On my fourth batch I have a drain pour, beer us under carbonated and tastes almost soapy. It wasn't a cleaning/sanitizing issue, but I boiled the grains too hot I think. Brewers best dunkelweizen kit. My question is for those who brew often, when was your first drain pour and does it still happen? Thanks!
Drain pour? Didn't happen. Ever. Not even on the bad batches. BTW, I'm stubborn. I've had one batch in over 100 that I WANTED to drain pour. I'm probably fortunate. I'm going to step up and challenge you a little bit. You should wait if you can, and dedicate your, (bottles?), to 5+ hours and $30+ to the art of brewing. If you don't have the resources or patience to wait before your drain pour, then I'd ask that you dedicate 1/2 of your bottles/space. Don't ever dump EVERYTHING. Period! Especially as a new brewer. It's so important to hang on to some of those beers for 6-12 months to see how they develop. 6 Months for a Dunkel. If you pour any of these beers down the drain, it'd better be because you've got another batch in the pipeline that you'd rather drink within a few weeks. Otherwise, what's the point? Sitting on beer to see how it develops is actually half the fun of brewing for me. IF you want some advice from the seasoned vets on this site, then you should post some info on your brew, your procedure, and more on what you ended up with packaged. An uncarbonated Dunkel doesn't sound attractive, but there are ways to fix that. You can pop the tops, add some dry yeast, and recarb your beers, (or half your beers). If you post more on this BOILED Dunk, then we can help curb the errors above. The bottom line is that you should enjoy the beers that you drink and share. If this Dunkelweizen is a wash, then so be it. Don't let me stop you from wasting it, and I hope that you do better in the future. ^^^^ I know that I generally have a coarse tone above, and that I might sound like a dick. I'm being forward, and I want to point you in the right direction--whichever it may be. For me, I wouldn't want to waste all of that time and energy on what I tried to make. I'd rather try to mend the batch and try to learn from it. Please feel free to post back with recipe info, procedure info, and what direction you want to go in with this batch. Cheers!
The biggest concern that I have so far is that your beer is flat. I've had that happen in the past and it pisses me the hell off! I'd look into yeast and the health of the yeast that went into the bottles. How long did you let your beer go in primary/secondary/tertiary before bottling? Did you add priming sugar? How much? How big was your batch? What knind of yeast was it? All of these things come together to give you bubblies.
Need more detail on your brew day. Tell us more about "boiling too hot". How do you know it is not a clean/sanitize issue? But to answer you drain pour question, I have dumped two beers out of about 120. Not because they were infected or bad, but because I decided that the calories/alcohol consumption wasn't worth it, i.e. not BAD beer, just not worth drinking given I had a couple more kegs waiting to be consumed.
Ok more details 5 gallon batch, directions stated to steep the 16oz of specialty grains at 150-165 degrees for 20 mins. I let the heat get out of control and it reached 175-80. I continued the directions for adding the lme and maltodextrin as well as the hops. I racked to secondary after about 6 days. It stayed in secondary for 29 days. I dissolved the priming sugar and added it to the brew prior to bottling. As for the yeast, I used the packet the kit provided, unfortunately I did not write down the exact yeast used. I read on another post that steeping grains too hot releases tannins? Thought that this could be the problem with taste, but doesn't solve the under carbonation issue. Nothing poured out yet, I assumed I would sit on them and see what happens. First tried one last Monday after bottling on 11 nov. Had another last night with same result. Also inchrisin your not a dick, constructive criticism is needed and appreciated, thank you both wspscott for the help. And future reply! Cheers
Related to the soapiness, how did you sanitize your bottles? What did you use to sanitize? Process? Did you rinse a "no rinse" sanitizer? I don't think tannins would come across as soapy, but hopefully someone else will chime in here. Related to undercarbonation, have you opened more than just the couple bottles? Lots of people report inconsistent carbonation within a batch because the sugar doesn't get evenly distributed across all of the bottles. How much priming sugar did you use? It sounds like you bottled on 11/11? That should be enough to carb up, but it also depends on the temperature you are storing the bottles at.
I doubt that the somewhat higher than deal steeping temp did much damage. Soapy does not equal astringency in my opinion. I would guess your issues are related to a less-than-ideal fermentation process. What was your fermentation temperature? Too high and you can end up with off flavors, even in a wheat beer. Also, for this beer there is no need for a secondary. Keeping the beer on the yeast helps them clean up their mess. You may just need to be patient. More details will help readers here to diagnose your problem.
I agree with all the other posters, but if all else fails, dump it into your next batch of chili/beef stew!
Thanks all! Fermentation temp was 65-68. Also the directions stated that a secondary was recommended, though I've read not necessary by others as well. As far as the bottles just the standard starsan. I'm still going to wait and see with the batch I suppose if anything just to see what happens over time and use it as a learning experience. Also as a lesson in better note taking! Getting advice will probably be easier if I had more info to give! Again thank you all and cheers stay safe all
Same here. Unless it's completely vomit-inducingly infected (which I haven't had yet) and it's strictly a low carb issue there's always chili or stew if you don't want to drink it. I have an over-carbed saison that I have to quickly pour in a cartoonly giant mug to accommodate all the foam. Tastes great onces it all settles. It will take A LOT for me to drain pour....
I don't drain pour anything. not since the mid 90's at least. I really enjoy beer and brewing, so I make sure I am doing it the right way. creativity is for before brewing begins. after that, my advice is to stick to the plan and be consistent. not suggesting you weren't, but it is my advice anyway. I believe your beer is oxidized. batch priming by volume is unreliable at best. there are many online priming calculators. measure your priming sugar in grams and try to transfer (without splashing) onto the dissolved sugar. then bottle. Cheers.
I had a drain pour on a IIPA that I brewed quite a few years back. This was before I knew the importance of yeast starters for big beers, and I pitched a measly one packet of US-05 into a roughly 1.090 OG beer, and needless to say, it did not ferment out completely leaving the beer thick and sugary. You could pretty much chew the beer!
Soapy flavors can sometimes result from leaving a beer sitting for too long after primary fermentation is complete. What happens is that the yeast can break down fatty acids in the trub. This is pretty rare, and it normally only happens in cases in which the beer has been left to sit in the primary fermenter, but I think it's a possibility, given that you didn't bottle till a month after your primary fermentation was finished. The carbonation issue is probably a separate problem. 90 percent of the time poor carbonation is the result of an incorrect amount of priming sugar or poor storage conditions during the bottle conditioning process. I've only had one beer that I drain poured: I think it must've been about my sixth or seventh brew. It was a heavily dry hopped IPA, and I couldn't get the pellets to drop, so I shook the carboy to try to get to sink. Bad idea. The beer tasted like cardboard, a classic symptom of oxidation.
I don't think that autolyzation (spelling) is an issue here - with a 5 gallon brew, it takes a lot longer than that for this to become a worry. For commercial size brewing in the 50 - 100 barrel region, it can be a worry but even so, it's not as big a deal as people think. I do agree that it sounds similar tasting, from what I understand. I also think that there are probably other factors at work here. Probably something to do with underpitching, mixed with extract twang. Probably transferring off primary after 6 days didn't help either.
Autolysis <> Soapy Flavors. Soap is made from fatty acids in the trub. Autolysis is the breakdown of yeast yells. Two not directly related processes.
