I have a beer i was planning on bottling but i took a sample from the carboy and it has a big alcohol bitterness,sherry wine flavor and very unpleasant fusel alcohol taste/aroma, i cannot get any malt/hop aromas, …i hear alot of people say “never give up on a beer, time heals all beers” but bottling is a chore and i want to know if its even worth going through the trouble of packaging this beer, i cannot pull one nice flavor or aroma from this beer, what do you all think dump or bottle?
If you’re not sure, let some friends taste and see if they agree. I mean, if it’s really bad then it will be obvious to all. But if some like it, maybe it’s not all that bad. I’ve occasionally had a bad beer turn around and taste alright after it got some more age on it. Then there’s other times when I was like NO WAY, this is TERRIBLE and there’s no way ANYONE would want to drink it. In those rare cases, it goes down the drain. That used to happen to me quite a lot actually. Now it hasn’t happened at all for several years, thank heavens.
Time can heal some ills. Conditioning can last a few weeks to a few months. Flavors can become smoother and unwanted flavors can dissipate. Of course, the gamble has to be worth it to the gambler.
It is true that some aging may improve some off flavors. But it is completely false that “time heals all beers”. Time does eventually destroy all beers. But it won’t “fix” a bad beer.
That said it is hard to diagnose from a keyboard if your beer will improve or not. Did you pitch enough healthy yeast? Did you ferment at proper temps (not room temps). Did fermentation go as planned? If you suspect that you screwed up the fermentation by pitching the yeast too warm, fermented too warm or didn’t pitch enough yeast those fermentation off flavors probably won’t go away.
I would simply leave it for a week, taste again, see if it has changed - minimal effort required. I’ve made lots of beers that tasted off at end of fermentation but completely turned around after a few weeks or months of bottle conditioning.
However, “very unpleasant” is strong language and suggests a fatal infection. I wouldn’t bother going to the trouble of bottling it until you’ve got some evidence that will get better.
You ought to provide more info on your beer and process. Maybe we can offer some suggestions to help avoid this on your next beer.
Thank you all for the replies, the beer is jamil’s duvel clone recipe, i pitched low at around 60F ,was targeting 64 but over cooled my wort, aerated with pure o2, pitched a starter i stepped up, let the ferment warm to 64F held for 48 hours, the krausen fell at around the 48 hour mark also. then i started ramping the temps 2 degrees per day until i hit 80F, i held it at 80F for about a week, the FG stopped at 1012 (which is part of the problem) and i got some o2 in he fermenter during cold crashing. I really dont know what happened to cause it to taste this alcoholic and hot there is nothing in this beer that resembles a belgian golden strong let alone duvel, the whole process i took as much care as possible following the recipe and temperture controlled fermentation, above and beyond for cleaning/sanitation
oh yeah i mashed at 149F for 2 hours by the end of the 2 hours it was at arounf 146-147F, 90 minute boil, mash ph was 5.4, i used brun water and my base water was distilled and i added gypsum and calcium chloride to match the yellow balanced profile, i used 5oz of acid malt to help adjust mash ph…all in all i feel i did everything right but the beer is horrible so its hard to figure out where i went wrong with the process thank you i hope i can diagnose what i did wrong cause this is not the first time i screwed up a duvel clone
I would let age for 3 months in the carboy. Raising the fermentation temp to 80F can create boozy, hot flavors, but these flavors do mellow. Nothing will make the sherry flavor go away.
according to the recipe i should have raised temps to 82F but i stuck with the yeast temp range of 64F to 80F, i made a stupid choice of cold crashing but im gonna leave it out at room temp now for a while, anyway does anyone have a tried and true duvel recipe? i tried jamil’s a few times and it never turns out good, its probably me doing something wrong even though i follow the recipe very tightly but im not going to do his recipe again…its my favorite style but i have yet to make a good example of the style and its my goal to master this beer style…it might be the tremendous amount of sugar 3 lbs (20%), im lost
Duvel does use dextrose for about 20% of fermentables. If you used cane sugar that could give some off flavors.
yup i used cane sugar again according to the recipe, jamil on the podcast said use cane sugar and i was suspicious about it and was going to use dextrose but decided to follow the recipe now i have 5 gallons of nail polish remover lol
Which yeast and how did you handle it?
Cane sugar is good at low percentages (up to 5%) especially unrefined types for their flavor contributions. 30 years ago in the dark ages of homebrew, the common advice from shops was “take this can of hopped lme, add a bag of sugar, stir and add the envelope of yeast.” It always tasted like cider at best.
wy1388 i made a 2 step starter…first step was 3 liters, second step was 2 liters. my plan was to make more yeast then i needed so i can bank some yeast but due to the fact that this yeast does not floc well i felt like i lost alot of cells when i decanted so in the end i pitched the whole slurry, i am pretty sure i over pitched
i can only wish that this beer tastes like cider at this point
I suspect a combo of small things adding up to the total problem.
I know jamil calls for a 90 min boil. Unnecessary in my opinion, and ‘might’ be a tiny contributor to the high FG if you had a hard enough boil for 90 min.
If you think you over pitched, I would not argue with that. It’s possible I suppose that also can be a tiny contributor to the high FG.
How do you measure the beer temp? Jamil’s temps in the recipes are actual beer temp. If you are measuring ambient or even fermentor surface, there can be quite a difference inside.
I suspect that the greatest contributor to the high FG is a rip roaring fast ferment followed by an abrupt give up. The huge mob had a hot sugary field day and as soon as that was over they dropped before finishing the job.
Good points, i insulated the probe against the side of the carboy with foil insulation and dish rags. i thought you need a 90 min when using pilsner malts…the ferment did start very fast so maybe not having a good reproduction threw some off flavors and fusels cause i do think i over pitched…i think i will add the sugar to the primary next time
Underpitching → more esters, less fusel alcohol
Overpitching → less esters, more fusel alcohol
The trouble is what is more esters? More might be just right for a certain style. Seems almost certain that he know what more fusels is lol
Next time: observe temperatures carefully. Use a shorter, less intense boil. Use dextrose (a priming calculator can help you convert the amount from cane sugar, they contribute different amounts of fermentable sugar) but definitely boil it for the last 15 minutes to sterilize and dissolve. Watch the pitch rate. Be patient. I bet all the little adjustments add up to a fine beer.
(As for the boil, I brew Pilsners and have learned that the ideal is 45 min, barely over a simmer, lid on until the last 10-15 min with only 4-6% volume reduction. To do a more intense boil will damage the wort, impairing flavor and long term stability. 90 min rolling boils are another homebrew myth.)