I have started adding a Camden (potassium metabisulfite) tablet to my kegs prior to purging and close transfer my beer from fermenter. Not only is it antimicrobial but it removes dissolved or residual oxygen. It has made a definite improvement in quality of the beer as it matures.
Same here. Saved my NEIPA's. But sometimes a very small amount can inhibit/kill the yeast too. I added only 0.3g/19L to a belgian quad I wanted to carb with sugar. Completely flat. But was at 12% ABV, at the limits of the yeast so might be a factor too. On the flip side I've also experienced that adding too much (1.5-2.0 g/19L) caused a sulfury off-taste that wasnt pleasant. That was when I started using campden and didn't know the proper amount.
Haven’t had any of these issues in my beers. I attribute that to learning from others mistakes. I take all the precautions you addressed because they work. Very good information. Looking forward to seeing what you have in store after “dry January “. Cheers! 🍻
This deserves a second 👍! Great explanation of some of the less talked about off flavors that I have personally made too many times and practical ways to avoid them. Thanks!! 🍺🍻🍺
Shortly before you posted this video, I had made a Belgian Tripel that ended up being a fusel mess (still not sure why). Past experience had taught me that, when that happens, it's better to just dump it and start over as 1)it takes FOREVER for those flavors to ferment out and 2)the beer never really tastes right anyways, and I don't have the room to sit on a keg for an entire year. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I tried your suggestion of refermenting the beer, which I had never heard of doing before. I made up a 1L starter, and pitched that along with 2g of CBC-1yeast into my keg, hooked a blow-off tube to the gas port, and waited. And to my surprise, it actually worked. Kind of. The fusels are completely gone and the beer is drinkable, however because I used the conditioning yeast, all of the Belgian flavors are gone. In hindsight, it's totally obvious that I should have pitched more of the same Abbaye Ale yeast I had used initially, but the CBC-1 was what I had on hand at the time. And I was feeling impatient. Live and learn as they say. So props to you for showing me a new way to fix a fault in my beer. Cheers.
Excellent walkthrough of that “Homebrew” flavor. I’ve never seen anyone yet deep dive into this topic on UA-cam until now. Good job. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced any of these issues in many years in my own home brew. My biggest concern for my water is the chlorinated water supply here in Chicago used to kill the invasive zebra mussels in Lake Michigan from clogging the water intakes. I’ve been able to work around that with inline water filters and as a backup, fill up my kettle with the brewing water the day before brew day to ensure any residual amount evaporates.
Thanks Larry! Yeah chlorine is a brew killer but thankfully isn't too difficult to get rid of. One of thr most common things people experience when they start brewing is band aid beer from using fresh tap water
So I used the copper penny in a past beer to combat sulfer smells and it worked but added a metallic flavour to the beer. I recently added a large silver coin to the beer and got an even better result and will not metallic taste. Thank you for this video though!!!
Yup had Chlorophenols when I started making starters. I was using a carbon filter for my brew liquor, but not my starter. We have chlorine and I researched and looks like they combine with DAP in yeast nutrients (i was using a pinch in my starter) to create something akin to chloramine which has a much lower taste threshold. I was happy to find that out! Good reference video! Cheers!
Re: butyric acid (baby vomit) off flavors, would highly recommend pitching some brettanomyces, many strains love turning this into a nice pineapple flavor (obviously doesn't work to every style, but can definitely make an infected beer drinkable).
I have had an acetone flavor a number of times. I get the flavor when I breathe out after taking a drink and I cannot stand it. It also tastes similar to artificially blueberry-flavored coffee beans. It has happened when I was buying yeast that was not stored properly and was likely not healthy. It has also happened when fermentation temps got away from me. It has always happened with English strains. I think that I have found a way to get rid of it by building a US-05 Starter and pitching that on top of the beer. Or I could just not abuse the yeast to begin with :)
You can actually "fix" autolysis off-flavours with something like Brett Brux- I had a Belgian Pale that was fermented uncontrolled during a 40°C heatwave and ended up as an autolysed mess. I kegged it, pitched in a pack of Brett Brux, and 3 months later it's one of the best beers I've brewed this year.
Regarding "Excessively estery/phenolic" (13:16): I brewed your Belgian Triple and fermented with the BE-256 instead of the Lallemand Abbaye. Fermentation was really fast, but smelled very sulphuric. Fermentation temperature was 19C initally and 20C after two days. After some time in the keg the sulphur was completely gone, but the beer is still barely drinkable because it has this strong phenolic aroma and flavour. I even can make out some banana and sometimes medicine. I keep the keg around and taste from time to time.
Nr21 gushing beer, (unstable carbonic acid) When opening a bottled beer the foam flows out of the bottle. 1To much sugger 2dirty used bottle (wild yeast continued the fermentation) 3 a fungus in the used grain hydrofobine.
I just screwed my last batch up and scorched it. I have a Grainfather. I think where I screwed up was running the pump way too hard and it pulled fine pieces of grains through the grain basket which then made contact with element and scorched it. And yes it was horrible and it was dumped.
Here's an interesting thing that happened to me. I made a "lager" using Kevik Lutra. I also tried using 2 lbs.of rice as an adjunct. I split it 2.5 gal. in the keg, and the other 2.5 gal. In bottles. 3 weeks later, the bottles came out fantastic. The best (or one of the best) lagers I've ever tasted. But the keg had that slightly cidery/apple tast you described in the video. Strange... I can't figure out what I did wrong with the keg?
Hey, this is a really good video! Was brewing a helles and for the first time the sulfur smell wasn’t gone by kegging time. I did ferment for about 10 days (Fast lager method), and lagered it for 3 weeks cold, but the smell was still there. Will just purge the keg. Thank you!❤
Every once in a while,, I would get a lacto sourness. I realized it was because I kept my yeast near the cheese in the refrigeraator (Doh!). I still keep it there but in a big zip lock bag. No more issues.
