homebrewandbeer.com

Hi all,

I tried my first HB just after Chrissie using a Coopers Pale Ale kit, 500GM LDM and 1 KG of Brew Enhancer 2.

Bubbled away nicely with a SG 1048 and finished up bottling it on the 6th at 1010.

It seemed to take a little longer than expected but it smelt ok and tasted ok though fairly bitter.

Bottled on the 6th and I opened an experimental beer today (I know only 4 days but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't complete crap).

The fermenter has been soaking with the Coopers sanitiser as there was a white sludge on the bottom which smelt a little medicinal and sickly.

The beer had no head at all and while carbonated ok, has a (this is the only way I can decribe it), slightly creamy aftertaste with a bit of a sickly overtone (not huge but noticable).

It's not that bitter and is a mild bodied beer with decent alcohol ~ 5.5% and is not unpleasant...at first...but the aftertaste has got me and I couldn't drink anymore than half the beer before I put the glass down.

The smell is also little tiny bit sickly.

Does this meant the beer is cactus and infected?

I sanitised the fermentor (even though it was new) for an hour with the tap, spoon etc but not the bottles as they were claimed (in the instructions) to be already sanatised.

When I put the malt in it took ages to desolve (as I put boiling water over it) and I had to stir it for about 30 min constantly and may have breathed into the fermenter alot (as it took so long).

Could this have effected it also?

Should I just chuck the lot out and start again?

My next brew is a coopers lager tin with safbrew T-58, 1.5KG of LDM, a teabag of hops and a 1kg of brew enhancer 1.

I just don't want the same problem to dog this new batch.

Cheers

I wouldn’t be freaking out just yet 4 days is nowhere near long enough, it would taste like death in a bottle it needs to be left for at least 3 weeks to even come close to being drinkable.
Don’t worry im impatient to I hate waiting for anything but when you’re doing home brew in bottles you just have to wait several months for it to be any good,
Go down eh bottle o and grab ya self a few slaps try and forget about the brew from another month, even 4 days in a keg it will taste like crap..
Cheers bro

Well my advice is to not give up just yet BrewHaus. Time must be given.

Most beer, when bottled, will only come into it’s taste range after two – three weeks. And most deeper coloured beers after two – three months.

I always open a stubby with new brews to test them out and see how they are going to shape up, but that is at 10 days at a minimum. And then, I always feel I am being impatient.

I find the coopers pale ale with Brew enhancer two is best after 2 months BUT it needs 3 months to get really good.

Would you drink a 4 day old wine?

Thanks guys for replying.

I agree it was pretty premature but the odd smell from the fermenter made me wonder if there was a problem with the brew.

Just the clarify, the beer doesn't just taste 'green' or a little rough around the edges; it's more of a sick smell (not sickly sweet though as the beer is nicely dry); kindof medicinal and there is a weird aftertaste which is an odd sick creamy flavour...creamy like somewhat off milk.

I got the wife to taste some (she loves,IPA, Leffe, Chimay) and she pulled a face and said it had an off taste after spitting it out.

I've read on this forum people trying the beers during the fermenting process and sometimes not long after bottling and most say the beer tastes just like beer so that's where the worry came in.

Without the odd taste/smell the beer would have been fairly drinkable...especially with another month or three in the bottle!

Do most new beers have this weird taste before it dissappears in the sec fermentation?

Not worth worrying about mate as there is nothing you can do about it beside chuck it and if you did that and there was nothing wrong with it you would be really pissed..

Get ya self 2 or 3 fermenters going at the same time if you need more bottles try eBay or the local recycle skip and finally the home brew shop you can even use PET but I don’t like those in fact its cheaper to buy full bottles of 1.5L cheap soft drink at 60c a pop and empty them and use them.

Moral of the story is forget about it for a few months and start making lots more, Its not worth worrying about.

Cheers Gym_

I doubt your beer is infected. However, I assume you sanitised your fermenter before use?

I don't do much with my fermenters, I clean them with a hose and a sponge and soft plastic scrubby only, then rinse with tap water. Before use I sanitise it with a no rinse sanitiser.

Is the sludge at the bottom of your fermenter after you had bottled your beer? If so, that is the yeast cake, along with residue of hot and cold break, and a bit of other sludge from the kit and LDME. That's perfectly normal and nothing to worry about.

What temperature did you ferment your beer at? If it got higher than about 24ºC at any stage, that might account for some of the less than favourable tastes / smells you are experiencing.

