What am I tasting?

[Scandixbrewer]

Hi I have question I hope someone can enlighten me here. I done 5 BIAB batches of beer so I'm still very much a beginner. 2 hoppy IPA and 3 more UK style beers, the result have been fairly good, not great but okay enough for me to keep going on.
When I know the fermentation is done I take sample of the beer to check if it's ready to bottle I also have a taste of it, and my question is what am I really to expect to taste? Usually I think it's a really pungent sharp taste and something I don't expect to find in the final beer, and it isn't either. I sometimes read people taking samples like this and being positive about what they are tasting, which is difficult for me to understand.

So what is it I'm tasting? am I trying to soon (day 7 to 14 typically)? Is it indication of off flavour? Or something normal?

Tia!

 

[BigEd]

You will need to give a better, more elaborate description of the taste.

http://www.howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

Experience.

I think if I am understanding you correctly, you are asking what it is that you should be tasting for, not that you are necessarily tasting a specific flavor in particular.

A “green” flat beer will obviously not taste like the finished product. The taste you are experiencing is most likely yeast that is still in suspension. When someone samples a beer before bottling they are checking for individual characteristics, some examples could be, esters or phenolic from certain yeasts, hop flavor and/or aroma, specific grains, or off flavors; oxidation, chlorination etc.

You taste to get an idea of how final product will taste, and to compare flavor profiles. Like is it still as hoppy now as it is after bottling? Did I want bread but got biscuit? Why did I use crystal 60 as a base malt? What’s this vinegar taste? Things like that are what I look for at sampling.

 

[Scandixbrewer]

Well yes sort of correct understood, I would like to know how people can sample early on pre-bottling and telling if too much of this flavour or too little of that etc, but given what I'm tasting I can't see how that is done. All I can taste is a very sharp and sort of bitter thingy, there is not possible for me to get a feel for the nuances of the ingredients. A bit difficult to explain what Im tasting, but what I wonder is if this is a question about experience, as you say, or if Im doing wrong or if it's supposed to taste like that? There is certainly not a wow-moment "this is going to be a great beer", I just get the feeling .. "oh okay, is this going to be good or bad, I can't tell".

 

[OnePlate]

Is your beer crystal clear when you taste/bottle it? If not, that sharp bitter flavor is likely yeast still in suspension. I get this if I sample a beer before the yeast has flocculated out, especially with a powdery low-flocculating strain. It sometimes almost tastes/smells like sulphur but not quite. It does indeed make picking out the subtle esters a bit harder. If you wait a few more days and sample again the flavor will probably be gone or much less pronounced. Cold crashing (if you can) before bottling can also help.

 

[Scandixbrewer]

It's not crystal clear no. I have been thinking I would get a yeasty taste if I sample before the yeast finished it's work, but maybe it's this what it tastes like then. Next time I let it go a couple of more days to see if it changes. Thanks!

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

You can always throw your sample in the fridge for a few hours to let the yeast settle, then taste.

 

[mongoose33]

Well yes sort of correct understood, I would like to know how people can sample early on pre-bottling and telling if too much of this flavour or too little of that etc, but given what I'm tasting I can't see how that is done. All I can taste is a very sharp and sort of bitter thingy, there is not possible for me to get a feel for the nuances of the ingredients. A bit difficult to explain what Im tasting, but what I wonder is if this is a question about experience, as you say, or if Im doing wrong or if it's supposed to taste like that? There is certainly not a wow-moment "this is going to be a great beer", I just get the feeling .. "oh okay, is this going to be good or bad, I can't tell".

I'm not saying people can't assess beer before it is bottled, but I'm not that good at it. Your beer hasn't conditioned and thus what you taste then is green, uncarbonated and probably warm beer. I wouldn't expect it to taste good, though it might be ok.

Green beer for me always has a sort of sharp taste to it, but given time, that goes away. How long? Depends. I've had a beer recently that at 11 days (kegged) was at best "Meh," and just a couple days later had turned into the fastest disappearing beer I've ever brewed. I've had others that took a couple/three weeks to condition, again going from "Meh" to excellent.

How does your beer taste after you've bottle conditioned it? IMO, that's really the criterion you should be using for this.

*******

Of all the things a new brewer has to learn--language like strike, crush, hydrometer, strike temp, pH, sparging, yeast, hopping techniques, etc. etc. etc.---I think the hardest thing for new brewers to learn is....

...patience. Put it in the bottle, let it condition at room temp for at least 2 weeks. Put a bottle in the refrigerator for 2 days, then try one. Only at that point can you really fairly evaluate it. But that will require patience. Gird yourself for that ordeal!

