What's the hardest brew to get wrong?

[ninkwood]

For sure, the easiest beer to nail is a german hefewiesen. Key: just use wheat extract (which is half wheat and half barley, perfect), Wyeast 3068, 1 oz of any noble hop at 60m, ferment at room temp. Couldn't be easier.

This is a bit ironic because the two worst beers I've brewed have been a German Hefeweizen and a dunkleweizen.

Both all-grain, and had to use domestic wheat malt because I couldn't source German. Both had what I would consider yeast issues.

 

[passedpawn]

What yeast?

 

[passedpawn]

What do you mean by "yeast issues"?

 

[ninkwood]

With the Hefeweizen, I used Lallemand Munich Classic, and with the Dunkleweizen, I used Escarpment Labs Weizen 1, which according to them is comparable to wyeast 3068.

By yeast issues, I just mean that I had some off flavors that I'm attributing to yeast.

The Hefeweizen was quite some time ago, but the Dunkleweizen was my most recently completed batch. It's been about 5 weeks since brew day and I kegged it two weeks ago. It still has a distinct sulphur note that to my taste makes it undrinkable. It still seems to be improving, and so I'll give it another month or so, but it might get dumped

 

[ninkwood]

I'm happy to hear that someone out there views Hefeweizens as easy though, it's one of my favorite styles.

 

[hottpeper13]

I had a wheat beer with some sulfur notes and put the CO2 on the out put at 5 psi with the prv open for ~ 30 seconds and the smell was gone. I could still taste a little bit, but was gone in a few days.

 

[day_trippr]

I thought it was implied, but a couple posts later it got definitive...

To answer your specific questions, I'm doing all grain

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

did I read that wrong, i was guessing the beer you can’t screw up, if you factor in the most complex beer you can’t screw up then I may be wrong?

 

[ninkwood]

I had a wheat beer with some sulfur notes and put the CO2 on the out put at 5 psi with the prv open for ~ 30 seconds and the smell was gone. I could still taste a little bit, but was gone in a few days.

I just tried this, but I did it a bit different. I've already carbed the beer to about 16 psi, so I attached a spunding valve set to about 15psi and attached co2 at around 17psi. I left it attached for a few minutes as the flow was quite slow. I'll give it a day or two, but the sample I took immediately after tastes a little better.

 

[z-bob]

American Porter: 90% pale malt, 5% light crystal malt (20L or 40L), 5% black patent malt. About 1.050 original gravity or *slightly* higher. Use whatever hops and yeast you like; mix it up to add variety. My best batch used Willamette hops and yeast cultured from a can of Bell's Oberon.