Expert: Keith Patton - 4/22/2009

Question
QUESTION: I have recently started brewing my own beer using prepackaged wort kits (4 gallons wort ,add 2 gallons water)The first two were finished fermenting in the 10 gallon tub in 4 days . I racked to a car boy and after 20 days bottled them. Both kits IPA, and Munich Dark sampled fine and I'm sure they will turn out allright. But in the last week I tried two more kits "Red Ale" and after the 4 day fermentation they both had a terrible bitter flavor. It was so bad , actually hard to describe. Way beyond saving.Dumped them both. I noticed the first two good batches had sreal healthy fermentation frothed rght up to the top of the 10 gallon bucket, however the 2 Red Ales fermentation wasn't nearly as robust. Also the RedAles had brown floaties at the top where as the IPA and Munich didn't. Could this be traced back to "bad wort in the bag"  Both kits had the same production date. Brew House Kits. What do you think happened ? ( By the way I was really carefull with the sanitizing process)   Regards

ANSWER: Pat:

Sanitizing was my first bet, but if you are sure you were meticulous then I'll accept that.  By answering the following quesitons it might pinpoint the cause.

By brown floaties, do you mean in the fermenter or in the bottles?   If this was in the fermenter, it was just top fermenting yeast.  Lager yeast does not have this, only ale yeast.  What yeast were you using?

Was it bitter after bottling and chilling or was it bitter right out of the fermenter?  Do you know the hop rate of the wort?  I assume it was pre-hopped.  If so it might be that the wort was excessively hopped.  A bitter taste out of the fermenter might lessen after clarification.  Did you sample it after racking to the secondary?  If not you might have picked up still suspended yeast, hops and trub.

Do you add irish moss to the boil to precipitate out the trub and hops?  

Was there any off odor or funk to the beer?  I don't know of many mistakes that cause beer to be bitter, lots that produce off odors and funky skunky smell and taste.

In saying bitter, do you really mean astringency or acidity?  Some bacteria can cause beer to be sour, lacto bacillis is one.  Some belgian ales actually require this as part of their flavor profile.

When you tasted them, had the beer clarified?

How long was your boil?

Did you get the wort aerated well?

In the future try adding some yeast nutrient to ensure a good strong ferment.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi , Again this was a prepackaged kit (Brewhouse), thus no boiling necessary other than the priming sugar. There was nothing floating in the second bad batch.The yeast was a packaged coopers dry.It was bitter right out of the fermenter. It tasted so off that i didn't bother racking either of them, I just dumped them. The beer had clarified. These kits have a very quick and robust fermantation and are ready for the secondary in four to five days. The blow off on the firast two good batches I tried foamed right up to the top of the 10 gallon pail. The two bad red ales had about half the foaming action, which makes me wonder if the kit itself or the yeast was off. I can only describe the flavor as a cross between chewed aspirin, after shave, and rubber. The after taste literally lingered on the back of my tonque for hours. So you can see why I tossed them. They were way beyond saving. Anyway I might try one more but I'm close to calling this a failed experiment. I have one more kit , a Pilsner that I'm going to try but now I just have a bad feeling about this whole thing. With all the equipment , bottles and 5 kits I'm allready into it for over $500 so again if I could right this ship I would be feeling a lot better.    Appreciate any advice, Pat

Answer
Pat:

It might well be that the kits were bad. I have never done the no boil kits.  Makes me wonder...was the kreusen rather gooey looking kind of a tan gloppy foam rather than what you saw in the firt two?

I recently had a kegged batch that turned out that way and I suspected I got a bad co2 cylinder and infected my beer when I force carbonated it.  I had to toss two batches.  Beer I bottled during the same time was fine.

Anyway, don't give up.  Have you considered trying extract or partial mash or even whole grain? You might need a few more buckets and a slightly larger brew pot, but the quality of the brew over the canned extract or bulk extract is amazing.  You save on time and energy using extract, the extract makers do the boiling for you.  The all grain isn't to much more trouble.  I started brewing in 1991.  And only went to all grain about 8 years ago.  I wish I had made the switch sooner.  You will find the all grain considerably cheaper.

A batch of IPA might take about 11 pounds of malt at $1.70 a pound.  2 oz of hops at around $4.  Liquid yeast $6  for a total of around $25.  It makes 5 gallons.

What are you sanitizing with?  Chlorine bleach, Iodipor, No rinse sanitizer?  Chlorine can be a no no since it is hard to get rinse thoroughly and can lead to some medicinal and off flavors.

Keith