Have You Had A Batch You Not Happy With ?

[big d]

Normell
The beer i was trying to copy was a Redback beer of which i really like.As it turned out nothing remotely what i was after and a taste i wasnt really after i chucked it out.The rest as i posted is history.

Not all wheat beers taste the same

Cheers
Big D

 

[Pumpy]

maybe you should do a poll pumpy - do you ever feel dissapointed ?

Roach it was just one of my soul searching posts for honesty, when I had drank a few pints , a poll might end in depression or suicides which I would not bear responsibility for, if someone got so depressed after a average batch of beer they may consider drowning themselves in a sixty litre batch of ale , Not a pretty sight legs in the air :huh:

Pumpy

 

[crozdog]

I've only chucked out 2 brews:

1 was a 2 can jobbie, a coopers larger & pale ale, in the days before I learnt about temp control. It was early summer & fermented @ about 30 degrees. It was done & dusted in just over a day! Tasted like crap, but I drank a few as a I didn't have anything else with me on a camping weekend.

The 2nd was a TCB Wetpack Lager. It was boiled with 9L instead of the recommended 6L as I thought it'd catch & burn / caramelise with the smaller volume. I ended up only boiling the aroma hops I bought to add to it. Once it was in primary I discovered the mistake & boiled up the bittering hops for 15 mins & added to the fermenter. Despite the extra volume of the boil, it ended up really dark for a lager - more like an amber ale! It tasted like no beer I've ever had before - bloody waste of a Czech budjuvice yeast starter if you ask me. :angry: I'd bought this kit to do just before I did my 1st AG. I finally put it down just after the AG. Compariong the two was more than enough to convince me that AG was the way to go.

beers

Crozdog

 

[gavor]

My second brew was a K&K recommended by the local brew shop and honest to god it's one of the worst things i've had the misfortune to drink.

Along the way I did stuff like add 25l instead of 23l water, didn't seal it properly and I heated it up because I though the right temp was 24-25C not 20-21C. Finally, I used bleach on the bottle caps(the ones for PET bottles) and found the bleached water had a propensity to get stuck between the cap and the seal inside it.

I bravely drank 15 of them, eventually mixing it with stout to try and patch things up. It was at this point that my missus agreed I could tip it out (she originally told me I had to drink everything, even f&#k ups), and I discovered it had basically no alcohol in it. I drank 5 longnecks one night to prove it and I still felt 9/10ths sober.

Luckily my brewing has improved since then .

 

[lucas]

the last wheat beer i brewed. it was an esb 3kg tin, with about a cup of wheat malt, a cup of light malt and a cup of dextrose. fermented with wyeast 3944. temps slipped up a little higher than they should have (21-22C) and now it has a strange taste to it.

from some reading ive done i think its phenolic, and it's apparently a trait of the yeast but ive never noticed it before so i blame the temps. need to get someone who knows their wheat beers to try one and tell me if its within the style. personally ive found that drinking it quite cold makes it bearable, but it's not how i'd normally have my wheats.

 

[goatherder]

My not-so-happy batch was a huge disappointment. I grabbed some napisan and sanitised the fermenter before I made the beer in it. The napisan was the scented kind - supposedly low-scent.

After bottling, there was a hint of napisan scent and flavour to the beer. It comes through in the finish, just enough to know it's there. I haven't tipped it because the beer is good except for this. But every bottle pains me because it's a testament to my stupidity.

 

[Whistlingjack]

I had an infection in my gear some 15 years ago. Ran through two batches. Tasted evil, but I drank it anyway. After all the taste was the only dangerous thing. :blink:

More recently, I tried a doppelbock extract. Pours nicely, great head, tastes like crap...

 

[hupnupnee]

In my Uni days I was trying to save a quid or two so I grabbed a 30l bucket from the resteraunt I was working in. The bucket a nice white one with a tightly fitting lid I thougt would make a great fermenter. however it originally contained a chlorine powder that we used for sanitising the equipment. Anyway, I took it home and washed it out and left it in the sun for a few days to get rid of the chlorine smell. The smell was mostly gone so I then brewed a Coopers Pale ALe Kit in it. A few weeks later I opened a bottle and by God it was terrible. So being a poor Uni student I and my other uni mates drunk the lot. Very dissapointing. : (

Tim

 

[kitkat]

first 2 kits were coopers lager + pale ale, brewed with some dodgy HBS kit enhancers, fermented too warm, tasted like crap. Third attempt was a wheat extract with way too much coriander which completely overpowered the beer and ruined it.
It's a wonder I persevered

Then a pseudo-Alt extract, OK but way too bitter, the guy who gave me the recipe must enjoy high bitterness.

Then I did quite a few grumpy's masterbrews and hence discovered that there can be very good kits

Went on to fresh worts, very good, and recently 2 ESB 3kgs pilsners with hop teas and hops in secondary that taste beautiful.

I have to throw out some old ale brews (spring and autumn 2005) as they now taste cardboardy and are just too old - and I need the bottles
Actually I have planned for at least 3 more brews before summer but I'm not sure where I'll find the bottles and where I'll be storing them ... I'm running out of old brews to throw out

I don't have the time or space to do AG, but I am considering partials.

 

[bugwan]

A great deal of irony seems to be creeping into my brews...

Whenever I make a great drop, I regret not doing a double batch. Then I actually do a double batch and....welll, it's ok, but I just wish it would end so I could put something else in the keg!!

 

[Chris]

My most disastrous brew was my first partial, an Alt. I had allready tasted examples so asked the home brew shop owner to help me make one up. The demonic concoction he came up with included 150g dark crystal 300g of Amber and 200g of chocolate. I then fermented this out way dry with 1007. I couldnt even finnish one bottle yuk!