Ruined Batch? Smells like a Hefeweizen When It Shouldn't Be

[derekp83]

Just as the title asks, did I ruin my batch of beer? I recently made a pale ale recipe with some white wheat malt (only 6% of the grain bill) and let it ferment in a 2 gallon Mr. Beer barrel. I let it naturally cool and in the morning (less than 12 hours later) pitched a leftover packet of Muntons yeast from a prehopped kit. It's a 2 gallon batch, so 7 grams is plenty of yeast. I then kept the barrel in a cooler with very cold water and that typically stayed around 60-65 F for 3-4 days and gradually crept up to 68-70 F by the end of the week. I took it out of the cooler once I noticed some mold spores on the outside of the barrel. There's no reason that I can tell that the spores got into the beer, however.

Bottled the brew yesterday and noticed it smells like a wheat beer, oddly enough. The taste from the hydrometer was not pleasant. I tasted iron or blood, or as some suggest, old pennies. Very bitter, but I'm hoping that's just because the hydrometer reading came straight from the sanitized spigot so a lot of yeast came with it. Maybe it's a bacterial contamination in the brew, but I don't see why I would be getting phenols and other hefeweizen type aromas when the beer was cool during primary fermentation. Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[TheMadKing]

Just as the title asks, did I ruin my batch of beer? I recently made a pale ale recipe with some white wheat malt (only 6% of the grain bill) and let it ferment in a 2 gallon Mr. Beer barrel. I let it naturally cool and in the morning (less than 12 hours later) pitched a leftover packet of Muntons yeast from a prehopped kit. It's a 2 gallon batch, so 7 grams is plenty of yeast. I then kept the barrel in a cooler with very cold water and that typically stayed around 60-65 F for 3-4 days and gradually crept up to 68-70 F by the end of the week. I took it out of the cooler once I noticed some mold spores on the outside of the barrel. There's no reason that I can tell that the spores got into the beer, however.

Bottled the brew yesterday and noticed it smells like a wheat beer, oddly enough. The taste from the hydrometer was not pleasant. I tasted iron or blood, or as some suggest, old pennies. Very bitter, but I'm hoping that's just because the hydrometer reading came straight from the sanitized spigot so a lot of yeast came with it. Maybe it's a bacterial contamination in the brew, but I don't see why I would be getting phenols and other hefeweizen type aromas when the beer was cool during primary fermentation. Thoughts?

Thanks!

That definitely sounds like a yeast health issue. What you're describing are yeast generated flavors, and not wheat generated flavors. The metallic flavor is odd though, and that is generally not a yeast derived flavor so that could be your bigger issue. Metallic flavor is most commonly associated with you beer coming into contact with unpassivated stainless steel, or having a high amount of copper or iron (possibly in your water source). So that is a separate issue from the Phenols. However, I have certainly tasted a combination of hop bitterness and yeast flavors that could be described as metallic. The test will be if it ages out or not. If it disappears over time, it was probably just bitterness and yeast flavors. If it does not age out, or gets worse then it is probably an indication of water issues.

Phenols can only be produced by certain yeast strains with the genetic code that allows them to do so. It is probably just a byproduct of the yeast strain that you chose. Phenol producing yeasts usually increase phenolic flavor production when they are fermented too cool though. If your yeast was happy at 64-68, and you fermented at 60-65, you may well have stressed the yeast.

The way to solve this problem in the future is to pick a yeast type that specifically matches the flavors you want to brew. The manufacturers generally have some kind of flavor descriptions associated with their yeasts. Most phenol producing yeasts are Hefeweizen, Belgian ale, and Saison strains, so if those flavors are something you dislike I would recommend staying away from most of those.

 

[derekp83]

That definitely sounds like a yeast health issue. What you're describing are yeast generated flavors, and not wheat generated flavors. The metallic flavor is odd though, and that is generally not a yeast derived flavor so that could be your bigger issue. Metallic flavor is most commonly associated with you beer coming into contact with unpassivated stainless steel, or having a high amount of copper or iron (possibly in your water source). So that is a separate issue from the Phenols. However, I have certainly tasted a combination of hop bitterness and yeast flavors that could be described as metallic. The test will be if it ages out or not. If it disappears over time, it was probably just bitterness and yeast flavors. If it does not age out, or gets worse then it is probably an indication of water issues.

Phenols can only be produced by certain yeast strains with the genetic code that allows them to do so. It is probably just a byproduct of the yeast strain that you chose. Phenol producing yeasts usually increase phenolic flavor production when they are fermented too cool though. If your yeast was happy at 64-68, and you fermented at 60-65, you may well have stressed the yeast.

The way to solve this problem in the future is to pick a yeast type that specifically matches the flavors you want to brew. The manufacturers generally have some kind of flavor descriptions associated with their yeasts. Most phenol producing yeasts are Hefeweizen, Belgian ale, and Saison strains, so if those flavors are something you dislike I would recommend staying away from most of those.

I appreciate the input. I'll open a bottle in 2 weeks to see what's going on and share my thoughts. Yeast stress does sound like a real possibility here.

 

[Qhrumphf]

There are a few POF+ english strains (ie phenolic) but not many (as said the phenolic strains tend to be Hefe or Belgian in origin) I'm not sure Muntons is POF+. In fact I'm relatively sure it's not. If you stress out a POF- yeast, increased esters, fusels, diacetyl, acetaldehyde, all possible. But not phenols.

If your beer smells and tastes like Hefe and you didn't use Hefe yeast, I don't think it's stressed fermentation. 4VG and other spicy phenolics akin to Hefes are commonly produced by wild yeasts as well. Sounds like a contamination issue to me.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Hmm. Some searching says that people have indeed gotten phenols from it before. So foot in my mouth.

 

[derekp83]

Hmm. Some searching says that people have indeed gotten phenols from it before. So foot in my mouth.

Time will tell! My experience has always been, though, if it doesn't taste decent out the hydrometer, it likely won't be any good.