That Fruity Taste/smell.

[brewgirl]

Hey... being a total newbie I don't know much about beer let alone home brew. Today when I was at my LHBS I sampled an amber ale they had on tap... tasted ok, except it had the same fruity smell/taste my first batch has. Wasn't as strong as in my batch, but still every much there. I was wondering if its just a temp control issue (which is what I'm sure caused the fruityness of my beer), or would be be also the type of yeast used?? The recipe they used for it had the same safale yeast I used. Or is it just a kit beer thing?

What sort of ale yeast is the best for avoiding this?

 

[kabooby]

Safale are good yeasts. It depends on the yeast as some will leave a malt flavour to a beer and others will ferment a lot cleaner. But all of them need to be brewed within the recomended temp range otherwise you do get a fruitiness come through. Could also be a kit beer thing. I used to get the same results when I did kit beers. Could even be the kilo of adjuncts like dextrose and maltodextrin.

I was recently given a kit of coopers mexican cerveza as a gift. I had brewed this before with the bag from the HBS (mixture of dextrose, maltodextrin and LME) and was not impresed with the results. It was OK and most of my friends enjoyed it but it definately had that kit beer taste. Anyway this time I decided to get a kilo of pale liquid extract and do a quick boil with it.

Sanitise a pot
Add the Pale liquid extract with 2 litres of water
Stir and bring to the boil
Added 15g of Pride of ringwood hops
waited for 10 mins
Added 15g of Pride of ringwood hops
waited 5 mins and turned off
Stired in Cerveza kit
added 200g of dextrose to up the alcohol
chucked it into the fermenter
toped up to 23 litres water
Pitched some WY2633 octoberfest yeast when it had cooled to 20C

Its cold conditioning now, but from my hydrometer sample I thought it tasted great with no hint of the kit beer flavour I used to get. With no strong malt or hop flavour this will be a great beer for summer, and it was dead easy.

Before I had a temperature fermentation fridge I used to put the fermenter in a large tub filled with water. Every morning throw in some frozen bottles and away you go

Kabooby

Edit: Try and get along to a local beer meet. Im sure there will be some local brewers that will happily try your beer and offer advice.

 

[pint of lager]

Before I had a temperature fermentation fridge I used to put the fermenter in a large tub filled with water. Every morning throw in some frozen bottles and away you go

Edit: Try and get along to a local beer meet. Im sure there will be some local brewers that will happily try your beer and offer advice.

Kabooby has offered some gems of advice here.

Temperature control of your fermentation process has a huge impact on the end result. Then, meeting with more experienced brewers who are usually only too happy to help a new brewer along the path of good beer. Couple this with good ingredients and good sanitation and you are almost home and hosed.

 

[pint of lager]

Fruity taste is usually from lack of temperature control, although some hops do add fruity character.

California ale is a good neutral yeast, but once again, you need to control the temperature.

Until you become more experienced, just stick to safale but use Kabooby's suggestion to control the ferment temperature.

 

[brewgirl]

Thanx heaps for that... I'm doing the water and bottles of ice thing, and am keeping my current brew around 18deg (well the water the brew is sitting in and the water is level with the brew so I'm guessing it will be close to that temp too)... its fermenting alot slower than the last one, which I take as a good sign that I'm doing better with temp control.

Kabooby - I'm going to print out that recipe and give it a go in a few weeks, sounds good... and hopefully by then I'll have my fridge set up. I'm going to get one of the growarm ones so I don't have to play around with wiring.

I was pretty sure that it was a temp thing, I've been really meticulous with sanitation. I just got a bit confused when the beer at the home brew shop had the same taste.

Thanx for all the advice.

Sharon

 

[Thirsty Boy]

The other thing is that a fruity profile might have been just what the brewer was trying for in an amber ale. The fruitiness is only a fault if you aren't looking for it. For example - a coopers sparkling ale would be completely wrong if it wasn't for the fantastic fruity/bready profile of the beer. Likewise a hefeweizen and the banana thing.

Of course, if you aren't actually looking for it, the advice the other guys have given you (and your own summation) is spot on.

Cheers

Thirsty