If I cold crashed my beer and am getting that “green apple” flavor do I need to pitch some more yeast to get that flavor to go away? My worry is that there will not be enough yeast in the beer to metabolize that off flavor since I cold crashed.
I would advise just letting it rest longer without opening it up and adding anything else. Even through you've cold crashed it and the beer may appear clear, there's more than enough yeast left over to finish the job
Love your content, as always. I find DMS all the time. Almost always in a pilsner. Almost always at a local brewery. I've found it in other lagers as well though. It can present as celery, creamed corn, or stewed tomatoes in my experience. Kinda depends on the malt used.
@@TheApartmentBrewer - saw you popped over to Asheville, if you're ever in Charleston, hit me up! I'm a certified cicerone and working on getting my BJCP cert as well. Would be fun to nerd out with a fellow beer enthusiast!
Just wanted to add that most champagne or wine yeasts are not capable of fermenting complex sugars, so they are likely worse at fermenting to lower gravities than many ales yeasts.
All my lagers get acetaldehyde and I think perhaps I know why now. I'm kegging to soon. Next time I will leave my lager on the yeast cake for an extra week and see what happens. I also bought me some new equipment so that will be my first brew with a yeast starter, and it will be a big one!
Thanks a lot for this video. I don't do a lot of beers I do braggot's but this is great to keep in mind. Have you ever done a braggot? Would love to see a recipe.
Kegged my first beer and got some oxidation...that or from the dry hoping...not a big deal lessonsed learned but thankfully avoided worse flavors as I had plenty of people try it and say it was good, even though I knew something was off
Hi everyone, My beer has a relatively bitter and dry taste to it and I figure that the ph was to high in the mash (first brew and I did not measure and therefore did not try to modify this) Could I add som lactic acid now the beer is in the keg to lower the ph or would that not help?
Here in CO there are a lot of breweries and neighborhood brews. I have to say, there are a lot that have that "home brewed" off taste. I think part of it is not flushing out the system properly when cleaning. But sometimes its a funky gym bag sort or flavor where the beer is clearly off, or maybe the tubes were NEVER cleaned. IDK but its super noticeable I blame rushing production. Considering how many beer snobs there are around here its extremely disappointing and annoying when places allow that to happen. And its annoying that I can't hear anyone else mentioning it in the pub. Like come on for $8-10 a pour it better be 100% clean beer or at least be better than a homebrew.
Man I had a complete diacetyl bomb from a beer bar serving North Park's Hop Fu, which is heresy. I boiled it down to them not cleaning their line and I got the first pour of the day. Yuck.
There's maybe one more I'd add which is too high or low pH in the final beer. It's not something people pay attention to as homebrewers, unless they are using LAB to sour, but I've payed so much more attention to if my dry Irish stout is properly around 4.0 or 3.9 even, or if my hazy IPAs are drifting up to 4.6+. It's something the pro's pay really close attention to, and when I've had them evaluate my beer, they are almost always commenting on the pH if I haven't been thoughtful towards the end of brewing. Corrections could be with phosphoric food grade acid, or pickling lime. You can try this as an experiment in a pint pour, just like brewing salts.
Absolutely true! Usually if you have a good mash pH your post boil ph will be in the right spot for for certain beers or can be a big difference maker, especially when dry hopping.
Mostly depends on the ABV levels or if there are more extreme fermentation conditions. Most standard beers I'll stick to a roughly 2 week time frame, but for the aforementioned conditions I'll let it go for 3-4 weeks and then get it out of the fermenter and usually let it condition in a keg
Citric acid will help with that, it will also passivate stainless steel in the same go. Let it soak for several hours or overnight and if it's not completely gone you can help it along by scrubbing it with a scouring pad. Avoid using steel wool or anything similar.
Hi! In a new batch of pale ale we noticed a chestnut aroma that has remained strong after bottle conditioning. No taste of chestnut that i would notice but i have no idea how it formed. It could be because I used the same yeast from another batch?
Generally pitching lower and bringing up to the intended ferm temp is good practice to avoid pitching off flavors but only in very ester-forward styles like weissbier or belgian ales will I truly let the yeast free rise. Most other cases I will control that temperature
Right on time! Thankfully I have had decent results from every beer I've brewed until the ghastly tasting one now slowly working through the last 8 points from 1.058 toward 1.012ish! Is there a motor oil/gasoline flavor I can mitigate? Kidding, not quite that bad but it'll be the first ever in 5-6 yrs I'll be tossing unless a miraculous recovery takes place. I may use a Lallemand Belle Saison to save my hefeweizen. Great stuff as always! Tnx.
Still trying to put my finger on why a recent beer of mine isn't right... Bitter and astringent I would say, may have dry hopped for too long, maybe I should pay more attention to mash PH also
pH will do it, but hop burn can present as astringency as well. Could be a length of time but also could be a quantity issue. Give it some time to condition and it might get better
Bit more seriously, I find malt dust during the addition of crushed grains to the malt pipe on brew day is a big cause of mould seeding on almost every surface of my home brewery. This is especially problematic in a damp cold wet climate, here in the UK. From now, I plan to premix small quantities of malt with water in a bucket outside and add it to the malt pipe on brew day.
My beer always turn out skunky and I don’t know why. I wrap my fermenter to keep light off it and use brown bottles and condition in a tote. Is it possible that my green tote is letting in light.
