Just wondering if a strange sweet caramel flavour could possibly be oxidation. Most of my beers are around 1012 to 1016 gravity and it seems to now be a common flavour in my lighter beers. The beer tastes fine at bottling but come to drinking it a couple of weeks later and the taste us there again. I follow good hygiene practises and there is no sour taste.
Strange sweet caramel flavour
- Thread starter Paul Lowe
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
thehaze
Well-Known Member
Hello there! It will help a lot to take us through your recipes, mash temperatures, pH, yeast choice, yeast fermentation temperature, packaging ( bottling/kegging ) practices. Caramel flavours could be from malt, lack of hop balance and oxidation, although sweet caramel flavours would be something that takes a bit of time to develop when talking oxidation.
Good point.
I do small batches about 11 litres. I generally mash in at about 66 or 67 degrees, hold it that for an hour which does require some boiling water. Generally I do no sparge so just drain which is inefficient but speeds up the day. I boil the wort for 1 hour using a electric water urn and control the vigour of the boil with a power controller. I Cool using an immersion chiller in about 20 minutes to 17 degrees then drain straight to mini brew bucket and pitch yeast. The yeast is hydrated in advance. For an apa i typically use 05 at ferment in a chest freezer at 17 degrees for 5 days and increase to 19 degrees for 5 days. Dry hop for 2 days (if required up to 60 grams for a APA), cold crash for two days. Bottle staight from fermentor using carbonation drops. Carbonate at 18 degrees for two weeks. Over winter storage teps would not be over 14 degree. The taste is there regardless of whether the beer is dry hopped for any light beer. As a general rule I scale back any 19 litre recipe by 4/5s. Probably should add that i used to have a smaller 20litre mash tun. Its now 38 litres which is one of the reasons for the no sparge method which means a higher water to grist ratio. Water to grist ratio is quite high due to no sparge method
I do small batches about 11 litres. I generally mash in at about 66 or 67 degrees, hold it that for an hour which does require some boiling water. Generally I do no sparge so just drain which is inefficient but speeds up the day. I boil the wort for 1 hour using a electric water urn and control the vigour of the boil with a power controller. I Cool using an immersion chiller in about 20 minutes to 17 degrees then drain straight to mini brew bucket and pitch yeast. The yeast is hydrated in advance. For an apa i typically use 05 at ferment in a chest freezer at 17 degrees for 5 days and increase to 19 degrees for 5 days. Dry hop for 2 days (if required up to 60 grams for a APA), cold crash for two days. Bottle staight from fermentor using carbonation drops. Carbonate at 18 degrees for two weeks. Over winter storage teps would not be over 14 degree. The taste is there regardless of whether the beer is dry hopped for any light beer. As a general rule I scale back any 19 litre recipe by 4/5s. Probably should add that i used to have a smaller 20litre mash tun. Its now 38 litres which is one of the reasons for the no sparge method which means a higher water to grist ratio. Water to grist ratio is quite high due to no sparge method
Last edited:
Bilsch
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 4, 2015
- Messages
- 1,659
- Reaction score
- 1,498
There are so many places oxygen can get into your process after the beer has finished fermenting where you have no protection from yeast scavenging up said O2 before it damages your beer. The best bet for bottlers is to bottle spund before the yeast is done and use that residual extract for your carbonation. You can/should still bottle straight from the fermenter but do it say 2-4 points from terminal gravity. Also keep your bottle headspace to a minimum, say 6mm or so. You can determine what your final gravity will be in advance by doing a fast ferment test.
