Tripel gone bad..

[khannon]

OK, so this is my first post asking for help. I recently got back into homebrewing after a ~20 year break. I've done 4 or 5 decent beers, but this is my first "high ABV" beer.

I brewed a tripel, seemed to hit all my gravities pretty spot on, pitched the yeast (Safbrew BE-256 Dry Brewing Yeast 11.5) without doing a starter, and a few weeks later when I went to bottle, everything seemed good, the beer looked, smelled, and tasted like I thought it should.

I followed all of my normal bottling routine, cleaning and sanitizing the bottling bucket, equipment and bottles, boiled and cooled priming sugar. I thought I was on track for a nice tasty tripel.

About 3 weeks later, I chilled and cracked open the first bottle, and barely a hiss of CO2 escaping (I use .5l fliptops, and am used to a nice satisfying "pop"), so I pour the beer into a glass and it's pretty flat, but other than that seemed ok. I figure this is homebrew and high abv (9.3%), so maybe I just have to be patient.

It has now been 3 months, I have opened a few bottles, and they lack carbonation. In addition, the yeast sediment at the bottom is significantly changed in color, and the beer has taken on some "off" flavor that I am having troubles identifying. I have attached a picture of the stuff off the bottom in case the color helps anyone recognize anything.

The fermentation stayed ~65F, and the bottles have stayed in the mid 60s other than being 68 for 2 weeks after bottling.

Any help or advice or thoughts are appreciated

Kevin

 

[filthyastronaut]

How are your gaskets on the fliptops? My guess is leaky seals that caused oxidation and very little carbonation. Seeing as you have a change in color, no carbonation, and off flavors.

You may get lucky and have some that were properly sealed, because it is a little odd that this seemingly happened to all of them.

 

[m00ps]

That color does not look right at all for a tripel. And its all murky too, even considering the yeast sediment. I think you may have needed a lot more yeast for that high of an OG and they just crapped out on you. Guessing thats why its not carbed properly

 

[Rhetorik]

+1 to what @filthyastronaut and @m00ps mentioned. Could be oxidation, could be the yeast was overstressed and quit. Did you take gravity readings? What was your OG and FG? How much yeast did you use? Does the "off flavour" remind you of cardboard?

 

[khannon]

Thanks,
Looking at my notes, the OG was 1.082 @ 68F and the FG was 1.010 @ 68F, I did not use a starter (my bad as I have the equipment, just ran short on time. I did pitch A packet and a half into each carboy, and I did use yeast nutrients per the instructions on the package.

The beer itself is not that murky, that is just the dregs of the bottle, the beer pours a nice clear goldenish color. The flavors don't seem to be cardboard, I just can't quite nail the off flavor down. The seals on the bottles look good.

When bottling, the yeast cake on the bottom of the carboys looked pretty normal.

I'm putting together my kegerator, so I suppose this won't be a problem in the future, Just looking to learn from my mistakes.

Thanks for the input, and I suppose at this point there is not much left to do but dump it and cry into my beer a little..

Kevin

 

[IchLiebeBier]

You said you bottled after a "few weeks". How long was it? The yeast may have been spent.

I once made a Westy 12 clone that never carbed up (I think the bottling yeast may not have been as viable as I thought), so as a last ditch effort I rehydrated some CBC yeast, popped each bottle and dosed each one with some yeast using a small medicine dropper (I worked out the math to get the right cell count).

2 weeks later and the beer was carbed up and delicious.

Maybe give that a try and see if works for you.

 

[khannon]

OK, so I started this thread thinking the worst.

Bottled, no carb to low carb, so I set it aside.

Ten months later as I'm cleaning up some beer stuff, I come across a case of beer I had brewed, and had pretty much written off as a loss. Popped one in the fridge, poured into a glass and I get a beautiful golden beer with a gorgeous thick white head, took me a few minutes to get the camera, so it's dissipated a bit, but here it is..
I know, wrong glass for a tripel, but I was deciding whether I should dump the batch

Anyways,
Time heals many things, including beer.

Thanks for all who provided advice on this,
Kevin

 

[shortyz]