@@TheApartmentBrewer I am not totally sure. If I am remembering it right both my previous attempts had a taste similar to a old blue moon. Which I thought was the blue moon becoming stale and skunked. The only thing I can think of besides skunk is maybe the well water I used. Our well water contains tons of minerals including iron and cobalt. This time I’m using distilled water so I can control the water chem. So I guess I’ll see if it still tastes the same
Ask away! I've enjoyed using Beersmith, Brewfather and brewer's friend. Although if its your first time using brewing software I highly recommend starting with Brewfather!
Hey Steve, sorry for the crazy long comment, but I've been consistently experiencing an off flavor that I can't quite identify. Wanted to see if you had any idea. It's a really hard flavor to describe. It's borderline plastic-y while kind of mineral-like. Almost like when you drink water out of a hose on a summer day just dialed down to almost 0. It's a very faint background note and only really prevelant when you burp (as strange as that sounds). It has been consistent through filtered tap water, spring water, and distilled water (I haven't quite got water chemistry down yet, but I'm improving). It has manifested in beers, meads, and ciders. Overall, the brews are usually pretty great, but I'm hoping to kick that last off flavor. It's been a real head scratcher for me. I can't tell if it's from the minerals, bad fermentation practices, an infection, or what. Just to note, I always ferment in a keg with a spunding valve set at 1-2 PSI in a mini fridge with an ink bird. Everything is sanitized with either Starsan or boiling water. Thanks man. I appreciate you and all the help you've provided me in other comments!
It sounds to me at first glance like a phenolic character - the rubber hose is a classic chlorophenol you'd get from chlorinated brewing water, but if you've switched up your source water and still get it its not that. Is there anything in your process that involves cleaning with bleach? Could be phenolics from the yeast selection or from some persistent microbe in there. I would also investigate your serving lines as well. If they aren't cleaned regularly they can carry flavors over into the pour from old brews, including off flavors.
@@TheApartmentBrewer I'll definitely take a look into my serving lines. I usually just run a gallon or two of starsan through the lines. I may have to invest in some PBW. I never use bleach, though. Typically when I clean my keg/fermenter I give it a good clean with dish soap, rinse well, then soak it in some starsan. Should I omit the dish soap entirely and stick to PBW? Maybe because I do use chlorinated tap water for my starsan and the chlorine is sticking around from that? Thanks again, man. You're the best!
Dish soap can definitely leave flavors behind, I recommend switching to PBW. Not sure if chlorinated tap water will cause chlorophenol flavors when used with cleaners but probably unlikely. Hope it works out and glad to help!
I'm just about to have my first brew day now that it's cooled down as summer is in the rearview. First up, a California IPA. The plan is to transfer my wort into my Fermzilla and then to ferment under CO2 pressure. Once fermented, pressure transfer to my corney keg and finish up the carbonation. My question is how do you know when you have purged the air out and replaced it with CO2? Does it sound different or do you just have to guess how much air you have let out?
I'd suggest hooking up a jumper line from your Fermzilla to your keg, then put the spunding valve on the keg. That way the CO2 from fermentation fills the keg and you can be 100% sure it is oxygen free.
@@TheApartmentBrewer So the Spunding valve only reads only the CO2 pressure and not air pressure? I get that CO2 is heavier than air so maybe the air never does contact the beer? In the fermenter, if there was some air at the top that didn't get purged, the yeast CO2 would eventually replace it and it would come out the spunding valve (?). But in the corney keg, assuming that the beer is now fully fermented, there might still be some air at the top if I don't get it all purged.
@@Mgrant8163 Spunding valve reads the pressure inside the vessel (relative to the atmosphere) and lets out only pressure in excess of what you've set it at. Fermentation creates so much CO2 (something like several hectoliters per batch) that there will be nothing left. Oxygen in the fermenter at the time of yeast pitch will be 100% consumed by the yeast. No need to purge the fermenter before fermentation.
My beer has smelt vinegar / tasted like wine. What's causing this? I used 2 x 1.7kg tins + 1.2kg liquid malt extract + 40g hops + draught yeast. OG: 60 at SG: 21 it smelt like vinegar and slightly like wine . Any tips? (Pitched at 17-18°c but fridge malfunctioned and when I got SG:21 reading the brew was 29°c for about 24hrs but Brought back to 18 asap)
Brewed my first lager. It’s a young beer, but the apple taste is crazy. Will lagering resolve perceptible acetalaldehyde? Or will conditioning the keg at room temp be most effective?
I still cant find out what off flavour im getting .. everyone says my beer is fine and nothing is wrong with it.. but i can taste it and its drving me nuts... Myb oxidation since i have bucket fermentor.. but i dont know.. any help?
@@TheApartmentBrewer might be... I dont have closed system so my fermentor was opened while i was bottling and didnt clear headspace since i had no co2 tank... Now i bought some kegs ... Myb it will go away when i start kegging and get a better fermentor.
Рік тому
I'm now on my second batch and one of the issues I'm having (the other is that my APA came out sweet and malty, no hops whatsoever) is the Clorophenols one. I'm still at a loss of what's causing it since I leave the tap water in the kettle over night (maybe the pump pipe orifice in the lid is not wide enough?) and I only use Star-San for sanitizing. Next batch I'll have a go with bottled water just to check if it fixes it.
It's entirely possible that your water supply uses Chloramine instead of straight Chlorine. Chloramine will not evaporate if you leave the water out over night. Try treating your tap water with campden tablets, or filtering with a carbon water filter. Your idea of the bottled water is not bad either. Happy Brewing!
Intuitive is right, you can also add 1/3 teaspoon of sodium metabisulphite to 5 gallons batch, works the same as Camden.
Рік тому
@@intuitivehomebrew3199 Thanks, I'll have a go with bottled water this next batch to test it out, if the issue is gone I'll move on to a carbon filter.
