer that at least has a fighting chance of being good. That stout sounds damn nasty lol

 

[Snicks]

I don't know if I agree with this thread. I just dumped five gallons of mead and am about to dump five gallons of a spiced stout. The mead was just nasty. And even if it wasn't I realized it just isn't something I would ever drink. Ever.

The stout, welllllllll. Technically it came out great. But the spice mix gave it a flavor very similar to Jaegermaister. Once again, not somthing I would ever drink for enjoyment. Ever. I've tried everything. I tried putting vanilla in it and it helped, but still tastes like crap. Most recently I soaked some oak cubes in Maker's Mark and added that. Still tastes like satan's butthole.

My point is that how long do I want to tie up the space and keep a keg occupied when I could brew up another great beer in no time. The stout sucks.

If time can't heal it, half a dozen pints or so of something else probably will .

 

[lebucheron]

It depends. If you're dealing with an actual cidery taste - that is, from adding too much sugar or something - it'll probably fade to some extent, eventually. If it's just green beer, though, that green apple flavor will definitely clear up.

Edit: ...Whoa. Missed the dextrose-only thing. Um, you might see some improvement but I wouldn't be too hopeful. Maybe you have a new cooking beer?

AH cooking. Good call. I won't dump it since it's in pet bottles I don't need anyways. Thanks.

 

[BoomerHarley]

Lol.. It sounds like you need to change towards brewing beer that at least has a fighting chance of being good. That stout sounds damn nasty lol

Aint that the truth. My buddy and I used to brew a lot together and he always wants to brew weird stuff. Now, I mostly brew IPAs and whatnot.

 

[Whattawort]

Worst beer I ever made was a honey weizen. Recipe called for more honey than grain and I should have known better, but followed through with it anyway. Simply undrinkable after 3 weeks in a bottle but I decided to keep it around as a control for how much better my beers were getting. It got a little better after a couple of months, but then started to waiver again after the 6 month mark. I still never poured it out. Ended up choking the rest down with a couple of spicy meals (couldn't taste it). As a side note, I reserve Notty for 1gal ciders only. It's a lot easier to control in small amounts. After almost losing a lid and risking wort all over the ceiling/walls/windows and eternally pissing SWMBO off, it's off limits. I'll probably catch a little flack from you guys for not using it again, but I'm a little gun shy to use it again. A happy SWMBO makes the whole process less stressful.

 

[griffondg]

It's about time I chime in. My first AG was a Duvel clone that I brewed in 2009 and for months and months afterwards it was terrible. I fermented WAY too hot and there were just all types of funky off flavors. I gave up on it 2 years ago but never dumped it (hey, I'm lazy!) By chance I came upon this thread yesterday and found the remaining 12 pack of this that was sitting quietly in a dark corner all this time and decided to throw a couple of bottles in the fridge. Anyway, I just cracked the first one open an damn, it's GOOD! After THREE years. It's very mellow but still has some really nice character there. Lesson learned. Thanks Revvy and everyone else!

Eric

 

[HopZombie99]

I'm about to brew my first beer soon and this is a fantastic thread to read. Thanks very much to everyone who left a story here.

I and many of the other posters believe, that if you dump a beer too soon...the beer is a 100% failure.....

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take" - Wayne Gretzky

 

[IffyG]

I don't know if I agree with this thread.

You certainly aren't alone. I've only got so many kegs and I'd rather brew a new beer than wait 6 months for something that might get better.

 

[Ari]

I just brewed my first two batches two weeks ago. The first is an IPA that I bottled yesterday and that batch tastes and smells great. The second was and all grain Belgian wit. After brewing this one, I realized I made a few mistakes. I splashed the wort to cool it and I used a glass of fresh squeezed oj because I didn't have very much orange zest. the first day it smelled great coming out of the airlock and then it smelled more like rotten orange and then vomit. I have been sampling it as I check the the gravity periodically. Today it tastes like soapy harsh wine with a ramen/bullion aftertaste. Today I racked it to a secondary and I was planning on bottling it in a few days. It is pretty ruthless on the mouth as it is but I'm prepared to just bottle it and leave it in my closet for a while. Has anyone ever had these flavors? My concern is that I haven't read anything about these flavors popping up anywhere, other than a sherry flavor. Are these the type of flavors that can clear up or did I mess it up with the juice and the hot aeration? I don't want to toss potentially good beer but I also don't want to hang onto bottles of fizzy dishwater for a long time.

