How Long Until 'greeness' Dissapears?

[Bon]

Hey guys,

new to home brewing... I have started off with a Brewcraft Dutch Lager and followed it up with a couple of batches of Little Creatues Pale Ale.

Recipie went like this:

Kit: Morgans Stockman Draught
Sugar: 1.5kg morgans unhopped pale malt extract
Yeast: 10g sfale us-5b brewing yeast
Water: 23L tap water
Hops (taste): 10g us cluster. 10g us cascade
Hops (aroma): 15g chinook (added 2 days after)

O.G. 1.0533
R.G. 1.022
T.G. don't know as we added bulk priming sugar and then took the reading which made it higher than what it would have been.


Made on 9/03/2005, racked on 14/03/2005. Bottled on 14/4/2005. My guess for temp is around 22-24, during the day at least anyway.

I opened a bottle of the Little Creatures yesterday after being bottled for 11 days. It smelt good and had a nice head on it when it was poured... it tastes alright - it's certainly drinkable, but there's this flavour in it that I noticed in the Dutch Lager I did as well. I'm suspecting it's 'greeness', how long will it take for this flavour to dissapear and when is the optimum time to open the bottles after bottling?

 

[Jovial_Monk]

I think that if you leave your beer longer in the primary the yeast will clean up that "greeness."

Jovial Monk

 

[pint of lager]

It depends what this "greenness" is that you are tasting. It could be that your fermentation temperatures are bit on the high side, if the room temperature is 24 deg, the brew could be around 26 degrees as fermenting beer generates its own heat due to the yeast working. Ideal is around 20-22 degrees fermentation temperature in the fermenter, which usually means the air temperature is around 18-20 degrees.

Most homebrew kits improve in flavour with some age and are best drunk from 4 weeks after bottling. Keep sampling a bottle every week or so, write tasting notes too so next time you have a gauge of what time frame your beers mature best at. Your posted recipe shows that you keep good notes.

Have a read through some of the earlier threads, they outline very easy ways to keep your fermenting beer cool.

It is best to rack when your beer is close to your terminal gravity, 1.022 is a bit high to start racking.

 

[Bon]

I see, thanks for the replies guys! They are greatly appreciated.

I think that the temperature possibly could have been a bit too high during fermentation since I got the same taste in my lager, only stronger (and it was hotter when we put the Lager down)... so I'll give it another few weeks, trying a bottle every week to see if the flavour improves or not. Now is probably the perfect time to put down a pale ale temperature-wise naturally.... hmm, so tempting isn't

It's not so bad though, I've told myself no alcohol for a month in the lead up to a wrestling comp I have while I'm trying to get fit so I can afford to be patient.

 

[Jazman]

also bon with the little creatures clone u did with the hop additions you had i think it would be better to drop the cluster and chinook and use just cascade as it will a lot better than those other hops u used

 

[Bon]

Why's that, Jazman?

I am very new, so still know very little, especially about hops... I'm going on what the guy in my LHBS has told me...

 

[Jazman]

little creatures is ina style called american pale ale and the main hops used is cascade chinnook is more for bittering and used for that in the lcpa but using a kit i would not use it in a lcpa clone

 

[Gough]

G'day Bon,

The cluster is more of a bittering hop in my opinion and would be better suited to a longer boil with your malt. Maybe a bit harsh as a flavour/aroma hop anyway. You either love or hate Chinook, believe me!

For adding to a kit to try and get some of that Little Creatures flavour and aroma the Cascade is your best bet. Try a short boil with your unhopped liquid malt, say 20 grams with your 1.5kg can in 5-10 litres of water (depending on how big your pot is - it WILL boil over!) boiled for 15 minutes adding your kit as you turn off the heat. Cool as quickly as you can and then throw the mix in to your fermenter and top up as normal. Then if you are racking into another fermenter try another 20 grams just thrown in as dry hops. Even better if you can get the plugs rather than the pellets for this purpose.

Keep your ferment as close to 20 degrees as you can with your kit yeast, try the hops in the way I just suggested and see how you go. Good to see another Newcastle brewer on the forum! Hope to see you round.

Shawn.

 

[Bon]

Jazman, ta!

Gough, thanks for that mate, might give that a try next week!

 

[Bon]

Tried the lager again today... that flavour that was in it before and was also in the LCPA has dissapeared! I think it's the 'greeness'.

Can't say the lager tastes too good though, only using 1kg of dextrose and sugar carbonation drops as well as no hops for taste has left a pretty crap tasting beer with little fizz at this point in time. Definitely improvement from when I first tasted it - sour and only just bearable to hold in my mouth, yet not at the point of spitting out, but nothing I'd want to swallow either.

If this greeness clears up in the LCPA which I think it should, it's going to be one hell of a drop! Nice aromas on the LCPA, plus a good head when poured into a glass. It was drinkable after being bottled for 10 days, once the greeness clears up I'll be drinking long necks at a time I reckon!

Keen to bottle our second batch of LCPA now as we boiled the ingredients with this one unlike the first and it's been in the secondary fermenter for over a month now.. guess that's a job to do while stilling