Primary Fermenter Taste

[MrMonotone69]

Hi all, I couldn't find a thread about this so I decided to ask myself.

What does the beer taste like after 7-8 days in the fermenter?

I tasted some hoppiness. My burp was that of a normal IPA taste. It still tasted a little raw. There is a taste like you just drank a budweiser that's been sitting in a cooler on a boat for 10 hours. Kinda the flavor that would go with the smell of a college bar after the lights come on. Crappy beer with a watery taste. It's definitely beer. I can find some nuttiness, some upfront bitterness, maybe raw hopness.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is this just part of the process? Just looking for wisdom. I know I need to let it keep going and patience is the key to homebrewing.

My recipe was for an IPA (3 gallons)
It's pretty much the Sculpin IPA Clone, partial mash recipe.

Thank you,

 

[GHBWNY]

Hi all, I couldn't find a thread about this so I decided to ask myself.

What does the beer taste like after 7-8 days in the fermenter?

I tasted some hoppiness. My burp was that of a normal IPA taste. It still tasted a little raw. There is a taste like you just drank a budweiser that's been sitting in a cooler on a boat for 10 hours. Kinda the flavor that would go with the smell of a college bar after the lights come on. Crappy beer with a watery taste. It's definitely beer. I can find some nuttiness, some upfront bitterness, maybe raw hopness.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is this just part of the process? Just looking for wisdom. I know I need to let it keep going and patience is the key to homebrewing.

My recipe was for an IPA (3 gallons)
It's pretty much the Sculpin IPA Clone, partial mash recipe.

Thank you,

Sounds normal. No grossly objectionable smells/flavors. That's a good thing. 7-8 days is not that long in ferm. You can give it 2 - 3 weeks in ferm before passing judgment on taste of any kind, and even at that it will be a whole different beer after bottling/kegging/aging/conditioning --- thankfully! It's going to be fine. You addressed your own concerns by your statement:

I know I need to let it keep going and patience is the key to homebrewing.

 

[mrgrimm101]

7-8 days is way too short. Can I ask why you took a sample at this point? Fermentation is probably through the most vigorous activity at this point, but it still needs time to fully attenuate and clean up and settle out. It will taste very green at this point, as it's far from done. After fermentation is complete and it's bottled, it takes another couple weeks to carbonate and condition further in the bottle. It will taste a lot different through the different stages, but I wouldn't be too concerned if at 7 days after pitching you are not satisfied with the taste.

 

[MrMonotone69]

I was curious, also the airlock bubbles had subsided from about every 6-10 seconds to around 50-60 seconds and have virtually stopped at this point.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Airlock activity isn't the best sign of fermentation activity. It typically stops bubbling before fermentation is complete. I always find that it bubbles like crazy for the first 4-5 days, then slows down to almost no activity after that. My brews always go for about 3 weeks then I bottle. Let it go for about 2 weeks then take a gravity sample. Wait 2 days and take another sample. If the gravity readings are the same, then you have hit as table FG and could be bottled (or left to clean up/settle for another week).

I might be paranoid, but I avoid opening my fermenter as much as possible.. except to take a gravity sample after a couple weeks, then again to take my last sample and bottle. I've seen too many posts where "everything was fine until I opened the lid and now I have an infection!"

 

[MrMonotone69]

I don't plan on opening the fermenter very much at all. I'm mainly trying to find people who have tasted their beer between days 7-12 and what flavors they tasted. Has anyone experienced the flavors I described above?

 

[desabat]

It varies with each batch imo. During the first weeks it will likely taste green. Meaning that the hop bitternes will be extra sharp, beer will taste watered down due low carbonation in the solution, yeast in suspension will not taste clean. All of this is normal. You should be looking to not have any known off flavors (how to brew gives you descriptions for most known off flavors) like cardboard, buttery, metallic etc. even then some of these flavors may mellow out if given time.

 

[ncbrewer]

I might be paranoid, but I avoid opening my fermenter as much as possible.. except to take a gravity sample after a couple weeks, then again to take my last sample and bottle. I've seen too many posts where "everything was fine until I opened the lid and now I have an infection!"

All the posts here are great advice, but this one is my favorite.
+1+1+1+1

 

[BigFloyd]

What you're tasting is commonly referred to as "green beer". It's not a very good indicator of what it's going to finally taste like given the proper time and conditions.

Favorite quote on this subject is I recall from Yooper to the effect that "your beer will get done when it gets done. It won't get any doner by you messing with it."

 

[adamdillabo]

The first time I tasted my batch I was horrified. It was warm, watery, and tasted like it's been sitting in a bucket for 2 weeks. After carbonated it and cooled it was 100X better.

 

[schokie]

It's just flat beer is all. You'll be pleasantly shocked at how much carbonation will affect the flavor for the better. It will give your beer more body and really make the hops pop.

A 'green beer' tastes like green apples. That's the acetaldehyde that hasn't fermented out yet. I think it's great you're tasting your beer at different stages. That will give you an idea for next time how what will affect the flavor and how. It will also reinforce the appropriate timeline for you. Just don't do it for every beer or every day as it will increase your risk of infection. You need to balance your risk with your desire to increase brewing knowledge.

I'm routinely kegging my IPAs at the 10 day point. I'm drinking a bitter right now that I brewed 6 days ago. But I have my process and equipment fairly well dialed in by now. I wasn't going that quick when I started.

 

[BigFloyd]

A 'green beer' tastes like green apples.

First time I've ever heard the term used that way.

Acceptable synonyms for "green" as used herein-above are "developing", "maturing" and the like.

 

[nwbeer]

When i was new to brewing i chose super short recipes. My first beer was a simple California stout. I had bottled after only 9 days and It turned out exceptionally well. It tasted pretty good on the first sample and got better as the weeks past. I struggled with carb in the bottle conditioning process but after six weeks it was better than most beers i have bought.

Carbonation highly effects the flavor for the better...

 

[MrMonotone69]

It's amazing how much a week more of fermenting does to the taste. 1 week after plugging it, it taste horrible. 2 weeks after it was plugged, there is still some green taste but you can definitely tell that the flavors are there that I'm looking for.

 

[Smellyglove]

It tastes close to nothing like your finished product if you take care about fermentation and carbonation.

I guess the term green beer comes from the forming of acetaldehyde, which in some fermenting beers are more prevalent than in other beers. It tastes like green apples.

But. After 7-8 days intto fermentation it tastes pretty rough, and undone. Semi-rough hops and the different malts haven't "merged" yet. If its a low-medium OG beer it will also taste watery. When you carbonate it the bubbles and malt merging will replace this "watery" sensation.

I believe that you always should sneak a taste or three (and OG-reading, so you can taste it afterwards) during fermentation to get to know what it should and how a new recipe tastes like. This way you can early in the process notice if something is wrong, and to get a better understanding of what's happening during fermentation.