Weird taste from latest brew.

[SnakeRider]

Hey guys,

This is the brew I did...

Coopers sparkling ale 1.7kg
1kg light DME
15g Pride of ringwood finishing hops
US-05 yeast

fermented @ 18C
cold crashed 36 hours

strangely high OG reading of 1060
finished at 1010

(1060-1010) / 7.46 + 0.5 = 7.2% ABV (seems really high)

I drank a pot straight out of the fermenter while bottling and it was very nice.

I had a taste last night to see how it was progressing, it has only been bottled for 8 days so wasn't expecting it to be great.

The beer had a twangy smell, which was expected, but what is concerning is the way it dried out my mouth. Even 12 hours later after water and cleaning teeth twice my tongue feels like it has been dipped in acid. The beer did taste good, but the instant dryness of my mouth and continued dryness is horrible, I did not even finish the bottle.

Think this will get better in a few weeks? Or is this a sign that it has gone bad somehow?

Cheers!
SR

 

[yum beer]

Certainly sounds like something is wrong, exactly what I couldn't tell you.
If it taste's good thats promising but the drying effect sounds like an infection.....give it time and see.
Were temps maintained....it sounds like the effect of a super hot ferment.....

 

[SnakeRider]

Certainly sounds like something is wrong, exactly what I couldn't tell you.
If it taste's good thats promising but the drying effect sounds like an infection.....give it time and see.
Were temps maintained....it sounds like the effect of a super hot ferment.....

It was in a thermostat controlled fridge, and stayed at a constant ambient temp 16.9-18.9, but the liquid (side of fermenter) maintained an 18C temp the whole time.

I was thinking this could have something to do with the abnormally high OG of 1060, when beersmith The spreadsheet said it should be 1040 with those ingredients. Maybe some strange tin content or bad malt extract?

I would have thought that it would not get infected once bottled.... or is this not the case?

I will give it a week and taste it again.

 

[mxd]

the high OG was probably a false reading (I.e lots of undiluted goop in tap).

leave it alone and try a bottle in a week or two.

 

[SnakeRider]

the high OG was probably a false reading (I.e lots of undiluted goop in tap).

leave it alone and try a bottle in a week or two.

I thought this too at first, I discarded a bit, and then sampled twice more and got the same reading (it was dissolved properly as well so puzzle on puzzle). I posted a question about my readings in the spreadsheet thread.

I still agree it was a false reading though.

 

[Alex.Tas]

Cant help with the funny taste, but on the false reading:
I've found that the wort can stratify somewhat in your fermenter (denser sugar rich wort at bottom) if not mixed together really well.
Now that I'm always doing boils of some description at the start of my brews, i usually add in all the tins/fermentables at flameout so i can mix it all together well while its all still nice and hot. then add that to the fermenter once its cooled. while I'm topping up the fermenter with cold water i give it a beat with a whisk to aerate it properly (to aid in full attenuation too) as well as to mix the wort with my top up water.
This method gives me closer OG readings to what is predicted by the spreadsheet.

If i added the tins/fermentables to the FV then added the cooled boil and the top up water, you can get poorly mixed wort, even if you stir really well.
Mixing it all in while its still hot really helps. I got a few OG readings 0.020 off what was predicted before i started mixing it all together while its still hot. Now im usually within 0.002 or so.

Note: i guess technically you may be adding some bitterness to the wort if you add a kit tin to hot wort. I figure that you should be able to cool the hot liquid to below 80 deg C (i think thats the magic number isn't it?) pretty quickly depending on the size of the boil. Just chuck it in a water bath in the sink with ice if your in a hurry. Adding room temperature kit cans will also drop your wort temp a few degrees too.

 

[SnakeRider]

I will try this in future mate, thanks for the tip.

I did stir vigorously, but it makes sense that the heavier sugars will want to stay at the bottom.

 

[pat86]

I would give it plenty of time - don't throw away any beer yet! Time seems to fix a lot of problems and it seems like besides the high OG read you did a pretty solid ferment...

could be that your beer starts tasting great and has no dry mouth effects after 3 months in the bottle

 

[govorko1974]

your recipe is nearly exactly the same as a brew I made once. except I used a tin of liquid malt. Was probably one of the worst tasting beers I have made. I put it down to the tin of coopers sparkling ale as I got it cheap when the local hardware shop decided not to stock homebrew stuff anymore and had everything on sale, as the tin was nearly at it's best before date. it was a real struggle to drink more than 1 bottle at a time, and even thought of tipping it all. had no infections at all. I matured it for probably 3-4 months before I tried the first one. and even by the time I finally drank the last one it had not improved.

 

[SnakeRider]

Thats no good mate,

My tin is fresh, and the taste is ok... just the chemical tongue feel and burnt throat is a concern

 

[Gelding]

tested your hydrometer with room temp water ?

 

[SnakeRider]

tested your hydrometer with room temp water ?

yeah it is a bit off... 998 at room temp... think its off because it is crooked when it floats, might upgrade to a new 1

 

[Greg.L]

Some of the cheap homebrew hydrometers can be seriously innaccurate, they work for relative measurements but not for an accurate OG. If you really want to be sure you buy a certified hydrometer from a proper supplier. When you get to wine type strengths it is even more important to have a good hydrometer, the errors get magnified.

 

[Gelding]

yeah it is a bit off... 998 at room temp... think its off because it is crooked when it floats, might upgrade to a new 1

definitely.

The one a friend passed me from a coopers kit was off by 6 points with water. Binned it.

Get yourself a decent refractometer, they are not that dear.

 

[stakka82]

If it tasted fine at bottling time but the bottles themselves seem bad you may have introduced an infection while bottling.

The good news is that if this is the case you may have some bottles that are fine and some that are not, depending if you introduced the infection to the whole batch whilst bulk priming or just have the occasional improperly sanitised bottle.

But again, if it tasted fine out of the fermenter but not out of the bottles I would be looking at infection... either that or storing the bottles to carb at 40 degrees plus or something.

 

[SnakeRider]

Update on this: Turned out fine, just needed time