If it's grassy because I dry hopped too long, can I correct it? It's bottled already. I read recipe wrong I added dry hops day 3 and was supposed to dry hop for 3 days :( otherwise I think it would've turned out great. Hoping that longer bottle condition will help.
3 months ago the Homebrew store sold me a expired pack of Galaxy hops and I didn't realize it and the finished beer tasted like shit. So I did an experimental pilsner with some Galaxy hops.. why not.. haha and well the old hops made it taste like Swiss cheese and stale french fries. I already had pilsner malt but wanted to do something different. Maybe I'll just stick with hallertau
After having it around 152Ffor majority of the mash, the mash temp was @ around 175+F during the last 15 min. My pH was 5.2. I sort of panicked about extracting tannins. I figured maybe a vigorous boil would help, but I am still not consoled. Is this there a way to remove tannins in the cold-side? Is this something I should even worry about? 😅
You're good. I mashout at 170 F all the time, the tannins are only an issue if you oversparge at hot temperatures for like a hour or longer. Its a very difficult thing to do on the homebrew scale.
Thank you for this video, this is very helpful as a newbie home brewer! Definitely made a fusel alcohol batch last month confirming my bad fermentation.
Copper gluconate can fix light struck beer. But you have make sure you dose it right. While it won't get it back to 100%, you can get to a drinkable 95% ish. The Master Brewer's podcast covered it.
Be very careful of what you use to clean your equipment. I thought I was impeccable cleaner. Learned a lesson the hard way. I thought the rag that I used to clean my bottling bucket was new. In fact it was, however I had used it for something minor the night before and left it draped over the utility sink. Near the utility sink was a mop. When I went to use the rag I washed it in very hot water and PBW. Washed the bottling bucket and used lots of Star-San. Tasting the beer a week later after I bottled it and it was sour. Another week and it was developing in to bottle bombs. Dumped the entire batch. My theory is the rag picked up some bacteria from the mop 18 inches away. No amount of washing or PBW will kill some bacteria, only boiling water and bleach (not a choice). The rag did a great job of spreading that bacteria evenly across my entire batch. So from now on any rag that I will be using will be brand new and gets boiled first before it touches anything. A ton of work to dump 50 bottles. A failure like that can almost make you stop brewing altogether. Instead I went to using kegs and it is awesome. Can’t believe I did something so stupid, but it was easy. From now on I will have strict custody rules for my rags.
For those who don't know how a skunk smells: corona extra gets this aromatic marijuana smell if you leave it out in the sun for a few minutes. Regards, a Dutchie.
I wish everyone would stop saying "tap water". It's municipal, town, or city, or treated water. We ALL HAVE TAP WATER, unless living in a cabin or on the sidewalk. The only time there is chlorine in my tap water is when I have shocked my well. FYI
@@TheApartmentBrewer Of course it is important what is in the water lol There is no chlorine in my "tap water", nor any of my neighbors, for miles and miles. It just sounds weird when brewers say do this if you have "tap water". We all have tap water is my point. It almost sounds like people think those living outside of a town or city don't have running water lol I have one of the best wells around, just shocked again, PH is high from calcium, but I can live with and adjust for that. Oh, guess what? It comes from a tap!...a few taps...and there is no water bill, no boil orders either. We all have tap water is the point. Learning much from your videos, BTW. Thanks.
I have started adding a Camden (potassium metabisulfite) tablet to my kegs prior to purging and close transfer my beer from fermenter. Not only is it antimicrobial but it removes dissolved or residual oxygen. It has made a definite improvement in quality of the beer as it matures.
Definitely a good step to include. Ascorbic acid will do a similar thing!
Same here. Saved my NEIPA's. But sometimes a very small amount can inhibit/kill the yeast too. I added only 0.3g/19L to a belgian quad I wanted to carb with sugar. Completely flat. But was at 12% ABV, at the limits of the yeast so might be a factor too. On the flip side I've also experienced that adding too much (1.5-2.0 g/19L) caused a sulfury off-taste that wasnt pleasant. That was when I started using campden and didn't know the proper amount.
@@mrknaldhat This is an excellent point. I would advise not using camden if I was bottle conditioning for exactly that reason.
Haven’t had any of these issues in my beers. I attribute that to learning from others mistakes. I take all the precautions you addressed because they work. Very good information. Looking forward to seeing what you have in store after “dry January “. Cheers! 🍻
Keep up the good work!
This deserves a second 👍! Great explanation of some of the less talked about off flavors that I have personally made too many times and practical ways to avoid them. Thanks!! 🍺🍻🍺
Shortly before you posted this video, I had made a Belgian Tripel that ended up being a fusel mess (still not sure why). Past experience had taught me that, when that happens, it's better to just dump it and start over as 1)it takes FOREVER for those flavors to ferment out and 2)the beer never really tastes right anyways, and I don't have the room to sit on a keg for an entire year. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I tried your suggestion of refermenting the beer, which I had never heard of doing before. I made up a 1L starter, and pitched that along with 2g of CBC-1yeast into my keg, hooked a blow-off tube to the gas port, and waited.
And to my surprise, it actually worked. Kind of. The fusels are completely gone and the beer is drinkable, however because I used the conditioning yeast, all of the Belgian flavors are gone. In hindsight, it's totally obvious that I should have pitched more of the same Abbaye Ale yeast I had used initially, but the CBC-1 was what I had on hand at the time. And I was feeling impatient. Live and learn as they say.
So props to you for showing me a new way to fix a fault in my beer. Cheers.
That's awesome that I could show you a way to save the beer! Sorry it wasn't a total recovery but glad it's drinkable at the very least. Cheers!
