Dark Ale Tastes Like Soy Sauce.

[toojays]

I made a dark ale which tastes too sweet, and has a flavour which a couple of people have described as "soy sauce". Can anyone suggest what causes this flavour?


What I brewed:

Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale can
1.5kg Coopers Amber LME
Nottingham Yeast
2 weeks in primary at room temperature
another week in the same fermenter, but I moved it to the fridge (was going on holiday, so the only time I could get away with abusing the fridge in this way; had just read about "cold crashing" for clarity)

OG 1040
FG 1020

My guess is that maybe the ferment stuck, since these days I'd expect the FG should be a bit lower than 1020. So some unfermented sugars explain why it's too sweet. But why the soy sauce flavour?

This was bottled a year ago, and I haven't had any gushers or bombs, so that counts against the "unfinished fermentation theory". But I did only prime with 1/2 a carbonation drop per stubby.

I get a reasonable beer if I mix 1 part dark ale with 2 parts IPA. Maybe that's a waste of IPA, but I read you've gotta drink your mistakes . . .

 

[Dazza_devil]

Strange indeed for it to finish so high.
Did you sample the brew at anytime thoughout the 12 months it was in the bottle?
I'm interested to know how you managed to cut a carbonation drop in half.
How long did you chill it for and how carbonated is it?
I can't say I've ever tasted a beer that's like soy sauce but perhaps it would go well with steamed dim sims.

 

[toojays]

Strange indeed for it to finish so high.
Did you sample the brew at anytime thoughout the 12 months it was in the bottle?

Yeah, I was drinking it a bit last year, but still have a fair bit left. I tend not to drink the darker beers in hot weather. Plus since this beer isn't exactly a taste sensation it's hung around for a while. Trying to finish it off this autumn/winter, but since I've made a couple of much better brews since then I'm having to force myself.

I'm interested to know how you managed to cut a carbonation drop in half.

You just whack it with a big knife or cleaver. You don't get exact halves, but they're close enough. Or you can put together a couple of quarter-sized pieces, etc. Maybe a bit of wasted effort but it makes me feel a bit less paranoid about bottle bombs. Also it's easier to pour a beer with a moderate head.

How long did you chill it for and how carbonated is it?

Chilled it for a week. It's carbed about right now I reckon. I do remember that when it was pretty young (maybe a month or two in bottles) it did seem rather under-carbed. I remember thinking that maybe that was as a result of the cold-crashing, since any CO2 which was in the beer would have leaked out during the week in the fridge. Like usually when I bottle a beer or take a hydro reading I can see that there's bubbles in it. But when I took the final reading of this one I don't reckon there were any bubbles.

I can't say I've ever tasted a beer that's like soy sauce but perhaps it would go well with steamed dim sims.

Yeah, there's a thought. Maybe I should add a bit of wasabi and use it as a dipping sauce for sushi . . .

 

[Dazza_devil]

I'd be a bit cautious playing around with the carb drops too much incase of introducing an infection into your bottles. I wouldn't even touch them with my fingers.

If the taste has got worse over time then it could be some sort of infection, dunno really. Did you sample it before you bottled it?

I was thinking that Cold Crashing for a week could of taken a fair bit of yeast out of suspension making carbonation slow. What sized bottles did you use? I use a whole drop in a 330 ml stubbie when I bottle my dregs, they end up fairly well carbonated after two weeks.
I think you will find that CO2 goes into solution when chilling and comes out during warming. I'm not an expert on this but someeone else may be able to enlighten you about CO2 levels in an unprimed wort. Carbonation levels will be also be dependant on your fermentation temperature.

 

[manticle]

Soy sauce is odd. At a rough guess, knowing that it's that old I might suggest oxidation mixed with a high FG. Oxidation sometimes reveals itself as sherry like or wet cardboard. Maybe the sherry + sweet malt = soy-ish flavours??

Is it salty like soy? Can you describe it more?

 

[Bizier]

A lot of higher gravity beers have a miso soy flavour to them. I can only assume it is from loads of malt and a build up of melanoidin flavours in the beer. It could be from your extract - did you boil it?

ed: spelling

 

[Adam Howard]

Is it salty like soy? Can you describe it more?

I'm guessing his friends are saying it tastes like sweet soy sauce. Hell of a lot different to the salty one. Thicker and hardly salty at all.

 

[b_thomas]

Funny about the Dark Ale vs. Soy Sauce thing. My partner gets a strong scent of soy sauce when taking a whiff of Cooper's Stout. I have next to no sense of smell so I can't comment.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the Yeast autolysing

 

[phinnsfotos]

My vote would have been for a touch of autolysis as well. But then you would have to think that it would have finished quite dry. Can you get a stuck fermentation and autolysis?