Did you use just plain tap water to top up your fermenter? If so, I'd strongly recommend you get some filtration system, and filter your water before adding it to the fermenter. Without knowing your location, I don't have any idea of your local water quality, but that may account for part of your problem.

My first kit brew was terrible, and I had no end of trouble getting through the batch, but I loved brews 2 and 3. I'm sure you'll find a beer or recipe which hits the spot for you.

I think 4 days post bottling is far too soon to draw any conclusions. Your beer will still be very green, and probably only partially carbed up. Just give it time, at least 3 or 4 weeks.

I found kit or extract beers generally took a bit longer to come good than the all grain beers I brew.

The previous batch had the fermeter soaking for about an hour with the Coopers sanitiser as it was brand new but I didnt' do the bottles as the book said they were already sanatised from the factory.

I'm in Melb and our water here is really good. No chlorine smell and have never needed a filter. When I go to SA I usually have to take a filter as I'm not used to the water! (Sorry SA readers!)

The sludge was a white sludge at the bottle of the fermenter after tapping the beer off.

The first batch fermented between 19-26 with an avg of around 23 I'd guess (mostly on the lower middle end as there was just a couple of hot days where the fermeter would have heated up a little for a day and then a string of cold days). The ale yeast said it was ok for up to 28 degrees but this could be part of the problem. It fermented between the 28th of Dec and the 6th Jan...which may have been a little long...

Fingers crossed anyway and I'll just let it sit and make a couple more batches in the meantime.

I went to the HB shop yesterday (Brewcraft) and the bloke said after I mentioned Belgium beers that a 1.7 tin of Coopers Lager, 1.5KG of LDM, Safbrew T-58 and 1KG of Brew Enhancer 1 should make a nice strong batch...the OG reading today was 1070!

For the new batch I soaked the fermeter for a few days in the Coopers solution and then scrubbed it (soft cloth) and rinsed it and then soaked it again overnite with another batch of Coopers sanitiser just to make sure everything is starting off properly! It still had a little of a fermented medicinal smell about but I couldn't really get it much cleaner without scrubbing it and that just may be the smell of fermented yeasts and the by products of brewing...too new to know really!

Anyway, hopefully the new brew tastes ok. I'm not sure if you put that much malt in a lager base, but he said it should end up nice but may need a few months conditioning.

Next is a Porter...the wife isn't going to like me buying boxes and boxes of PET bottles though...I'll have to find somewhere out of the way to stash them...

Cheers

My first HB was terrible, as was my second... but my third was a BIG difference, and I broke out a bottle of it the other day for tasting, and it is still quite good, though pretty oxidised.

I reckon, put another brew in while you wait for this one to improve. That way you can build a stash to make sure you have properly aged beer on hand. The beauty of having lots of beer to choose from is that I am never tempted to drink beer that hasn't conditioned for at least a few weeks. I try it at 2 weeks, and if it is crap, I just forget it for another 2 or so.

Just stay with it, and don't be put off if your first batches aren't your best. Look at them as educational. It is really easy to brew good beer, but a little practice helps a whole lot.

The sludge is definitely the yeast cake. Perfectly normal. In fact, some of us harvest that to grow starters for future beers, but no need to worry about that for now.

The smell of the fermenter will likely never disappear. Mine always have a smell to it, similar to what you describe, and I've never had an infection in my fermenters.

I'd say the avarage temperature of your fermentation was on the warm side. The internal temperature of a fermenting brew is usually 1 or 2ºC higher than what you read on the outside.
The reason they quote up to 28ºC in the instructions is that it virtually guarantees a complete fermentation. The yeasts like those temperatures, and are happy to procreate as much as they can, and then to start munching on your wort. However, it doesn't lead to the best result, as higher temperatures lead to the production of side products such as various esters, fusel alcohol etc, which are less than tasty. Temperatures in the range of 18 to 20ºC for ale fermentations are the preferred range to give you a cleaner tasting beer.

The Belgian you are now brewing sounds good. At least it is one style which benefits from some additional esters from a slightly warmer fermentation.

With regards to stirring/dissolving the dry malt, I used to do exactly the same and it'd clump up and take absolutely ages for me to get it completely dissolved. If you do exactly what you're doing, put the dry malt in, pour the water on top then hold the fermenter by the handles and swirl the mixture in a couple of directions (I have found at least) it'll un-clump and dissolve very quickly, instead of needing to stab the chunks with the spoon trying to break the chunks up.