Thanks🍻
Thank you!!
Excellent walkthrough of that “Homebrew” flavor. I’ve never seen anyone yet deep dive into this topic on UA-cam until now. Good job.
Fortunately, I haven’t experienced any of these issues in many years in my own home brew.
My biggest concern for my water is the chlorinated water supply here in Chicago used to kill the invasive zebra mussels in Lake Michigan from clogging the water intakes.
I’ve been able to work around that with inline water filters and as a backup, fill up my kettle with the brewing water the day before brew day to ensure any residual amount evaporates.
Thanks Larry! Yeah chlorine is a brew killer but thankfully isn't too difficult to get rid of. One of thr most common things people experience when they start brewing is band aid beer from using fresh tap water
Oh man, zebra muscles were in my last towns water. The water smells like death during the summer
How did you get so knowledgeable about brewing!!???? You are like Yoda dude!! I've still got so much to learn
Brewed many batches, I have. Made many mistakes, I also have.
So I used the copper penny in a past beer to combat sulfer smells and it worked
but added a metallic flavour to the beer. I recently added a large silver coin to the beer and got an even better result and will not metallic taste. Thank you for this video though!!!
Nice!
Yup had Chlorophenols when I started making starters. I was using a carbon filter for my brew liquor, but not my starter. We have chlorine and I researched and looks like they combine with DAP in yeast nutrients (i was using a pinch in my starter) to create something akin to chloramine which has a much lower taste threshold. I was happy to find that out!
Good reference video!
Cheers!
Cheers and thanks for watching! Glad you sorted out that issue!
Re: butyric acid (baby vomit) off flavors, would highly recommend pitching some brettanomyces, many strains love turning this into a nice pineapple flavor (obviously doesn't work to every style, but can definitely make an infected beer drinkable).
Brett is the ultimate solution haha
I have had an acetone flavor a number of times. I get the flavor when I breathe out after taking a drink and I cannot stand it. It also tastes similar to artificially blueberry-flavored coffee beans. It has happened when I was buying yeast that was not stored properly and was likely not healthy. It has also happened when fermentation temps got away from me. It has always happened with English strains. I think that I have found a way to get rid of it by building a US-05 Starter and pitching that on top of the beer. Or I could just not abuse the yeast to begin with :)
Best Video Explaining Off Flavors 🍻
Most commercial NEIPA in UK taste tannic, except Verdant one of the few that controls pH
I remember the typical homebrew flavor in some of my early beers for sure, cheers Steve !
Same here!
Would love a vid on a couple of ways we could passivate new brew kettles, or a link to a vid if you've already done one 👍
Great suggestion!
These are great tips. I've brewed way too many fusel bombs!! 🍻
You can actually "fix" autolysis off-flavours with something like Brett Brux- I had a Belgian Pale that was fermented uncontrolled during a 40°C heatwave and ended up as an autolysed mess. I kegged it, pitched in a pack of Brett Brux, and 3 months later it's one of the best beers I've brewed this year.
Brett "fixes" everything!
Regarding "Excessively estery/phenolic" (13:16): I brewed your Belgian Triple and fermented with the BE-256 instead of the Lallemand Abbaye. Fermentation was really fast, but smelled very sulphuric. Fermentation temperature was 19C initally and 20C after two days. After some time in the keg the sulphur was completely gone, but the beer is still barely drinkable because it has this strong phenolic aroma and flavour. I even can make out some banana and sometimes medicine. I keep the keg around and taste from time to time.
BE-256 is an incredibly phenolic yeast, kinda similar to WB-06. I try to avoid using those two as much as possible.
Nr21
gushing beer, (unstable carbonic acid)
When opening a bottled beer the foam flows out of the bottle.
1To much sugger
2dirty used bottle (wild yeast continued the fermentation)
3 a fungus in the used grain hydrofobine.
Great video outlining all the nasty off flavors in beer........thanks for the informative video......cheers
Thank you, glad it was helpful!
I get soapy flavours from Taiheke hops. Can't use it. Informative video. Thanks.
Some hops act that way and it's weird. Thanks for watching!
I just screwed my last batch up and scorched it. I have a Grainfather. I think where I screwed up was running the pump way too hard and it pulled fine pieces of grains through the grain basket which then made contact with element and scorched it. And yes it was horrible and it was dumped.
Sorry to hear that! That's one flavor you never forget.
Here's an interesting thing that happened to me.
I made a "lager" using Kevik Lutra. I also tried using 2 lbs.of rice as an adjunct.
I split it 2.5 gal. in the keg, and the other 2.5 gal. In bottles. 3 weeks later, the bottles came out fantastic. The best (or one of the best) lagers I've ever tasted. But the keg had that slightly cidery/apple tast you described in the video.
Strange... I can't figure out what I did wrong with the keg?
My guess is that the bottle conditioning yeast cleaned up some fermentation off flavors in the process
Just wanted to say thanks again for the video. Had some issues with a recent mead and you help me fix it out. Keep up the good work
Glad to help!
Hey, this is a really good video! Was brewing a helles and for the first time the sulfur smell wasn’t gone by kegging time. I did ferment for about 10 days (Fast lager method), and lagered it for 3 weeks cold, but the smell was still there. Will just purge the keg.
Thank you!❤
This is an excellent video man, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Every once in a while,, I would get a lacto sourness. I realized it was because I kept my yeast near the cheese in the refrigeraator (Doh!). I still keep it there but in a big zip lock bag. No more issues.
If I cold crashed my beer and am getting that “green apple” flavor do I need to pitch some more yeast to get that flavor to go away? My worry is that there will not be enough yeast in the beer to metabolize that off flavor since I cold crashed.
