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Off Flavor Troubleshooting
My roomates and I just opened a few bottles of a batch of Oatmeal Stout. The batch was fermented around 62 degrees, 1 week in primary, 3 in secondary and 3 in bottles. My assessment of the taste was as follows: The very first drink was delicious. It tasted perfect. After the first taste I started to get a slight alcohol aftertaste. This aftertaste seemed to get stronger the closer I got to the bottom of the bottle. My friends described it as a wine taste. Does anyone have any idea what could have caused this? Did I get an infection?
Thanks
The winey taste can be a number of things. If the yeast ferments fast and at higher temps you'll get some fusels which can give a wine-like taste. You said you feremented at 62, which is not high by any means, what type of yeast was it? Did you cool to pitching temps (<70F) prior to pitching? The other way you can get that taste is a wild yeast, that's sanitation holmes.
If you paid attention to your cleanliness, then you might look at ferment temps as the culprit. If you pitch above 70, and you're pitching a good starter of yeast like you should, the yeast go gangbusters until you drop into your target ferment temp, but by then the damage is done. Once that taste is in there you need a lot of aging to let it fade.
The yeast was a British Ale yeast. From your description I think that I probably pitched my yeast at too high of a temp. Of course, this was one batch that had a little mishap with the secondary fermentor so sanitation could be the prob too. I guess I'll just let this one age a bit, hope it gets better and drink another brew. Thanks for all the info.
From reading your description, that sounds very similar to something that happened to me a long time ago when I was still bottling. I don't remember what kind of beer it was, but a few of the bottles had a strong alcohol taste. To me it was a little like vodka.
I don't know if mine was a case of too high temperatures or cleanliness, but it never repeated.
As was mentioned, fermenting temperatures definitely can do that. I've let some of mine go as high as 80 (since I don't have temp control), but it's never quite been like that again.
Besides sanitation and temperature, that's all I can think of as well. Unless the taste is just downright horrible, I would drink it. I've had a few that didn't turn out quite as well as I wanted, but none tasted like toilet water either.
I lean more towards the temperature being the culprit though.
What was your OG and FG? It could just be pretty strong. I have a porter conditioning in the keg now that started at approximately 1.090 and finished around 1.012. This is close to 10% ABV. The taste is similar to what you describe. It could just be that you have an alcoholic beer that needs to age a bit.
My friends described it as a wine taste.
I was keying in on the "wine" taste description, which would be an off flavor.
cmanley542 wrote:
My friends described it as a wine taste.
I was keying in on the "wine" taste description, which would be an off flavor.
I saw the same, but it seems odd that you wouldn't pick that up with the first taste. The few batches of beer that I have tried that have been contanimated have been obvious from the first taste. They were all at least drinkable, but the off flavors were so prevalent, you noticed them quickly. You are right, though, if it is truely a wine taste, then there is some sort of flaw.
The batch I was referring to does not have any wine flavors, but definitely has an alcohol flavor.
Tough to say without tasting it. When is that technology due?
cmanley542 wrote:
When is that technology due?
Not soon enough!
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