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

[Revvy]

Wow, first registered day and I read the thread I was looking for. The last couple of brews of mine came out a little on the sweet side. Mind you, I really like them as is (and so do the friends and relatives) and they weren't high hop styles to begin with. But I'm planning on an IPA for my next batch and was a little worried about that ending up too sweet as well. I mean, a malty IPA??

I figured I should simply leave the brew in the primary and secondary longer than I have been. But I wasn't sure if there was such a thing as leaving it in there too long. Thanks for the great post.

Welcome!!! I leave my beers generally 3-4 weeks in primary the straight to bottle...that way the yeast has a chance to clean up the aftereffects of fermentation.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I brewed my first lager back in April.. first week of June I opened the first bottle. It tasted like buttered popcorn. Actually, it was MORE buttery than buttered popcorn. :cross: I know I pitched warm, and apparently didn't do enough of a D-rest, so I knew right away I had diacetyl.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=70438

I DIDN'T DUMP IT... on Sunday, I cracked open another to see how much diacetyl is gone (two months and change in the bottles at this point). The buttered popcorn flavor is still there, but I'd say it's reduced by 2/3.

I'm sticking a note on the remaining bottles to try again in late September. By then I'm betting they'll be really clean. I'll probably save a couple for Christmas time to celebrate my first lager experience.

There's not much yeast in the bottles, esp. in a lager, but the ones in there will eat anything they can to stay alive, and that is a good thing for us!

Prost, Revvy!

- Eric

p.s. I have the cure for drinking green homebrew:

 

[Aleforge]

This was an awesome post! Next story I get to sit on Uncle Revvys lap.

 

[Hagen]

I had what is probably one of the very few exceptions. I brewed an APA, and did my usual thing. 2 weeks in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, 2 weeks in keg before tapping. It had a funny sweet flavor that melded with the hop flavor and kind of tasted like sweet lime. Not horrible, but odd nonetheless. As time passed, that flavor subsided to a definite butterscoth flavor. OK, I now know what was up, diacetyl. This was before I started using the ice bath technique, and I remember the airlock looking like it was literally boiling at the peak of activity, with a temp of 78*F

I went with the "time heals all things" motto, and let it sit 2 more months. When I tried it again, all I could taste was the butterscotch. It seems that all the other flavors had mellowed to the point that the diacetyl REALLY shined through, and not in a good way.

I needed the keg space and the slot in the kegerator, so I dumped the 2 or so gallons remaining. It's the first time in 13 years I've ever dumped, and I have no regrets, as it inspired me to revamp my process to include some kind of fermenting temp control.

Like I said, this example is probably the exception and definitely not the rule.

 

[Revvy]

Like I said, this example is probably the exception and definitely not the rule.

Yeah, but you at least TRIED...That is the moral of the story...If you just assume and dump without letting any time go by, like so many new brewers do, then you would never know...More likely than not the beer would have been alright...Or as in your case, you actually know for sure.

My condolence on your loss...I'll sit shiva (or is it Chivas?) for your beer...

 

[Revvy]

This was an awesome post! Next story I get to sit on Uncle Revvys lap.

Only if you are a 28 year old female like your profile says!

 

[Philip1993]

I went with the "time heals all things" motto, and let it sit 2 more months. When I tried it again, all I could taste was the butterscotch.

Like I said, this example is probably the exception and definitely not the rule.

Definitely the exception. I had a batch that tasted like s**t at 3 months. I had space, so I let her sit. At about 6 months (IIRC) she had really changed and became one of my most favorite beers. I'll never dump another one in less than 6 months again... In fact, right now I'm aging a 4mo AG that ended up astringent on me. I may end up dumping it, but in the meantime I'm just hang on to it and see what happens..

 

[jspence1]

Only if you are a 28 year old female like your profile says!

lol does it concern you that the 28 year old female is a husband and a father in their profile too......

 

[Revvy]

lol does it concern you that the 28 year old female is a husband and a father in their profile too......

Yeah, that's why I was pointing it out to him/her S/he....

A lot of profiles defaulted to female during one of the updates....

darn it.

 

[dp69_2001]

We are all just a leaf on the river of beer...

LOL!

(ten characters)

 

[BrewBlogger]

Thanks for the info Revvy. I've got a batch of a Kwak-inspired beer - a recipe that I received from Charlie Papazian himself via TechTalk - that really tastes sour now. I haven't dumped it, but it did have film-funk of what I can only equate to what looked and smelled like bread-yeast on the top (I'll provide a pic when I get home). I've got it in a keg now and won't even think about tapping it until 2009 or so - it was a big beer anyway. Hell, it's Belgian, right??