 

[Whattawort]

I just brewed my first two batches two weeks ago. The first is an IPA that I bottled yesterday and that batch tastes and smells great. The second was and all grain Belgian wit. After brewing this one, I realized I made a few mistakes. I splashed the wort to cool it and I used a glass of fresh squeezed oj because I didn't have very much orange zest. the first day it smelled great coming out of the airlock and then it smelled more like rotten orange and then vomit. I have been sampling it as I check the the gravity periodically. Today it tastes like soapy harsh wine with a ramen/bullion aftertaste. Today I racked it to a secondary and I was planning on bottling it in a few days. It is pretty ruthless on the mouth as it is but I'm prepared to just bottle it and leave it in my closet for a while. Has anyone ever had these flavors? My concern is that I haven't read anything about these flavors popping up anywhere, other than a sherry flavor. Are these the type of flavors that can clear up or did I mess it up with the juice and the hot aeration? I don't want to toss potentially good beer but I also don't want to hang onto bottles of fizzy dishwater for a long time.

I'd say the biggest player in your predicament would be that you used a very acidic juice. Typically, you just want to use the zest of the fruit for aromatics and compliment with spices or yeast profiles to get the rest of the taste you're looking for. Unfortunately (in my personal experience), wheat/weizens don't act like most other beers in the bottle. You might see it mellow out in a month or two, but they can also go downhill in that same amount of time. BUT I only say that out of caution. I personally have a strict policy regarding my beer. I will never do a drain dump or be a witness to one when it comes to homebrew be it mine or someone else. I just believe that either you can muscle through drinking it to find out what the off tastes are and how you can improve. You can find another purpose for it (like cooking, plant food, practical joke ammo, etc.). If nothing else, you'll have a definitive baseline of what your worst beer is.

Also, no need to secondary a wheat unless you just want to free up a primary. Personally, I see no need for a secondary at all. But that's just the way I roll. I also no/slow-chill, so perhaps I'm just lazy... or brilliantly efficient.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

I'd say the biggest player in your predicament would be that you used a very acidic juice. Typically, you just want to use the zest of the fruit for aromatics and compliment with spices or yeast profiles to get the rest of the taste you're looking for.

I dunno about the acid being a problem.

Right now, and for the last year or so, "radlers" (shandies) are very popular in central and eastern europe.

Whole lotta people mixing beer and lemon soda. You can get it in a bottle. I have had it. It was not the worst thing i've tasted. My slovenian friend assures me that every brewery in europe makes one these days.

"smells like vomit" could be lacto, no?

 

[Ari]

I don't think it has an infection personally. I was really sanitary with it. I'm pretty sure it's the oj and hot side aeration that is so bad. Sounds like it's incurable. It's gonna go in bottles and sit for 2 months with a few samplings in between before I toss it.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

hardly anybody thinks that hot side aeration is even a thing. Nobody has been able to explain a plausible mechanism to me.

When you say you splashed it to cool it, what do you mean by that? A lot of people stir or agitate when using immersible chillers with no issues. Also you may have noticed that boiling is a somewhat violent experience for liquids but the thing is that it forces gasses out of solution.

If you added the OJ after the wort cooled, anything hitching a ride in the OJ could infect the wort.

 

[Ari]

Well... My friend and I had it boiling in two separate pots and I noticed that if we pick up a ladle full and pour it back in it cools way faster than just stirring it. It was pretty much as much as you could splash it without spilling it.

The oj was in the boil for 10-15 minutes. We boiled it for 45 then added the spices, nutmeg, coriander, two oranges worth of zest, two oranges worth of juice... I'm thinking that's what the problem was more and more though. I did rack it in order to take the yeast off the bottom. The beef bullion flavor worried me that my yeast was dying and I wanted to save the cake for a batch of something else later.

 

[TimpanogosSlim]

Out of curiosity do we have a good definition of what yeast autolysis tastes like? I'm under the impression that it may be the savory sort of soy sauce flavor that turns up in some brews.

 

[Ari]

ok, I'm drinking a shock top and it tastes exactly like my beer. Maybe I just don't like this kind of wit or something. I like blue moon, but the ramen, vomity soap flavor is present in this shock top too. hmmm...

 

[ajohnson153]

Probably three months ago I brewed a Belgian dark strong ale and forgot to sanitize my fermenter before I put it in there. I was tempted to dump it and call it a loss (Everyone had told me that sanitization is the most important part of brewing, so I figured that if I had failed in that aspect then the beer couldn't possibly work out.) It's still in secondary but my samples have all tasted absolutely fantastic! I'll be bottling this up soon to give as Christmas gifts this year. One of the guys a Hop City, which isn't my usual LHBS, said most infections happen at bottling so I guess I will be going overboard on my sanitary procedures when I bottle. I hope this works out since it would be a shame for this beer to be wrecked in the bottle after it fermented and aged so perfectly.

 

[BrewGoose]

So I have been following this thread for over a year and would like some advice on one of my brews that I hope to save with time.

I swung for the fences with this brew... hoped to clone Dogfish Head's World Wide Stout (20% ABV). I achieved 19.6% ABV with daily oxygen infusions and nutrient treatments. The WWS clone was bottled and stored in a dark closet in my apartment (about 68-72 degrees). I opened the first bottle 6 months after brewing and noticed right away that there was 0 carbonation! I was heart broken but tasted the brew anyways. WOW! The hops were really over powering and nearly numbed my tongue.