I would advise just letting it rest longer without opening it up and adding anything else. Even through you've cold crashed it and the beer may appear clear, there's more than enough yeast left over to finish the job
Love your content, as always. I find DMS all the time. Almost always in a pilsner. Almost always at a local brewery. I've found it in other lagers as well though. It can present as celery, creamed corn, or stewed tomatoes in my experience. Kinda depends on the malt used.
Interesting!
@@TheApartmentBrewer - saw you popped over to Asheville, if you're ever in Charleston, hit me up! I'm a certified cicerone and working on getting my BJCP cert as well. Would be fun to nerd out with a fellow beer enthusiast!
Excellent video, I learned some new things today. Thank you, Steve.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Footnote on white mold. You'll get that from Lambic yeasts, right?
I don't believe that's the case. They are bacterial in nature, Mold is a fungus. Regardless the pellicle you see looks quite similar.
Just wanted to add that most champagne or wine yeasts are not capable of fermenting complex sugars, so they are likely worse at fermenting to lower gravities than many ales yeasts.
All my lagers get acetaldehyde and I think perhaps I know why now. I'm kegging to soon. Next time I will leave my lager on the yeast cake for an extra week and see what happens. I also bought me some new equipment so that will be my first brew with a yeast starter, and it will be a big one!
GREAT VIDEO!!! Thank you
Cheers🍻
Thank you! Cheers!
Thanks a lot for this video. I don't do a lot of beers I do braggot's but this is great to keep in mind. Have you ever done a braggot? Would love to see a recipe.
That's not a bad idea! Never done one but I should!
Kegged my first beer and got some oxidation...that or from the dry hoping...not a big deal lessonsed learned but thankfully avoided worse flavors as I had plenty of people try it and say it was good, even though I knew something was off
Live and learn!
Great info, thanks for all you do!
Thanks for watching!
Great video, thanks
Glad you liked it!
Hi everyone,
My beer has a relatively bitter and dry taste to it and I figure that the ph was to high in the mash (first brew and I did not measure and therefore did not try to modify this) Could I add som lactic acid now the beer is in the keg to lower the ph or would that not help?
Here in CO there are a lot of breweries and neighborhood brews. I have to say, there are a lot that have that "home brewed" off taste. I think part of it is not flushing out the system properly when cleaning. But sometimes its a funky gym bag sort or flavor where the beer is clearly off, or maybe the tubes were NEVER cleaned. IDK but its super noticeable I blame rushing production. Considering how many beer snobs there are around here its extremely disappointing and annoying when places allow that to happen. And its annoying that I can't hear anyone else mentioning it in the pub. Like come on for $8-10 a pour it better be 100% clean beer or at least be better than a homebrew.
Man I had a complete diacetyl bomb from a beer bar serving North Park's Hop Fu, which is heresy. I boiled it down to them not cleaning their line and I got the first pour of the day. Yuck.
There's maybe one more I'd add which is too high or low pH in the final beer. It's not something people pay attention to as homebrewers, unless they are using LAB to sour, but I've payed so much more attention to if my dry Irish stout is properly around 4.0 or 3.9 even, or if my hazy IPAs are drifting up to 4.6+. It's something the pro's pay really close attention to, and when I've had them evaluate my beer, they are almost always commenting on the pH if I haven't been thoughtful towards the end of brewing.
Corrections could be with phosphoric food grade acid, or pickling lime. You can try this as an experiment in a pint pour, just like brewing salts.
Absolutely true! Usually if you have a good mash pH your post boil ph will be in the right spot for for certain beers or can be a big difference maker, especially when dry hopping.
How long do you let beer condition on the yeast cake before transfer? And do you use different timing for different styles?
Mostly depends on the ABV levels or if there are more extreme fermentation conditions. Most standard beers I'll stick to a roughly 2 week time frame, but for the aforementioned conditions I'll let it go for 3-4 weeks and then get it out of the fermenter and usually let it condition in a keg
Very interesting! I think that I might have a little rust forming in my brew kettle, how would I get rid of it?
Citric acid will help with that, it will also passivate stainless steel in the same go. Let it soak for several hours or overnight and if it's not completely gone you can help it along by scrubbing it with a scouring pad. Avoid using steel wool or anything similar.
Great info mate, subbed.
Awesome, thank you!
Hi!
In a new batch of pale ale we noticed a chestnut aroma that has remained strong after bottle conditioning. No taste of chestnut that i would notice but i have no idea how it formed. It could be because I used the same yeast from another batch?
Its possible, yeast cakes will sometimes carry over residual flavor. Nuttiness can be a sign of autolysis sometimes
What are your thoughts on knocking out lower than recommended and allowing fermentation to free rise without temp control
Generally pitching lower and bringing up to the intended ferm temp is good practice to avoid pitching off flavors but only in very ester-forward styles like weissbier or belgian ales will I truly let the yeast free rise. Most other cases I will control that temperature
@@TheApartmentBrewer thanks man
Right on time! Thankfully I have had decent results from every beer I've brewed until the ghastly tasting one now slowly working through the last 8 points from 1.058 toward 1.012ish!
Is there a motor oil/gasoline flavor I can mitigate? Kidding, not quite that bad but it'll be the first ever in 5-6 yrs I'll be tossing unless a miraculous recovery takes place.
I may use a Lallemand Belle Saison to save my hefeweizen.
Great stuff as always!
Tnx.
Give it time!
Still trying to put my finger on why a recent beer of mine isn't right... Bitter and astringent I would say, may have dry hopped for too long, maybe I should pay more attention to mash PH also
pH will do it, but hop burn can present as astringency as well. Could be a length of time but also could be a quantity issue. Give it some time to condition and it might get better
The mould bit is the most hilarious 😂
Bit more seriously, I find malt dust during the addition of crushed grains to the malt pipe on brew day is a big cause of mould seeding on almost every surface of my home brewery. This is especially problematic in a damp cold wet climate, here in the UK. From now, I plan to premix small quantities of malt with water in a bucket outside and add it to the malt pipe on brew day.
