new brewer needs help

[jessierae314]

I haven't been brewing for long and my family, friends, and I all love the extract beer I'm brewing. However, I notice a strange flavor in it. its kind of a sweet metallic taste that you get in the middle of your tongue when you drink it. I have read about off-flavors and I can't specifically identify this one. do you think its a "house flavor" or what? any suggestions?

 

[Tripod]

I haven't been brewing for long and my family, friends, and I all love the extract beer I'm brewing. However, I notice a strange flavor in it. its kind of a sweet metallic taste that you get in the middle of your tongue when you drink it. I have read about off-flavors and I can't specifically identify this one. do you think its a "house flavor" or what? any suggestions?

I'm not the biggest expert here at all, but I've heard of people getting the metallic taste from LME that has been in a can too long.

I only use DME and i've never had that issue...what specific extract are you using?

-Tripod

PS - WELCOME TO HBT!!

 

[pericles]

The metallic taste you are referring to is often caused by caramelization of extract. This, in turn, is caused by over-cooking the extract. Here's the deal. . .

When extract comes to you, it's already been appropriately malted and mashed. The only thing preventing you from throwing yeast in it immediately is that it was vacuum dehydrated into either liquid or dry extract. When you boil it again, you're actually repeating a step that was done PRIOR to the extract being dehydrated. So if you boil the extract for the full sixty minutes, you're essentially giving the wort a 120 minute boil.

Most of us have stopped adding the extract at the beginning of the boil. Instead, we add it 10-5 minutes prior to flame out; just long enough to properly dissolve the extract in the water. The first 50 minutes of the boil, then is just the hops and whatever leachate has been extracted from your specialty grains.

So, long story short: try a late extract addition next time, and see if that solves your "extract tang" problem.

 

[BrewRI]

The metallic taste you are referring to is often caused by caramelization of extract. This, in turn, is caused by over-cooking the extract. Here's the deal. . .

When extract comes to you, it's already been appropriately malted and mashed. The only thing preventing you from throwing yeast in it immediately is that it was vacuum dehydrated into either liquid or dry extract. When you boil it again, you're actually repeating a step that was done PRIOR to the extract being dehydrated. So if you boil the extract for the full sixty minutes, you're essentially giving the wort a 120 minute boil.

Most of us have stopped adding the extract at the beginning of the boil. Instead, we add it 10-5 minutes prior to flame out; just long enough to properly dissolve the extract in the water. The first 50 minutes of the boil, then is just the hops and whatever leachate has been extracted from your specialty grains.

So, long story short: try a late extract addition next time, and see if that solves your "extract tang" problem.

+1 and well described

 

[MarcJWaters]

Hmmm... I learn something new every day. So is this recommended with DME as well or only LME?

 

[wyzazz]

DME and unhopped LME.

 

[skyzo]

I still add DME late as well, helps lighten the color as well. Its even more true with LME though, because it tends to be darker right out of the can.

 

[TipsyDragon]

while i advocate late extract addition (adding the extract at the end) i prefer a half and half method.

steep the grain at 160F +/- 10F for 30 min in 1 gallon water (if not steeping just heat to 160 and continue). then take the pot off the heat and dissolve half the extract into the wart and top off to 3 gallons and bring to a boil. add hops and whatever else. then in the last 10 - 15 min of the boil add the other half of the extract.

this will result in a much lighter (style correct) color and should cut down on off flavors due to scorching the extract and reduce the amount of hops needed to get the target IBU.

 

[pericles]

while i advocate late extract addition (adding the extract at the end) i prefer a half and half method.

I'm the same way, but because I have no principled reason for doing this, I usually don't mention it.

 

[New2Brew17]

this will result in a much lighter (style correct) color and should cut down on off flavors due to scorching the extract and reduce the amount of hops needed to get the target IBU.

How do you figure out the amount of hops that will actually be needed if you do a late addition, especially if you use a pre-measured kit?

While I am not brewing yet, I hope to be soon and late addition was something I was thinking about. Since I don't like real hoppy beers, I would definitely need to cut back on their addition.