 

[bluefoxicy]

Ed Gruberman, you must learn patience.

Yeah yeah, patience, how long will that take?!

Case in point?

 

[homebrewer_99]

I've been saying "don't dump" for years.

I have 2 kegs of Oktoberfests lagering since March. They tasted a bit nasty (something off, maybe) a couple months ago, but I let them continue to age. Just last week I pulled a sample and they are tasting great.

Good write-up Revvy.

 

[Revvy]

Thanks HB 99, the rest of you!

We just gotta convince the noobs not to panic dump. That they should just walk away from the batch and forget about it for a couple months, then re-visit it...If it's still bad, then dump away...but usually the beer ends up being drinkable, if not great.

I think this happens less with experience, and with a pipeline, we obsess over each individual batch less...if a batch isn't up to snuff right away, we have more in the pipeline behind it that will be ready.

 

[XtremeBrew]

I would NEVER dump a batch of beer unless it was just totally contaminated in some way. I've always said that spilt or wasted beer is a one way ticket to hell. Seriously though, I brewed a Shiner Bock clone and I knew I had added just a little too much water into the primary, and I was right. It's been bottled fo rabout 3.5 weeks now and I've drunk a few spaced days apart since week 2 just to see how the it was tasting as it aged. When I bottled, I tasted it and the uncarbed brew tasted dead on like Shiner, but the hyrometer readings weren't settled yet so I let it sit for 3 more days and then bottled once it was where it needed to be. Now, it tastes NOTHING like Shiner. It has a bit of a watered doen tasted to it, but is a little maltier and less hoppy than Shiner. Not sure if it just sat in primary for a bit too long or what but it now tastes like Pete's Wicked Ale. I'm not complaining, just stating to other Noobs lke meself, that it may not taste like what you wanted it too or it was supposed to, but there are sooo many variations on beer that its almost impossible to go wrong. I'm very satisfied with my finished product and I will hide a sixer in the back of my closet to see how it tastes in 6 months.

I'm looking for a good simple Root Beer recepie for a 5 gal batch if anyone has one. Also. One of my most favorite beers is Double Diamond Ale from England. Anyone have a or know of a good clone brew for it??

 

[eviljafar]

Sure, ageing your bad beer for 6 or 12 months will probably improve it but if I brew an English or American Ale then I expect to be drinking it and enjoying it after 3 weeks, from grain to glass. I only brew ales at the moment, and lagers and some ales often require longer ageing.

I try to do primary for one week, seconday for one week, then bottle. I expect it to taste good after 3 weeks and great after 4 weeks. I notice the flavour and aroma changes a lot between 3-4 weeks, but as time goes on the changes in the beer each week diminishes from week to week. My beer doesn't always improve in time, it can also be sad to notice some desirable flavours and aromas diminish with time.

Between weeks 3 and 4 from mash day, every day I really notice changes in things like malt and hop flavour and aroma, and the mellowing of esters. This is usually the second week of bottle conditioning for me. Flavours and aromas that I wanted to have that are strong or unbalanced will possibly/probably mellow and blend into something better after a week or two.

If my beer still tastes bad after after a month then I probably did something wrong. While putting my bad beer in a dark forgotten place for a year doesn't take much effort, instead of putting the whole disaster out of sight and out of mind, I would rather work out where I went wrong. If I have flavours like cardboard, band-aids, butter or yoghurt in my beer then I have a problem. Aging a bad beer is not going to help me make better beer in the future. The best thing that can come from making bad beer is working out where I went wrong and changing that part of the process so I never make beer like that again.

A brief description of off flavours and what produces them can be found at The common Homebrew Off flavors and aromas in your beer along with the symptoms,causes and remedies..

If your English Pale Ale tastes like bubblegum or cloves or cinammon then you probably fermented too hot for your yeast. High fermentation temp is possibly the easiest way to go wrong when making beer. Fermenting an English or American Ale at 18*C (64*F) will give very different results than the same beer fermented at 22*C (71*F). Brewing with an English Ale yeast at 24*C (75*F) or above is not going to produce a beer that tastes like an English Ale. If like me you can't afford to, or be bothered to, control your fermentation temperature then you should choose a style of beer and a yeast that is suitable for your environment.

