I have a 10% (or so, don't have my notes in front of me) RIS, that I aged on vanilla and bourbon for about a year. Prior to bottling, a sample tasted extremely bourbon forward but with a nice backbone. I used corn sugar and dry champagne yeast to bottle condition the beer, and bottled about 3 weeks ago. Tonight I tried the first one, and it no longer has a strong bourbon flavor, or vanilla, or even stout flavor. All I'm really picking up is the taste of corn sugar until the aftertaste (which itself is nice). The beer is carbonated just fine and the mouthfeel is where I feel it should be, so I'm pretty confused. One misstep I did note was that I completely forgot to make a solution of the corn sugar/yeast before adding it to the bottling bucket, I just sprinkled powders in and stirred. Can anyone help me out with what is happening here? Is this problem likely to vary significantly bottle to bottle? Will more time conditioning help me out, or is this what I'm stuck with? Thanks everyone!
If you are tasting the corn sugar (sweetness), and it wasn't there before you primed, then the corn sugar hasn't completely been used by the yeast yet. Assuming your yeast are still vital, this will change. But if the carbonation in the bottles you sampled is already what you planned and measured for, but those bottles are sweet, it sounds like you may also have uneven priming.
Well I didn't "plan and measure for" so much as I "added a premeasured pack of corn sugar and a packet of dry champagne yeast... and prayed" It's not so much too sweet as it is the actual flavor of corn sugar. I'm hoping that the yeast are still doing their thing and just aren't done yet, and in another week or two it'll be good to go... wish me luck I guess.
What does corn sugar taste like to you, other than sweet? (It's just glucose and a little bit of H20.)
I suspect you are tasting something that is not corn sugar. Unless you added corn syrup, such as karo, which has vanillin (I think) added to it and possibly so e preservative that makes it unfermentable (see old MadFermentationist blog on different sugars).
Even at 10% ABV, you might end up with an infected batch/gushers/bottle grenades. You need to boil and cool the corn/priming sugar solution before adding. Even the worst kit instructions should have made that clear...don't drink and brew
Blasphemy of the highest order, sir! Seriously everyone, thank you for all the advice. No, it wasn't a buttery flavor, and no I didn't add corn syrup. I can't quite describe the taste but it is similar to what I smell when I open a bag of the stuff. None of the bottles were bottle bombs, and the couple I've opened have not been gushers. Lastly, I not only did not boil the solution, I didn't even make a solution; I just sprinkled it into the bottling bucket and stirred. I suppose I was a bit out of practice and neglected to appropriately care for that step. Anyway, after giving the bottles some more time to sit, the issue seems to have resolved itself. This leads me to believe the one I had opened just hadn't yet finished conditioning; when I said above that the bottle had carbonation that was true, but it was in fact less than I had anticipated. A subsequent sampling was more carbonated and did not have this off flavor.
I actually think this was a very valid question, OP, unless you're comfortable in your ability to identify diacetyl. I've had first samples of bottle primed beer before and diacetyl was largely present - and it wasn't anywhere to be seen on bottling day. I suspect it reared its ugly head during the small refermentation in the bottle, then cleaned itself up just like any other fermentation. (I gave it another week and never tasted it again.) Needless to say I was thrilled. The other thing the OP mentioned in his/her first post was that the corn sugar taste wasn't all that bad. I will say that, even as someone who loathes diacetyl - and has a very low threshold for it - it actually is a semi-complimentary flavor in the right imperial stout, at least to my palate. YMMV.
Oh it was definitely a valid question, I'm just pretty certain that's not what it was; I'm no BJCP judge though, so I could definitely be wrong.
