Off flavors questions

[Blackhawkbrew]

Hoping to get some help. My first three beers I fermented in my new fermentation freezer with the ebay aquarium temp controller have had off flavors - kind of bitter. Temperature was set at 68*. I was wondering if it is the fermentation chamber or my brewing technique with these brews.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

"Kind of bitter" doesn't say much. Not being rude.

Elaborate on the techniques and recipe.

 

[Blackhawkbrew]

Thanks for the reply Gila.
My first recipe was Biermuncher's Cream of 3 Crops. It had a strating gravity of 1.051 (I ferment in primary for 3 weeks). The second was a cream stout that had a starting gravity of 1.057 (peetered out at 1.020). I also did a pumpkin porter that was also at 1.057. I just tasted my pumkin ale (which was only in the bottle 2 weeks) and it had the same flavor profile. I submitted the cream stout to a local competition and the judges said that it had acidic and astringent flavors. I had perviously use a water bath for fermentation during warmer weather and my beers didn't have these flavors. I'm not a good descriptor of flavors, but they all seem to have an acidy or sour flavor profile.

Don't know if this helps or not. Let me know if you need more information.

 

[Jwood]

astringent flavors could arise from tannins, what's your sparge process like?

I should also ask what your setup is. Could be silly, but are grains getting into your boil?

Go through your whole process for us.

Also, on a side note, how is the probe placed in your fermentation chamber? if 68 is ambient, your actual fermentation could be much higher. You want to measure the actual fermentation temperature (i.e. insulated on side of bucket/carboy). Just a side note, doesn't sound like you are having high fermentation issues though.

 

[Blackhawkbrew]

I batch sparge, mostly 2 sparges. I get my grains from the LHBS and haven't had this problem before.

My temp probe is taped to the side of my fermenting bucket. This might be a silly question, but how do you insulate the probeon the side of the bucket? I did turn the temp down to 66 on the beer that's currently in there.

On a side note, since using the freezer for fermenting, I've gotten strong souring odors in there. Any possible correlation?

 

[day_trippr]

[...]My temp probe is taped to the side of my fermenting bucket. This might be a silly question, but how do you insulate the probeon the side of the bucket? I did turn the temp down to 66 on the beer that's currently in there.

On a side note, since using the freezer for fermenting, I've gotten strong souring odors in there. Any possible correlation?

I trap the (electronic) fridge controller probe against a glass carboy with a palm-size pad of closed cell foam. The controller display always reads within one °F of the LC thermometer strip on the carboy so that seems to work nicely.

As for the odor, I wouldn't worry much about it. Unless you have obvious sanitation issues within the fridge the smell is likely due to fermentation "fumes" accumulating on the walls and duct work. You could try wiping it down with some diluted bleach, but if you're using a fridge/freezer, de-odorizing the duct work is likely to be a challenge...

Cheers!