I ferment on the floor under my kitchen table, so during winter and spring I can ferment at about 20*C (68*F).This is an acceptable fermentation temperature for a lot of ales. During summer my cold water temperature doesn't get below 22*C (72*F) so my wort chiller won't cool any lower than that temperature. Fermentation temperature under my kitchen table during summer tends to be about 26*C (79*F) or higher so I'm brewing Saison at this time of year. This is a style that is often brewed at 30*C (86*F) so it's a problem for me keeping my fermentation temperature high enough instead of low enough. If I had a basement or garage that was around 6*C (43*F) in winter then I would probably be brewing lager at that time of year. But I don't have a basement or a garage so I don't brew lager. I'd like to have a temperature contolled chest freezer to ferment in so I can brew any style at any time of the year, but until I get one I will brew beer styles that suit the ambient temperature under my kitchen table.

If you have a sour taste in a beer and you saw a film develop on top during fermentation then you probably had an infection. The reason people are always talking about good sanitation when they talk about home brewing is because it is very important. If you want to brew a sour beer then do it on purpose. Unplanned innoculations are unlikely to yield nice results. I like sour beers, but if I make one I want to make it on purpose. I don't want to start out intending to make a pale ale that I later try to convince myself has some redeeming features vaguely resembling a Lambic.

Sometimes unexpected flavours can be good. I have had a nice unexpected Kiwi fruit flavour in one beer. At another time I made beer with some nice unexpected bubblegum flavours by fermenting with a strain of English Ale yeast at high temperature. Generally though I find unexpected flavours to be unwanted flavours, and there's a big difference between a nice subtle kiwi fruit flavour and a disturbing wet dog aroma.

I have also packed away some bad beer hoping it will improve. After reading this thread tonight I put a bottle that I packed away about 8 months ago into the fridge tonight and sampled it again. It was really bad a while ago, and while it's not as bad as I remember, it's still not a good beer. And plenty of beer I have made since then has been good without having to put it away for a any more than a week.

Putting your bad beer away might improve it but it's no replacement for making good beer in the first place. My advice is to use a yeast that suits your fermentation temperature and practice good sanitation. Then you will probably make beer that dosn't need to be stashed away for a year before it is drinkable.

Cheers,

Jaf.

 

[Jester369]

Putting your bad beer away might improve it but it's no replacement for making good beer in the first place. My advice is to use a yeast that suits your fermentation temperature and practice good sanitation. Then you will probably make beer that dosn't need to be stashed away for a year before it is drinkable.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that waiting a year is the way they want to brew, only that in the event something does go wrong, they might not want to pour it out.

Of course we want to learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them, but it's a nice consolation when that mistake does not condemn a batch of beer to certain doom.

 

[Revvy]

Update....

At a Pirate party on Friday at my buddy's house we discovered a 6 of the beer that I gave him back in May, in the bottom of his keezer....

It was even better then the bottles I had.

Since the party was with brewers and their swmbo's I was quite pleased to be told by everyone that those beers were the best homebrews of any that we were drinking...This was coming from people with several more years brewing under their belt. They could not believe the story I told them about how it was brewed...

They said it could have stood up to any micro amber ale out there....They said, it may have been the best beer I ever brewed.

That's a compliment I readily received considering it came from such distinguished brewers...



And Jaf, next time you want to post a huge counter to what someone has written, start a new thread....or a new blog....Bad form to threadjack...

There is a very specific reason this one was written...Which obviously you didn't seem to get for whatever reason...

It has to do with the fact that MANY new brewers dump out batches of beer that they initially perceive as being "bad" for various reasons.....Usually mostly dealing with the misperception of greenness as being a bad batch, which A LOT OF NOOBS ADMIT TO DOING!

(I even went into the reasons FOR the off flavors I got....I know a little bit about what I'm doing here...)

It proves that having patience CAN be a virtue...it is NOT about brewing BETTER beer. It's about not panicking and seeing if maybe a batch is salvageable....Which usually it is...It's better to try and see and probably have a drinkable beer come out of it, and not wasting your time and money....

It's about not committing the sin of alcohol abuse by dumping out beer.

This thread has over 3,000 reads since I posted it...that's a lot of views. And hopefully that translates into a lot of beer not being unnecessarily dumped out....

 

[tdavisii]

+1 revvy.......

 

[Ballistic]

I enjoyed this post. But one question springs to mind. Can the same be said of yeast itself? I have my first batch in the barrel now conditioning as per my other post, the dried yeast came with the kit. But in my cupboard I found a pack of dried brewers yeast dated "Use by Jan 99". As someone who hates wasting anything - can it still be used on it's own or in addition to other yeast in my next batch?

