Hi Guys
I've been BIABing for about the past 6 months with mixed success - mostly due to poor fermentation temperature control. However, in my last batch (Ross' NS Summer Ale) I successfully controlled the temperature at 17C.
Throughout the fermentation, I tasted my gravity samples and all of them were great - perfect mix of hops and grain flavour which was a first for me. Fermentation was complete after about 7 days, left for another 3 at 17, then put the fermenter (non-racked) in the fridge for 10 days to clear. After about 20 days in the fermenter, still tasting great, I bottled.
Being impatient, and given that carbonation seemed to occur quite quickly, I tasted one of them after about 3 days. After about an hour in the freezer, I poured it out and it was fantastic. It was obvious that it needed a little more time to settle, but even the missus (who is rather discerning with her beer) was reluctant to hand the glass back. Balance, carbonation, aroma, flavour, bitterness were all spot on.
Given that they tasted this good after such a short period of time, I decided I'd put a couple more in the fridge to have over the coming days. However, having opened these ones they tasted completely different - almost like they're another beer. Rather than being balanced, they were estery, alcoholic and lacking any malt characteristics - like they have been fermented far too high.
Since this time, almost another week has passed and I've been through a couple more with the same results - all are carbonated, but still taste very average at best.
Although the beer hasn't been bottled for quite 2 weeks yet and I realise that I'm being impatient, I am very surprised that one bottle can taste so dramatically different to others when in theory it should have been the 'greenest' of them all.
Is it possible that the increasing time in the bottles is somehow causing these characteristics?
For a bit more information:
Cheers
Leigh
I've been BIABing for about the past 6 months with mixed success - mostly due to poor fermentation temperature control. However, in my last batch (Ross' NS Summer Ale) I successfully controlled the temperature at 17C.
Throughout the fermentation, I tasted my gravity samples and all of them were great - perfect mix of hops and grain flavour which was a first for me. Fermentation was complete after about 7 days, left for another 3 at 17, then put the fermenter (non-racked) in the fridge for 10 days to clear. After about 20 days in the fermenter, still tasting great, I bottled.
Being impatient, and given that carbonation seemed to occur quite quickly, I tasted one of them after about 3 days. After about an hour in the freezer, I poured it out and it was fantastic. It was obvious that it needed a little more time to settle, but even the missus (who is rather discerning with her beer) was reluctant to hand the glass back. Balance, carbonation, aroma, flavour, bitterness were all spot on.
Given that they tasted this good after such a short period of time, I decided I'd put a couple more in the fridge to have over the coming days. However, having opened these ones they tasted completely different - almost like they're another beer. Rather than being balanced, they were estery, alcoholic and lacking any malt characteristics - like they have been fermented far too high.
Since this time, almost another week has passed and I've been through a couple more with the same results - all are carbonated, but still taste very average at best.
Although the beer hasn't been bottled for quite 2 weeks yet and I realise that I'm being impatient, I am very surprised that one bottle can taste so dramatically different to others when in theory it should have been the 'greenest' of them all.
Is it possible that the increasing time in the bottles is somehow causing these characteristics?
For a bit more information:
- Carbonation - boiled water, dextrose, syringed into each bottle
- Storage - in brown Coopers PET bottles, inside a plastic box in the coolest part of the house (max temp approx 28C) with a blanket over the top of them.
Cheers
Leigh
