The slick tongue thing is back.

[riromero]

I brewed an Ale in November. I hit the OG and FG perfectly after a week at 65F, then transferred to a secondary for another two weeks before bottling. The taste was great at bottling time. I sampled one bottle a week later and it had a strong slick butter type aftertaste. I figured this was diacetyl from the priming sugar. I sampled another bottle at two weeks and the buttery slick taste was less. Finally, after about a month in the bottle the beer was very good; the aftertaste had completely disappeared. Now I'm down to my last 10 bottles or so, at roughly 6 weeks post-bottling, and it seems the slick tongue aftertaste along with some other unpleasant flavors I can't describe have returned. It happened with the last 3 bottles. Is there any good reason for a return of diacetyl or for the other emerging tastes or is it just the luck of the draw? I figured it would only get better from here on. I put the remaining bottles in the fridge in an attempt to halt whatever is going on.

 

[oinyo]

just a complete noob guess but perhaps whatever is making the beer buttery is in some bottles more then others?

There may be a few bottles that were not affected at all.

all guesses btw

 

[glitterbug]

Did you have a long lag time? Do you aerate? Dry or liquid yeast? If liquid did you use a starter?

 

[ChrisS68]

Some yeast varieties have a tendency to produce more diacetyl than others. While you're hitting your FG after one week, apparently the yeast could use a little more time to clean up after themselves. My suggestion would be to leave it in primary for (at least) two weeks before going to secondary.

Chris

 

[riromero]

I used a White Labs vial with no starter and aerated via sloshing. The weird part is the beer tasted very good after two weeks in the secondary. Then it tasted very good again at one month in the bottle, losing the early slick tongue, butter taste that it had after a couple weeks in the bottle. Seems strange that the slick tongue thing is making a resurgence now at 6 weeks.

 

[Reverend JC]

most yeast will kick of some form or another of diacetyl. It is a biproduct of fermentation. when yeast eat their fill of sugars they then eat the diacetyl they pooped out and thus "clean up" a beer. When you are adding the priming sugar and giving the yeast some new sugar to eat they are again producing diacetyl and then after letting the beer sit they are again eating it back up.