My beer always turn out skunky and I don’t know why. I wrap my fermenter to keep light off it and use brown bottles and condition in a tote. Is it possible that my green tote is letting in light.
Are you absolutely sure its skunkiness you're tasting?
@@TheApartmentBrewer I am not totally sure. If I am remembering it right both my previous attempts had a taste similar to a old blue moon. Which I thought was the blue moon becoming stale and skunked. The only thing I can think of besides skunk is maybe the well water I used. Our well water contains tons of minerals including iron and cobalt. This time I’m using distilled water so I can control the water chem. So I guess I’ll see if it still tastes the same
Let me know if that makes a difference, heavy minerals like that will definitely taste weird in beer
Hi! i dont know if its proper to ask this, but know about any brewing software to recommend?!
Ask away! I've enjoyed using Beersmith, Brewfather and brewer's friend. Although if its your first time using brewing software I highly recommend starting with Brewfather!
Hey Steve, sorry for the crazy long comment, but I've been consistently experiencing an off flavor that I can't quite identify. Wanted to see if you had any idea. It's a really hard flavor to describe. It's borderline plastic-y while kind of mineral-like. Almost like when you drink water out of a hose on a summer day just dialed down to almost 0. It's a very faint background note and only really prevelant when you burp (as strange as that sounds). It has been consistent through filtered tap water, spring water, and distilled water (I haven't quite got water chemistry down yet, but I'm improving). It has manifested in beers, meads, and ciders. Overall, the brews are usually pretty great, but I'm hoping to kick that last off flavor. It's been a real head scratcher for me. I can't tell if it's from the minerals, bad fermentation practices, an infection, or what. Just to note, I always ferment in a keg with a spunding valve set at 1-2 PSI in a mini fridge with an ink bird. Everything is sanitized with either Starsan or boiling water. Thanks man. I appreciate you and all the help you've provided me in other comments!
It sounds to me at first glance like a phenolic character - the rubber hose is a classic chlorophenol you'd get from chlorinated brewing water, but if you've switched up your source water and still get it its not that. Is there anything in your process that involves cleaning with bleach? Could be phenolics from the yeast selection or from some persistent microbe in there. I would also investigate your serving lines as well. If they aren't cleaned regularly they can carry flavors over into the pour from old brews, including off flavors.
@@TheApartmentBrewer I'll definitely take a look into my serving lines. I usually just run a gallon or two of starsan through the lines. I may have to invest in some PBW. I never use bleach, though. Typically when I clean my keg/fermenter I give it a good clean with dish soap, rinse well, then soak it in some starsan. Should I omit the dish soap entirely and stick to PBW? Maybe because I do use chlorinated tap water for my starsan and the chlorine is sticking around from that? Thanks again, man. You're the best!
Dish soap can definitely leave flavors behind, I recommend switching to PBW. Not sure if chlorinated tap water will cause chlorophenol flavors when used with cleaners but probably unlikely. Hope it works out and glad to help!
I'm just about to have my first brew day now that it's cooled down as summer is in the rearview. First up, a California IPA. The plan is to transfer my wort into my Fermzilla and then to ferment under CO2 pressure. Once fermented, pressure transfer to my corney keg and finish up the carbonation. My question is how do you know when you have purged the air out and replaced it with CO2? Does it sound different or do you just have to guess how much air you have let out?
I'd suggest hooking up a jumper line from your Fermzilla to your keg, then put the spunding valve on the keg. That way the CO2 from fermentation fills the keg and you can be 100% sure it is oxygen free.
@@TheApartmentBrewer So the Spunding valve only reads only the CO2 pressure and not air pressure? I get that CO2 is heavier than air so maybe the air never does contact the beer? In the fermenter, if there was some air at the top that didn't get purged, the yeast CO2 would eventually replace it and it would come out the spunding valve (?). But in the corney keg, assuming that the beer is now fully fermented, there might still be some air at the top if I don't get it all purged.
@@Mgrant8163 Spunding valve reads the pressure inside the vessel (relative to the atmosphere) and lets out only pressure in excess of what you've set it at. Fermentation creates so much CO2 (something like several hectoliters per batch) that there will be nothing left. Oxygen in the fermenter at the time of yeast pitch will be 100% consumed by the yeast. No need to purge the fermenter before fermentation.
@@TheApartmentBrewer Thank you so much for your responses. Love the channel.
Glad to help!
My beer has smelt vinegar / tasted like wine. What's causing this? I used 2 x 1.7kg tins + 1.2kg liquid malt extract + 40g hops + draught yeast. OG: 60 at SG: 21 it smelt like vinegar and slightly like wine . Any tips? (Pitched at 17-18°c but fridge malfunctioned and when I got SG:21 reading the brew was 29°c for about 24hrs but Brought back to 18 asap)
Sounds like an infection to me. Vinegar smell comes from acetic acid, a byproduct of some bacterial infections
Brewed my first lager. It’s a young beer, but the apple taste is crazy. Will lagering resolve perceptible acetalaldehyde? Or will conditioning the keg at room temp be most effective?
Room temperature for a few weeks will get rid of that acetaldehyde
I still cant find out what off flavour im getting .. everyone says my beer is fine and nothing is wrong with it.. but i can taste it and its drving me nuts... Myb oxidation since i have bucket fermentor.. but i dont know.. any help?
Can you describe the flavor?