Dejected, I decided to wait until the one year brewversary to test another bottle. The taste and flavor was much improved when I tasted the one year bottle. However, still FLAT.

With such a high ABV, what are my options for bottle carbonation? I am planning on testing another bottle on the 2 year brewversary but would like to see a great head and hear the PISST upon uncapping.

I'd appreciate any help and advice on this matter.

 

[kylevester]

I made a double chocolate cherry stout that turned out horrid. I followed advice here on chocolate and used Hershey's cocoa powder in the last few minutes of the boil and pie cherries in the secondary.

After 3 months in the bottle, it was terrible. 6 months, just as terrible tasting so I dumped almost all of it. It smelled of vomit while pouring it down the drain. 12 months in the bottle and the two I opened had developed a copper flavor and still smelled of vomit. The rest got tossed.

I don't know what the hell happened on this brew, but damn was it wretched and unsaveable.

 

[Seedly]

My dont pour it out story happened 4 weeks ago.

I had a Belgian Golden that I was making with a few pounds of peaches out of our back yard. This was my second BIAB batch and things seemed to be going well through the mash up until the last 10 minutes or so. See, I had found some 'advice' about a great way to get cheap BIAB bags from WalMart curtains. I am no seamstress (seamstor?), but i thought, what the hell...could save me a couple bucks (note: if you ever find yourself thinking along these lines...STOP IMMEDIATELY AND USE SOME COMMON SENSE).

In those last 10 minutes, i noticed that I had grains floating outside the bag...

Sure enough, I made the bag slightly too big and it melted to the bottom of my brew pot. And whats worse, when I went to lift the bag the melted part ripped out dumping my grain back into the wort!

I probably stood there for a full minute in silence as various combinations of expletives ran through my head. I suddenly realized that i was secondarily screwed as I had no backup bag/filter. The only thing I had was a hop strainer that fits over the top of a fermenting bucket for straining post-boil. Going slowly, I start straining the just barely under 5 gallons of wort and grains from the (5 gal) kettle. It actually didnt go too badly at first, allowing me to sparge each batch of grain separately and then scoop the spent grains into the trash.

That is, until the last gallon or so. I was ready to be done with the ordeal and poured a little too aggressively. The hop strainer over-filled and spilled a fair portion of sweet wort and grains all over the floor.

I couldnt hold back any more. I let loose a tirade that was so violent it had the misses running to the kitchen but only peeking around the corner. We frantically grab some shop towels and basically cover half the kitchen floor with them.

After containing the mess, I look in my brew pot and was horrified at the charred mess of blackened God-knows-what on the bottom of my pot. Thoughts are swimming thought my head at this point of just what melted cheap chinese window curtain is going to do to my beer...

I couldnt stand it. I grabbed the pot and some steel wool and just walked out of the kitchen into the back yard. As I sat scrubbing (which took half an hour, mind you. Even had to resort to using a flat head as a scraper to get the last few bits of suborn crud out), my ever patient, ever loving wife came out to see if I was ok. Having 20 minutes to take my frustrations out on the bottom of my kettle with the steel wool, I let her know how upset I was that everything was going wrong and that I was ready to just dump everything out and forget it.

Again, being the ever patient, ever loving wife, she asked me which would make me feel worse: dumping everything out and trying to forget it or finishing the beer and having it turn out bad.

And then I thought of Revvy.

Damn.

The rest of the brew day (sans an extraordinarily long cleanup) went normally despite running almost 7 hours when it should have been 4. The fermentation was normal. Hell, even the bottling went smoother and faster than ever before.

Oh and the beer? Its in my fridge right now. Not a hint of window curtain to it, although sadly the peach didnt come through very well (note to self: next time puree, dont slice). Im not going to say that its the best brew I ever made, but other than the lack of peach it came though exactly as Id hoped.

So, lessons learned:
- Window curtains are for hanging on windows, not brewing. Get good gear and use it as intended.
- Murphy loves the unprepared. Have a backup plan.
- In addition to being patient and loving, the wife is usually right. Especially when you want to react out of anger.
- Puree, dont slice.
- Dont Dump it Out!!

 

[Han_Solo]

Lots of good stuff in here

 

[mrjones1975]

this post just answred a million questions for me thank you to the great brewer who posted this.

 

[onerainmaker]

As a nooooob, this thread is a salve to my paranoia. I thank you.

(First ever brew, English Bog Standard Bitter by Coopers (antipodean atopia?), 5 bottles primed with Honey, the rest with gran sugar, in a heated seed propagator (I do plants ) (not to be mistaken with "I 'do' plants" ). Excited and impatient. Sounds like a bad recipe.)

By the way, when overpriming, exactly how far does glass fly?