Thanks

 

[jessierae314]

The metallic taste you are referring to is often caused by caramelization of extract. This, in turn, is caused by over-cooking the extract. Here's the deal. . .

When extract comes to you, it's already been appropriately malted and mashed. The only thing preventing you from throwing yeast in it immediately is that it was vacuum dehydrated into either liquid or dry extract. When you boil it again, you're actually repeating a step that was done PRIOR to the extract being dehydrated. So if you boil the extract for the full sixty minutes, you're essentially giving the wort a 120 minute boil.

Most of us have stopped adding the extract at the beginning of the boil. Instead, we add it 10-5 minutes prior to flame out; just long enough to properly dissolve the extract in the water. The first 50 minutes of the boil, then is just the hops and whatever leachate has been extracted from your specialty grains.

So, long story short: try a late extract addition next time, and see if that solves your "extract tang" problem.

This is really helpful, thanks. I have been boiling the extract way too long! I also use coopers liquid malt extract. I've used DME before but I still added that at the begining of the boil. I'm excited to see if the if the late extract addition takes that taste away.

 

[dougugly]

Please let us know after your next brew is ready.

 

[pericles]

How do you figure out the amount of hops that will actually be needed if you do a late addition, especially if you use a pre-measured kit?

Hops utilization is mostly unrelated to the fermentable sugars you add. Many of us brew a separate "hops tea" and then add it to the wort (either in secondary, or to a divided half-batch.) There's NO fermentable sugars in that, and the hops have obviously been fully utilized. What changes hops utilization is the amount of WATER you use. You'll need to decrease hops as you add water (it's a late night for me, to double check that,) or increase hops as you decrease water. So if you have a 7gal pot and you do full boils, you can save a couple of bucks on hops. When you add your extract has nothing to do with it. (Again, someone who's not as sleepy as I am, check my math.)

So, in short, a late extract addition won't change your hops schedule. Add the hops as you normally would, just as your recipe specifies, after you've steeped your specialty grains, and then add your extract late in the boil.

 

[nbspindel]

how does the amount of water affect the utilization of the hops? what i've read is that "the degree of utilization is composed of a gravity factor and a time factor" (John Palmer, How to brew).

Do you mean that by having a higher volume, say a full boil, the gravity is lower, so you have a higher utilization? If you're doing a late extract addition, then the gravity is actually quite low, so the utilization would be quite a bit higher than if you added extract at the beginning of the boil.

The difference in utilization of hops b/t a 1.030 boil (.276) and a 1.050 boil for 60 minutes (.231) is almost negligible though. Am i right? I don't do half-boils, so i don't know what the difference in gravity would be between boiling your extract/hops for 60 in 2.5 gallons compared to 5.5 (accounting for evaporation), but i'm not sure you would want to decrease hop additions by too much. Someone correct me if i'm wrong please.

 

[Yooper]

John Palmer recently "retracted" what he said about the cause of lower hops utilization in a partial boil being caused by the specific gravity of the wort. It turns out it has to do with more break material, and not the SG of the wort.

However, for all practical purposes, the IBU counts are about the same as a full boil and as a late extract addition. So, if you have some brewing software that can really help.

In my case, several years ago I tried a late extract addition for the first time. It was for my Dead Guy clone (extract batch, of course). To my taste, it was much more bitter. In fact, I said to my husband, "Wow- this is like twice as bitter as the first recipe without the late extract addition!" A while later, I downloaded Beersmith and added the recipes. Sure enough, the "regular" recipe was about 18 IBUs and the late extract addition was about 30 IBUs! Big, big difference in a lower IBU beer.

So, in my experience, adding the extract late does indeed change the bitterness of the beer. You will want to adjust the bittering hops accordingly, but not the flavor or aroma hops that are added with less than 15 minutes in the boil.

 

[nbspindel]

it's cool to see that in beersmith. one more option i've learned. i just got Palmer's 'how to brew'; do you know of anything else that might be different? i'll have to search the forum for the best, most up-to-date books to learn from since this one might already be outdated in some ways.