Hello fellow beer fans. My question is based around the Alcoholic taste of the beer.. Some background: - i brewed a chocolate caramel porter - primary fermentation for around a month - transferred it to bottles for carbonation and secondary fermentation - 2/3 weeks after bottling, i tried the beer, there was a strong alcoholic taste so decided to move it to a warmer place to age the beer - a week after that, the beer tasted great (the alcohol flavour had reduced) - moved it to a cooler spot in the house (where it originally sat) - tried the beer last night (1/2 weeks after my last taste), and the alcoholic taste is back - i used ale yeast - i have never refrigerated the beer (i have one in the fridge right now to try it out) - i have read the forums and i kept the fermentation at aprox-24 23degC HELP!!! I have no idea what causes his flavour, How do I reduce this? will aging help or just make it worse? if it helps, what temperature?
Blend it with a lower gravity porter to taste. Aging it is a possibility ( 10-15C ) Or cook with it. What was the O.G and F.G? Depending on the yeast strain you fermented at what seems like a little too hot. 15°C-22°C is the range you should shoot for. And as @drtth said home brew questions go in that sub-forum. cheers.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html "Alcoholic A sharp flavor that can be mild and pleasant or hot and bothersome. When an alcohol taste detracts from a beer's flavor it can usually be traced to one of two causes. The first problem is often too high a fermentation temperature. At temperatures above 80°F, yeast can produce too much of the higher weight fusel alcohols which have lower taste thresholds than ethanol. These alcohols taste harsh to the tongue, not as bad as cheap tequila, but bad nonetheless. Fusel alcohols can be produced by excessive amounts of yeast, or when the yeast sits too long on the trub. This is one reason to move the beer off of the hot and cold break when the beer is going to be spending a lot of time in the fermentor." One other possiblity I'll mention is that the beer is just young and has some alcohol warmth that will fade with age (unlike fusels which tend to hang around). Is this a high gravity beer? Did you make some form of sugar addition to the beer and if so how much?
@koopa the final gravity is around 1010, and there was no sugar added to it, just malt extract that I used. I am faily sure its fusel alcohol. For aging, what temperatures are required?
If you want the yeast to clean up fusels, you want to keep them active. I'd go with room temp for a while and see what that does.
It is very likely those fusel alcohols will esterfy with time, age it 2 - 3 months and you will be fine.