Tastes like a beer thats been sitting open for a day... I dont know how to describe it better
Most likely oxidation is the culprit. I'd look at your packaging process
@@TheApartmentBrewer might be... I dont have closed system so my fermentor was opened while i was bottling and didnt clear headspace since i had no co2 tank... Now i bought some kegs ... Myb it will go away when i start kegging and get a better fermentor.
I'm now on my second batch and one of the issues I'm having (the other is that my APA came out sweet and malty, no hops whatsoever) is the Clorophenols one. I'm still at a loss of what's causing it since I leave the tap water in the kettle over night (maybe the pump pipe orifice in the lid is not wide enough?) and I only use Star-San for sanitizing. Next batch I'll have a go with bottled water just to check if it fixes it.
It's entirely possible that your water supply uses Chloramine instead of straight Chlorine. Chloramine will not evaporate if you leave the water out over night. Try treating your tap water with campden tablets, or filtering with a carbon water filter. Your idea of the bottled water is not bad either. Happy Brewing!
Intuitive is right, you can also add 1/3 teaspoon of sodium metabisulphite to 5 gallons batch, works the same as Camden.
@@intuitivehomebrew3199 Thanks, I'll have a go with bottled water this next batch to test it out, if the issue is gone I'll move on to a carbon filter.
If it's grassy because I dry hopped too long, can I correct it? It's bottled already. I read recipe wrong I added dry hops day 3 and was supposed to dry hop for 3 days :( otherwise I think it would've turned out great. Hoping that longer bottle condition will help.
I'm not sure if that flavor will go away right away but time probably will help
@@TheApartmentBrewer gonna have half batch room temp and half in fridge. See what happens.
3 months ago the Homebrew store sold me a expired pack of Galaxy hops and I didn't realize it and the finished beer tasted like shit. So I did an experimental pilsner with some Galaxy hops.. why not.. haha and well the old hops made it taste like Swiss cheese and stale french fries. I already had pilsner malt but wanted to do something different. Maybe I'll just stick with hallertau
Cheesy hops are the worst. Always give them a sniff before throwing them in!
Love your content!
Glad you enjoy it!
After having it around 152Ffor majority of the mash, the mash temp was @ around 175+F during the last 15 min. My pH was 5.2. I sort of panicked about extracting tannins. I figured maybe a vigorous boil would help, but I am still not consoled.
Is this there a way to remove tannins in the cold-side? Is this something I should even worry about? 😅
It tasted fine post-mash, but I guess tannins aren’t perceptible until post-fermentation?
You're good. I mashout at 170 F all the time, the tannins are only an issue if you oversparge at hot temperatures for like a hour or longer. Its a very difficult thing to do on the homebrew scale.
Thank you for this video, this is very helpful as a newbie home brewer! Definitely made a fusel alcohol batch last month confirming my bad fermentation.
Glad this is helpful! Give it more yeast than you think you need and pitch it cold!
Copper gluconate can fix light struck beer. But you have make sure you dose it right. While it won't get it back to 100%, you can get to a drinkable 95% ish. The Master Brewer's podcast covered it.
Didn't know that. Thank you for sharing!
Attends une seconde, à 1:05 j'entends bien "Je ne sais quoi" ? xD
There should be a contest to see who could get all of these in a beer
The world's worst beer!
Most common comment I get from my beer is “wow this doesn’t taste like home brew”.
That's a good thing!
Be very careful of what you use to clean your equipment. I thought I was impeccable cleaner. Learned a lesson the hard way. I thought the rag that I used to clean my bottling bucket was new. In fact it was, however I had used it for something minor the night before and left it draped over the utility sink. Near the utility sink was a mop. When I went to use the rag I washed it in very hot water and PBW. Washed the bottling bucket and used lots of Star-San. Tasting the beer a week later after I bottled it and it was sour. Another week and it was developing in to bottle bombs. Dumped the entire batch.
My theory is the rag picked up some bacteria from the mop 18 inches away. No amount of washing or PBW will kill some bacteria, only boiling water and bleach (not a choice). The rag did a great job of spreading that bacteria evenly across my entire batch. So from now on any rag that I will be using will be brand new and gets boiled first before it touches anything. A ton of work to dump 50 bottles. A failure like that can almost make you stop brewing altogether. Instead I went to using kegs and it is awesome. Can’t believe I did something so stupid, but it was easy. From now on I will have strict custody rules for my rags.
Oof, sorry to hear that! Yeah its tough to truly get rid of bacteria on plastic surfaces.
For those who don't know how a skunk smells: corona extra gets this aromatic marijuana smell if you leave it out in the sun for a few minutes.
Regards, a Dutchie.
How about Heineken?
Any beer. But yeah. Heineken has it a lot with their stupid, thin green glass.
I wish everyone would stop saying "tap water". It's municipal, town, or city, or treated water. We ALL HAVE TAP WATER, unless living in a cabin or on the sidewalk. The only time there is chlorine in my tap water is when I have shocked my well. FYI
Oddly sensitive comment - chlorine is used in almost every municipality so this is very important in my opinion
@@TheApartmentBrewer Of course it is important what is in the water lol There is no chlorine in my "tap water", nor any of my neighbors, for miles and miles. It just sounds weird when brewers say do this if you have "tap water". We all have tap water is my point.
It almost sounds like people think those living outside of a town or city don't have running water lol
I have one of the best wells around, just shocked again, PH is high from calcium, but I can live with and adjust for that. Oh, guess what? It comes from a tap!...a few taps...and there is no water bill, no boil orders either.
We all have tap water is the point.
Learning much from your videos, BTW. Thanks.
Take out the ethanol and ALL beer flavours are off
Fair haha
Beard hairs in beers are disgusting.
Accurate