 

[Scandixbrewer]

Thanks for all the help! The beer so far has been OK although not great, but none have been bad. I guess I have to learn to be patient, I probably can do it
I had a sample today and put it cold for a bit, it sure was a different taste! Not sharp and bitter.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Hi I have question I hope someone can enlighten me here. I done 5 BIAB batches of beer so I'm still very much a beginner. 2 hoppy IPA and 3 more UK style beers, the result have been fairly good, not great but okay enough for me to keep going on.
When I know the fermentation is done I take sample of the beer to check if it's ready to bottle I also have a taste of it, and my question is what am I really to expect to taste? Usually I think it's a really pungent sharp taste and something I don't expect to find in the final beer, and it isn't either. I sometimes read people taking samples like this and being positive about what they are tasting, which is difficult for me to understand.

So what is it I'm tasting? am I trying to soon (day 7 to 14 typically)? Is it indication of off flavour? Or something normal?

Tia!

As others have replied "green beer", "uncarbonated beer" doesn't taste like the final product.

However, I take the "taste" at each stage as tasting for faults. Does the sample taste OK? (to what we want?) If not, is there still time to, maybe, fix the brew? (Nothing worse, at least to me, spending a day brewing and then dumping the results.) Too malty? Not malty enough? Too hoppy? Not hoppy enough? etc, etc, etc... Some faults we can fix. Some faults, "Yuck, tastes like vinegar" we can't fix. (Unless, we really want vinegar.)

This, at least to me, is why we drink a small sample.

 

[mattdee1]

The taste of very early samples is not a terribly effective way of determining what the final, conditioned, carbonated, and chilled beer will taste like.

That's not to say there is no good info to be gleaned from such samples, though. My process has evolved over time to the point where there is typically no "opportunity" to sample the beer until I'm packaging it. I usually pull a hydrometer sample at packaging time, so drinking that sample after taking the FG reading provides a welcome sneak preview of the beer, even though I know the limitations of what that sample can tell me.

I agree with what the previous poster said about using the earliest samples to check for obvious flaws; namely, infection. If nothing else, it can be a bit of a feel-good exercise to get some level of assurance that your beer has not gone sour on you and there are no markers of obvious fermentation problems. By the way, not all fermentation issues result in crazy bad effects to the beer. For example, I once had an issue with US05 throwing an almost Belgian-like phenol flavor that I did not plan for or want, but it wasn't offensive and the beer was still quite enjoyable. I tasted that flavor right away on the hydrometer sample and it stuck around for the life of the keg.

Be wary of what you "conclude" about hop character from early samples. For one thing, you can't really tell how a hop-forward beer will taste without the carbonation to express the aroma.

After you do this several times, you'll start to get a feel for the types of characteristics in young samples that go away and what ones are likely to hang around.

 

[Alex4mula]

Since I started brewing a year ago I have been drinking all samples I take starting with the OG sample when I put the cool wort in fermenter. I drink every sample along the way until keging and then of course final product. That will quickly give you experience to tell right away if something is really wrong. After 33 brews I have been lucky to not have any bad one but i have been able to tell the very very good ones. Beer at 7 days will be very yeasty and taste even worst than the wort. As mentioned above, once it looks more clear (10-15 days) then it will taste better as an indicator but again nothing like after carbed and cold. Good luck!

 

[Jokester]

I've looked in that link -
http://www.howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors

And I detect a lot of those off flavors, however I detect a lot of those in the beer I start out with.
Given that I nearly always started with "clearance beer" is it likely they developed off flavors in the can/bottle ?

I can see a progression from the original beer to the brut version which seems to be less mouth feel and sort of a watery beer with more alcohol bite than the beer I started with. Then the freeze concentrate seems to have more body, hop aroma and flavor and generally far more alcohol bite but also has more mouth feel than even the base beer though its under .998 usually.

Nearly all of these were carbonated and the carbonation stayed intact, the John daly's were uncarbonated but they have just started to ferment, so I don't know where they would end up.

In a way I need to detect off flavors where I can identify them before I start truly brewing beer I feel.

Thanks.
Srinath.

 

[Buick Beer Gardens]

I taste when checking gravity after 2 weeks. A couple brews I did(hefe and porter) were watery tasting. The porter straight up hard alcohol taste. I thought these will not turn out well. I bottled the hefe and left to carb. After 2 weeks carbing the taste was excellent. Not watery at all. Clover with banana finish. My daughter and her boyfriend noted the hefe is the best they have tasted. The watery porter I let go for another 3-4 days then bottled. The carbed brew had a carmel nutty flavor. Not like hard alcohol before carbing.

To answer your question, when tasting before bottling you are tasting a unfinished product.

 

[ncbrewer]

As a separate issue, I encourage you to consider how much sampling to do. Unless you take special precautions such as supplying CO2 to prevent air from entering, you can oxidize the beer by taking samples. Opinions vary on this, but I just take a sample two days before bottling, and again on bottling day to make sure gravity is stable. Other than that, the fermenter stays sealed.

 

[Scandixbrewer]

Thanks guys for the comments, really helpful.