Question: First taste

[WortIfied]

Just opened my first bottle of my first home brew. It's a kit from Midwest dubbed Hop Head DIPA. It has an exceptional blend of hops flavor, aroma, and bitterness. I'm only concerned about a certain profile I pick out. It's supposed to be an amber ale but taste like it's backed by a brown ale by the caramel/almost sweetness i taste in it. It sat in primary for 10 days and secondary dry hopped 2oz cascade for another 11 days. OG was 1.080 and FG at bottling was 1.015.

Now, i didn't pick out the caramely slight sweetness when racking to bottling so I'm noobishly blaming it on still being in conditioning. It's only been in bottles for a week... I know I know, 3-4 weeks in bottles than 24hr-1 week in fridge. I wanted to test it to see how carbonation was coming along, and was surprised how well it's come, I had a nice sound upon opening and a nice thick head when pouring.



Anyways back to my question. Is this flavor I'm getting just because it's still young in the carb process? Or could it be attributed to something else?

Edit: carbonation temps are between 66-70f. Best I can do. And also I forgot to add unused tasty brews calculator and only added 4.1 oz of corn sugar to 4.5 gal

 

[kyleobie]

I think your instincts are correct in giving it a couple of weeks.

Could be lots of things. Sometimes the sugars in extract scorch in the boil carmelize and, as you'd expect, add a little more caramel flavor. Never happened to me, but I have heard other brewers talk about it.

 

[JimTheHick]

Just do your new brewer duty and only taste one every three days.

As a new brewer myself I've found that 5 oz of priming sugar is often way too much. Did you use 5 oz to like 4.5 gallons?

 

[WortIfied]

I think your instincts are correct in giving it a couple of weeks.

Could be lots of things. Sometimes the sugars in extract scorch in the boil carmelize and, as you'd expect, add a little more caramel flavor. Never happened to me, but I have heard other brewers talk about it.

That crossed my mind as well, but if the taste wasn't there at time of bottling but after a week into condition I figured I could set that assumption aside for now :/

 

[WortIfied]

Just do your new brewer duty and only taste one every three days.

As a new brewer myself I've found that 5 oz of priming sugar is often way too much. Did you use 5 oz to like 4.5 gallons?

Oops, knew i forgot something in the original post, no i didn't use the full 5oz, unused tasty brew to calculate 2.5 carb and it came out to using about 4.1 oz of corn sugar

 

[JimTheHick]

Volume at bottling?

 

[WortIfied]

Volume at bottling?

4.5 gal

 

[JimTheHick]

You'll love this beer in a month. Enjoy!

 

[WortIfied]

Cheers! It is already quite tasty, just an kinda unexpected profile! I've spent the last 5 years developing my palate for craft beer and was kind of thrown off a tad. Don't get me wrong, like I said it tastes great, and I'm sure will only get better with age.

Just opened a Terrapin Rye Squared that I aged over a year, I could say is WOW!

 

[unionrdr]

I'm beginning to think part of it is replacing sugars in a beer with malts. It does seem to leave some bit of residual sweetness. Moreso in big beers,it seems. I'm trying to bring back the #3 Burton ale from the late 19th century. I guess I should've re-read my research,as I got an OG of 1.065 out of an estimated OG of 1.070. Went back & read everything again,original's OG claimed as 1.080-1.085. Oopsie.
So anyway,Yesterday's FG sample gave 1.018,down .002 from rousing & warming the week end previous. Still some little residual sweetness. But Burton ales were said to be a lil sweet at that point,being a lighter alternative to the top of the line Burton ale,an English barley wine with a claimed OG of 1.150+. The #3 Burton I'm attempting is the direct ancestor of pale ale. People around 1890 decided they wanted an ale that was drier & crisper. So #3 Burton became pale ale around the turn of the century.
Just some background that shows why & where that sort of sweetness comes from in pales on darker to brown. Wee heavies as well,which I'm thinking may be derived from Burton ales.
So some residual sweetness in some beers is a bit more traditional. It's the modern versions from,say,1900 or so on up that were all getting drier & crisper,with much less hops as well. High OG = Higher FG,basically.

 

[Pdeezy]

There's still some sugar that needs to be eaten and turned into CO2. After another week in the bottles I bet it will be gone.