I had a stout that I double pitched then left it for 4 weeks on primary, and it developed a "salty" flavour to it after about 6 months in the bottle.

Just making stuff up,
Finn.

 

[Bizier]

Can you get a stuck fermentation and autolysis?

I think you definitely could get a stuck fermentation and autolysis together. The yeast has stopped, and is on it's way downhill. If the yeast was treated badly in the first place, it might end up stopping early and then eventually breaking down.

I recently had my first experience with autolysis, and while different to the soya flavour that you get from barleywines etc, it had a savoury (salty?) nutty flavour that definitely could be interpreted to be in the soy zone - 2 people and myself all came to the conclusion of peanut butter as a noteable flavour.

ED: I might be sufficiently inexperienced that I can't tell if the flavour I interpret as soy-ish in big commercial beers is malt or yeast derived.

 

[Nashmandu]

I made a dark ale which tastes too sweet, and has a flavour which a couple of people have described as "soy sauce". Can anyone suggest what causes this flavour?


What I brewed:

Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale can
1.5kg Coopers Amber LME
Nottingham Yeast
2 weeks in primary at room temperature
another week in the same fermenter, but I moved it to the fridge (was going on holiday, so the only time I could get away with abusing the fridge in this way; had just read about "cold crashing" for clarity)

OG 1040
FG 1020

My guess is that maybe the ferment stuck, since these days I'd expect the FG should be a bit lower than 1020. So some unfermented sugars explain why it's too sweet. But why the soy sauce flavour?

This was bottled a year ago, and I haven't had any gushers or bombs, so that counts against the "unfinished fermentation theory". But I did only prime with 1/2 a carbonation drop per stubby.

I get a reasonable beer if I mix 1 part dark ale with 2 parts IPA. Maybe that's a waste of IPA, but I read you've gotta drink your mistakes . . .

My initial thought is yeast autolysis. possibly vegemite could be interpreted as soy sauce?

 

[toojays]

Hmm, I just opened a bottle to try and answer some of these questions, and this one is much less soy sauce. But it also seemed a lot more carbed.

I'm thinking the answer might lie with the stuck ferment + autolysis. Is it possible that the autolysed yeast and the live/stuck yeast would lie at different layers in the fermenter? So that some bottles will be soyish, while others are not so soyish, but a bit more carbed due to the yeast waking up.

My g/f pointed me to a website about umami, which some people reckon is a distinct flavour sensation. Anyway, it's apparently associated with both vegemite and soy sauce, so that gives the link to vegemite which suggests some autolysis.

On the other hand, I'd have thought the cold crashing would have taken all the autolysis and most of the yeast to the bottom anyway. Who knows . . .

So if it was autolysis . . . how to avoid that in the future?

Just dug up some more info . . . it seems I took a lot of hydrometer readings of this brew, I have the following gravity readings:

2/4/09: 1040 (would have been OG)
3/4/09: 1030
4/4/09: 1022 (my note says "smells appley")
5/4/09: 1022 ("smells worse")
7/4/09: 1020 ("bad smell has gone away")
10/4/09: 1020 ("smells a bit again?")
13/4/09: 1020 ("moved fermenter" --- this prolly means I swished it around to try and get the fermentation happening again)
14/4/09: 1020

Does any of that suggest autolysis? A quick couple of days, then no action after that?

 

[Nashmandu]

Hmm, I just opened a bottle to try and answer some of these questions, and this one is much less soy sauce. But it also seemed a lot more carbed.

I'm thinking the answer might lie with the stuck ferment + autolysis. Is it possible that the autolysed yeast and the live/stuck yeast would lie at different layers in the fermenter? So that some bottles will be soyish, while others are not so soyish, but a bit more carbed due to the yeast waking up.

My g/f pointed me to a website about umami, which some people reckon is a distinct flavour sensation. Anyway, it's apparently associated with both vegemite and soy sauce, so that gives the link to vegemite which suggests some autolysis.

On the other hand, I'd have thought the cold crashing would have taken all the autolysis and most of the yeast to the bottom anyway. Who knows . . .

So if it was autolysis . . . how to avoid that in the future?


Mate, if you are saying that some bottles have less 'soy sauce' taste than others then possibly they have less yeast in them...the last few beers you bottle will cop more yeast and therefor stronger yeast character. Yeast autolysis is just dead yeast but unlike in champagne it is not desirable. It becomes a problem when the beer is left to long in contact with dead yeast. When you crash cool or cool in any way mostof the yeast will go to sleep, this yeast is not the cause of autolysis. The unhealthy yeast - cause of your off flavours - will not be white and creamy.
Autolysis can be minimized/avoided by making sure you do not leave the beer too long in the primary fermenter, or by racking off the bottom layer of yeast (the yeast that settled to the bottom earliest).....

just some ramblings of a crazed mind