I’m very new to this whole home brewing thing. I have to admit I’m intrigued by the amount of discipline it takes and that’s what got me started. I just batched my first beer. I obviously did an malt extract kit being that it was my first one. After the boil and transfer to the fermenter I was nervous I wasn’t getting proper fermentation. However after two weeks everything came out good. Bottling day came and I was excited. Beer smelled good and I was ready to syphon from fermenter to bottling bucket. This was after priming the sugar and adding it to the bottling bucket. I used an auto syphon. Beer in bottling bucket was clear and again smelled great as I used a brewers best pumpkin additive for a thanksgiving beer. After bottling my two cases, I was roughly half a beer short to fill so I decided to taste it. My initial reaction was it was bitter. But honestly after the first sip I thought it was decently good. Me and my gf ran out to get some food. I came back to drink it again as it was on my mind. Same thing first sip wasn’t great but I liked the second sip if that makes any sense. Reading threads and what not I was wondering a few things. Being that the kit was for 5 gallons. I had 4 so I was wondering if 5oz of sugar was too much. I then was wondering if I oxidized my beer. Can you tell if beer is oxidized after bottling and before carbonated? Only thing on my mind is that I used the syphon every pull to transfer the beer to the bottling bucket. Meaning I’d have it in the fermenter then squeeze to transfer over. I did this every time and was time consuming and tiring. Would this effect my beer? Obviously the flat tasting beer wouldn’t be like a normal beer. Will carbonation effect the change in flavor. Appreciate all advice.
Welcome to homebrewing. Posting specifics about the recipe or a link to the kit would be helpful. What was it about everything that "came out good" after two weeks? Do you have (and did you use) a hydrometer? Unless I missed something it sounds like you were continuously pumping the auto-siphon plunger in order to get all the beer to the bottling bucket....is that correct?
Welcome to the BA site and to the Homebrewing forum. Hang around here and you'll learn a lot. How did you mix this flavoring additive into the beer and how did you mix in your priming sugar? Was the sugar in a boiled-water solution? Gentle stirring of both is the best way to mix something into the beer when in the bottling bucket, but agitated stirring can introduce air/oxygen into the beer with potential for some oxidation. Beer will taste 'green' and unfinished before carbonation, as well as when it is still young, so some additional time in the bottle after carbing is a good thing. After realizing you were a gallon short, this would have been a good time to add back some pre-boiled water. I usually boil short knowing I'll add priming sugar into solution with the make-up water. But you have the potential to have over-carbed beer because of too much sugar. You'll want to watch this closely. Drink a beer regularly starting about 10 days after bottling, and when you discover one is too carbed, get the rest of them into refrigeration to stop the refermentation. Keep in mind too that if you didn't mix the priming sugar thoroughly into your beer, some bottles will have more sugar than others, so you may have two sources of over-carbonation to mix things up for you. Oxidation flavors take some time to show up, so if you think you have a beer that is over-exposed to oxygen, drink them quickly before the taste shows up. Carbonation will affect the flavor and improve a 'green' beer, usually. If you've made any major mistakes, your beer will eventually reflect that whether it is carbonated or not.
You have a lot going on, answered already. Brewing is not easy, but it is enjoyable if you don't stress too much. And we are presumably doing this for the enjoyment. So I will impart this wisdom which every experienced brewer knows. RDWHAHB. Going meta here. Yeast make beer. Brewers make wort. Turn your process into a means of getting yeast the perfect wort for them to transform into beer and you'll find brewing is a bunch less stressful and a whole lot more mysterious, and enjoyable. Most every new brewer eventually figures this out. Read up, have a plan, don't stress. Yeast are like man's best friend in this regard, they can tell. This is the way brewing has been since the dawn of civilization. Cheers.
It's hard to tell from your question, but it seems you might have been pumping the auto-siphon for each bottle. That's not necessary if you have a bottle filler. The way it works is that when the plunger is depressed, the beer will flow normally, but when it isn't, the beer won't flow. So what you do is push the bottle filler to the bottle of a bottle, start the siphon as normal, and then stop pressing the filler against the bottom of the bottle when it is full. The siphon remains primed while you put the filler into the next bottle, then press it against the bottom to get the beer flowing, and so forth. That said, I bet your beer will turn out fine.
The bitterness you tasted may have been yeast. Some of the bittering compounds from hops sorb onto yeast cells. When yeast flocculates, they'll pull some bitterness. Or, your beer is bitter.