When I do a can kit + 1kg dextrose/BE + 500g LDME recipe, I usually throw the 500g of LDME in, add 1 litre of boiling water, swirl that around for up to maybe aminute, throw in the 1kg of dextrose/BE, add another litre of boiling water, stir that in, which takes maybe 30 seconds then add my kit can, stir that through for about another minute then top her up with cool water.

Well I’m really lazy I chuck all my stuff on top of some boiling water and hit it with a 3 foot long spoon stuck in the end of my drill at 500+ Rpm for 2 min, pour a bucket of water on top and chuck in a packet of yeast, Robert is ya mums brother ..
All done and done in 10 min max
God help us all when I start All Grain Brewing this year,,
lmfao ill keep yas informed on that one


MMM change lazy to dont have time .. get in get out get on with it ..
If i stuffed around id never get 10 min to sit down and drink some..

Just wanted to post to say that I sampled a bottle of my Pale Ale after two weeks and it tasted great. There was none of that weird medicinal taste with the first bottle so hopefully it's a success overall!

It came out at around 5.5% with a nice colour, med bodied, crisp, nicely bitter finish and a fresh mid pallette. Compared to a 6 pack of aweful Toohey's Extra Dry Platinum that I stupidly bought it kicked it's butt.

Only problem was the lack of a head (it disappeared in about 10 seconds) and it was a little low on carbonation.

Will longer bottle conditioning help here or is that about the best it'll get?

I used two coopers lollies per bottle...should I have possibly used 3?

Cheers,
BrewHaus

Congratulations, BrewHaus,
As for the lack of head, all my brews have a great head except for the occasional bottle. I put this down to the glass it was served in and change glasses. I use brewmaster glasses which are rinsed with hot water after use, no detergents.
Occasionally SWMBO slips one into the dishwasher and it takes a little while to recover.
As for using using three carbonation drops, I feel that most people on this forum would say NNNOOOOOOO!
An invitation for a bottle bomb methinks.
Another consideration might be that the carbonation hasn't fully finished. Depending upon how you stored them they might still be fermenting away slowly....I split a batch once...half stored at over 21C the other at about 16C. The second lot took a lot, lot longer to come up to par.
Cheers

Again nothing to stress about there just not old enough yet ..
Another few weeks they will turn out perfect and taste 20% better for every 2 weeks u leave them..
Brewing a waiting game something Im not good at doing my self ..

BrewHaus wrote:Hi all,

I tried my first HB just after Chrissie using a Coopers Pale Ale kit, 500GM LDM and 1 KG of Brew Enhancer 2.

Bubbled away nicely with a SG 1048 and finished up bottling it on the 6th at 1010.

It seemed to take a little longer than expected but it smelt ok and tasted ok though fairly bitter.

Bottled on the 6th and I opened an experimental beer today (I know only 4 days but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't complete crap).

The fermenter has been soaking with the Coopers sanitiser as there was a white sludge on the bottom which smelt a little medicinal and sickly.

The beer had no head at all and while carbonated ok, has a (this is the only way I can decribe it), slightly creamy aftertaste with a bit of a sickly overtone (not huge but noticable).

It's not that bitter and is a mild bodied beer with decent alcohol ~ 5.5% and is not unpleasant...at first...but the aftertaste has got me and I couldn't drink anymore than half the beer before I put the glass down.

The smell is also little tiny bit sickly.

Does this meant the beer is cactus and infected?

I sanitised the fermentor (even though it was new) for an hour with the tap, spoon etc but not the bottles as they were claimed (in the instructions) to be already sanatised.

When I put the malt in it took ages to desolve (as I put boiling water over it) and I had to stir it for about 30 min constantly and may have breathed into the fermenter alot (as it took so long).

Could this have effected it also?

Should I just chuck the lot out and start again?

My next brew is a coopers lager tin with safbrew T-58, 1.5KG of LDM, a teabag of hops and a 1kg of brew enhancer 1.

I just don't want the same problem to dog this new batch.

Cheers

G'day BrewHaus,
You mentioned "sickly" no less than 3 times....The white sludge in the bottom of the fermenter may give you a clue. Did you rinse the fermenter after "sanitising" it?

I found it was much easier to add the malt, slowly, to a pot of cold water and heat on the stove before pouring into the fermenter. It's like making perfect lumpless gravy - you start by adding the powder to cold water and stirring as you go.

Medicinal notes usually indicate an infection - and I suspect that not sanitising the bottle is the key culprit there. The general rule is to sanitise anything that comes into contact with your beer.

Cheers and keep brewing / learning,
TL