Tasting Feedback would be appreciated...

[zennoshinjou]

Ok, it's my first time brewing in about 7 years. I put together an "Irish Stout" from Midwest Supplies and included a bit of licorice root, hoping to get some licorice taste.

After two weeks in the bottle, it's not exactly that. The beer has thin body and a bit of a band-aid/burnt sugar smell to it. The taste is predominantly burnt sugar and not much else; that taste hits up front and it's thin and mostly tasteless behind that. I suspect my water is chlorinated (Columbus, OH city water), but don't know. I'm going with bottled water next time to rule it out. I'll also be using a wort chiller and I'm going to use a fermentation chamber to keep the primary fermentation temps lower and stable. It's been ungodly hot here.

Anyhow, here's my ingredient list and some notes on brewing. I'd appreciate any feedback or tips you can offer.

Licorice Irish Stout - started 6/10/12
-----------------
6 lbs Dark LME
4 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Caramel 10 degree L
4 oz. Roasted Barley
4 oz. Flaked Barley
1/2 oz nugget hops
1 oz. Willamette
1 tsp. Gypsum
Munton's 6 gm. Dry Yeast
.7 oz. licorice root (I would go with more next time, and include anise/fennel)

Crushed all grains with empty beer bottle in ziplock bag. Steeped all grains @ ~155-160 F for 25 minutes in 3 gal of tap water; took wort off heat; added Gypsum and LME while stirring. Returned to boil. At first sign of boil, added nugget hops. At 48 min., added licorice root. At 58 min., added Willamette. Cooled Wort and added to remaining 2 gallons in fermenter after roughly 4 hours at ~80 F. Fermenting was initially vigorous, but tailed off around 24-26 hours in.

Fermentation temperatures remained fairly stable around 72-75 F. After one week, put in carboy for secondary fermentation; temps remained largely the same as above. At end of week two, bottled.

 

[Fizzycist]

I'm so disappointed. On reading the thread title I thought it was gonna be "Hey, can I mail you my beer so you can taste it?". Anyway, my only advice would be to pass on the dark LME and use light LME. Get your color and flavor from grains, not extract.

 

[zennoshinjou]

I'd mail it to you, but you'd probably not be pleased.

 

[Piratwolf]

Welcome back to the hobby, zenno!

If your off flavor is band-aid like, then I think you may indeed have a chlorine problem. Could be tap water or maybe your cleaner if it didn't get thoroughly rinsed.

The other thing to look out for is your ferment temps. If you're back to stay, you may want to invest in a used fridge from CL and a temp controller. I got my initial setup for under $80. Pitching at 66-68 and keeping the actual temp under 70 makes such a huge difference to the quality of our beers!!!

Cheers!

 

[ktblunden]

The burnt sugar smell and taste is likely from burning your LME. Even though you took the pot off the heat before adding it, the bottom of the pot was probably still hot enough to scorch the extract. A good practice when brewing extract is to add a little DME at the beginning of the boil for hop utilization and then add in all the LME at flameout and be sure to not only turn off the burner, but move the pot to an unused burner to get it away from any residual heat. This will also help from getting too dark of a color by over-cooking the extract (not that that's a big deal when making a stout).