Tasting Hydrometer Sample

[saturn]

I know from previous posts that a number of us take a little tastings from the hydrometer tube.

How indicative do you find the taste in relation to the final product?


The reason I ask is that I recently tasted 2 batches before bottling and got some weirdish flavours - I would descibe the taste as being almost like a cough mixture.

The batches were individually hopped with POR and Cascade respectively. It was the 1st time I have used either of these hops. The POR brew was the most distinctive, the cascade brew gave none of the citrussy type profile I was expecting. Yeast was Saflager 34

My obvious fear is that I have an infection in both brews which were prepared in parallel.

 

[Ash in Perth]

how far into fermentation is it?

 

[pint of lager]

Early sg samples I find disappointing. As it gets closer to being bottled, the flavour improves greatly.

Cough mixture flavour. Do you think it is a butterscotch cough lolly flavour or harsh alcohol flavour?

Butterscotch is diacetyl. This is often cleaned up by the yeast. The usual way to counter diacetyl is to ferment for the very last few sg points at 20 deg. If the beer is already bottled, you could try allowing them to prime at 20 deg.

Harsh alcohol can be from high ferment temperatures.

Different lager yeasts produce different levels of diacetyl. I have not used extensively 34/70 so cannot comment on it.

Are these your first lagers?

Have you actually bottled them off?

 

[warrenlw63]

Cough mixture.

Not phenolics you're tasting per chance? Bandaid, vinyl type flavours? :unsure:

Warren -

 

[saturn]

Finished fermenting but fermented for 2 weeks - good lager temps etc. At observational level all seemed pretty routine

I did a progress SG sample at about 1 week, it had the same weird flavour that I just wrote about

 

[saturn]

Cough mixture.

Not phenolics you're tasting per chance? Bandaid, vinyl type flavours? :unsure:

Warren -

Bandaid /vinyl flavours are a good approximation

 

[saturn]

Early sg samples I find disappointing. As it gets closer to being bottled, the flavour improves greatly.

Cough mixture flavour. Do you think it is a butterscotch cough lolly flavour or harsh alcohol flavour?

Butterscotch is diacetyl. This is often cleaned up by the yeast. The usual way to counter diacetyl is to ferment for the very last few sg points at 20 deg. If the beer is already bottled, you could try allowing them to prime at 20 deg.

Harsh alcohol can be from high ferment temperatures.

Different lager yeasts produce different levels of diacetyl. I have not used extensively 34/70 so cannot comment on it.

Are these your first lagers?

Have you actually bottled them off?

Have bottled them off

Have made 10-15 lagers across the last year but technique is vastly different now to my 1st ones as I learn stuff

 

[pint of lager]

If it is your 15th lager, you probably ahve good control and also perfected your techniques.

If you think it is bandaid like Warren suggested, that is a different problem.

Infections, high amounts of chlorine in your water, incomplete rinsing of chlorine cleaners, some yeasts and a high wheat content can give phenols.

 

[Coodgee]

I'm doing a couple of different lagers with some WLP830. I find it to have a very unclean taste. I'm assured it's just a yeasty flavour. it usually goes away. funny thing I have come to learn is that the cleaner the yeast the dirtier it tastes during fermentation...

 

[tangent]

keep it up though, great way to predict how a beer will turn out by tasting your samples

i have a danish lager with my 1st trial of Perle plugs. i was a bit worried because it was described as minty but it's minty in an earthy way, not in an artificial way. hydro tube sample is tasting awesome already so a filter and a gas should be a bloody beautiful beer.

 

[PistolPatch]

Howdy Saturn,

Looks like you've narrowed down the taste and as PintofLager has said it's most likely an infection or bleach contamination. Sometimes an infection can be indicated by a lower than expected final gravity as the foreign bacteria has been able to convert more sugars than the brewing yeast.

If you indicate what area you're from, you might be able to con an experienced taster into taking a taste. If they die, concentrate on the infection side. If they live, then probably just a chlorine/bleach problem.

Who knows - you might even enjoy the beer! One guy I know really enjoyed his infected beer until someone told him it was infected. After that he couldn't stand it. True story!

Cheers
PP

 

[Adamt]

The pilsener I'm CCing at the moment was tasted when i took my SG reading after primary...

Tasted like warm, flat pilsener..... funny that! :chug:

 

[matti]

Just take notice of the flavour through out brew process.
Build up a memory bank of flavour and you'll become a better bar none.
I work in the Food Industry and nothing is more important than taste texture and presentation. This applies to brewing good beer as well. The more you find out the more there is to learn.
Matti

 

[peter]

Gday guys
So phenols ( vinyl type flavour) are connected to bleach/chlorine contamination?
I too, have some brews that have a funny twang to it (the above), but couldn't put my finger on it.
I reckon my sanitation techniques are good, but I have been using bleach based sterilising powder for a while .I think I might switch to idophor from now on.

Thanks for the info

 

[Stuster]

You still need to use a cleaning agent, as iodophor is just a sanitiser. I just soak my fermenters in napisan (unscented etc) overnight or longer. Very cheap, works a treat. Just rinse it out well and use iodophor as the no-rinse sanitiser.

 

[peter]

You still need to use a cleaning agent, as iodophor is just a sanitiser. I just soak my fermenters in napisan (unscented etc) overnight or longer. Very cheap, works a treat. Just rinse it out well and use iodophor as the no-rinse sanitiser.

Thanks Stuster, I now have a new name for my bleach based sterilizing powder- napisan!

 

[Stuster]

Good. But not really bleach based so no problems with chlorophenols. :super:

 

[saturn]

Gday guys
So phenols ( vinyl type flavour) are connected to bleach/chlorine contamination?
I too, have some brews that have a funny twang to it (the above), but couldn't put my finger on it.
I reckon my sanitation techniques are good, but I have been using bleach based sterilising powder for a while .I think I might switch to idophor from now on.

Thanks for the info

How did they turn out

 

[peter]

How did they turn out

saturn , the beers tasted good but had a tiny aftertaste (yeah, like a vinyl plastic chemical on the back of my tongue) not overpowering , but there. They are all kit brews.
I may have been overdoing it with the sanitiser i currently am using (chlorine based)
For now on i will use idophor as the sanitiser.
I will keep you posted on future brews using idophor.
cheers peter.

 

[KoNG]

After krausen has dropped i think hydro samples start to tell a great story. Even though i have a Refrac, i still take a hydro sample just to give it a taste.