 

[Revvy]

I enjoyed this post. But one question springs to mind. Can the same be said of yeast itself? I have my first batch in the barrel now conditioning as per my other post, the dried yeast came with the kit. But in my cupboard I found a pack of dried brewers yeast dated "Use by Jan 99". As someone who hates wasting anything - can it still be used on it's own or in addition to other yeast in my next batch?

The easiest way to tell if any yeast is viable, even dry, is to make a yeast starter. If it takes then you have your pitchable yeast...if not then you know.

 

[mstev50]

Had to share my "bad batch" story.
Bottled a honey wheat back in late May. After conditioning for a month, I tasted the first bottle and it was undrinkable! Way too sweet, bad taste. Tried another after about another month, same thing. I figured it was done for and that I would have to dump it. Well, I just forgot about it and left it in the basement with my other beers. A couple of weeks ago I was downstairs getting some Apfelwein and spotted the honey wheat. What the heck, lets give it a shot and see if it came around.
It is FANTASTIC! Starting out, we all want to taste the results as soon as we can and we're quick to think something may be wrong. If it doesn't taste "right" after 3-4 weeks, give it time. The beer knows what's "right".

 

[Revvy]

Had to share my "bad batch" story.
Bottled a honey wheat back in late May. After conditioning for a month, I tasted the first bottle and it was undrinkable! Way too sweet, bad taste. Tried another after about another month, same thing. I figured it was done for and that I would have to dump it. Well, I just forgot about it and left it in the basement with my other beers. A couple of weeks ago I was downstairs getting some Apfelwein and spotted the honey wheat. What the heck, lets give it a shot and see if it came around.
It is FANTASTIC! Starting out, we all want to taste the results as soon as we can and we're quick to think something may be wrong. If it doesn't taste "right" after 3-4 weeks, give it time. The beer knows what's "right".

Thanks for sharing this!!!!!

It's good to have other examples to back up this argument....

 

[quickerNu]

What if it has half a gallon of starsan in it from magical suckback?

 

[Revvy]

What if it has half a gallon of starsan in it from magical suckback?

At normal dilution, starsan is drinkable....

In fact it becomes yeast food....

So yeah...I'd go for it.

 

[jwenker1]

Thanks for the informative post. I have brewed some beers that were sub-par, but I always ended up drinking them or making my friends drink them, lol. I am really curious to see how several months of ageing will change my next so-so batch. I am just starting to learn about this thing called patience, it only took me about 10 batches.

I also wanted to introduce myself and say what a great forum this is, I look forward to chatting with all of you.

James

 

[zacster]

I have a Nut Brown Ale that I thought was pretty bad, overcarbonated and estery. I brewed it back in april/may and still have a full case. A few weeks ago I put a few in the fridge because it was handy, still upstairs not in the basement. I opened one up and it foamed over as usual, poured it into a glass where it foamed some more. I then left it on the counter to do something else. About an hour later my wife comes by with the beer in her hand, having finished half of it and says "this is really good, which one is it?" I taste it and it IS really good.

After sitting for an hour the carbonation died down, and without the overcarbonation it was a very good beer. I opened another a few days later and tried a different approach. I stirred it with a spoon, which released all the excess carbonation et voila! Good beer! I'm going to try something else as well, I'll open up a few, let them sit for a while, then recap and put them aside for a few weeks.

Edit: I need to change my signature to reflect this.

 

[Diablotastic]

I have a batch which i conditioned for 3 weeks...then suck in the fridge. It has a bit of an astringent taste and quite possibly some oxidation. Since it's been in the fridge for a couple more weeks...is it still possible to move them form the fridge back out to rook temperature and have a chance at the yeats cleaning up a bit more?

 

[Revvy]

I have a batch which i conditioned for 3 weeks...then suck in the fridge. It has a bit of an astringent taste and quite possibly some oxidation. Since it's been in the fridge for a couple more weeks...is it still possible to move them form the fridge back out to rook temperature and have a chance at the yeats cleaning up a bit more?

You stuck them ALL in your fridge??? Wow.....Must be nice to have a beer fridge...

Yeah, I would pull them out, and let them sit around at room temp for awhile, the yeast will wake back up and might clean up some of the mess....

 

[Diablotastic]

You stuck them ALL in your fridge??? Wow.....Must be nice to have a beer fridge...

Yeah, I would pull them out, and let them sit around at room temp for awhile, the yeast will wake back up and might clean up some of the mess....

Lol...yeah when we bought our house the original owners had a secondary fridge (kinda older) that they asked us if they could leave. It is now in the basement and serves a sole purpose of beer fridge and quite possibly may house the two corny's I picked up off of some guy who lives down the street :rockin: