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- Jul 5, 2016
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Hi everyone,
I've brewed 4 different "all grain" beers now, with the first and the most recent displaying a bit of an odd taste I'm hoping somebody can identify the source of. I should point out the middle two "successful" brews were to the same recipe as each-other and were heavily hopped IPAs which are in my opinion better than any commercial example I've ever drank! That's why the off-taste in the other brews is bugging me!
I can only describe the taste as "dusty" and sweet, perhaps what I've seen others describe as like butterscotch, but I'm not sure. It's only there in the initial taste and doesn't linger into the aftertaste. It also strangely becomes far less noticeable after a couple of swigs, but to anyone tasting the beer for the first time, it could be pretty off-putting. My mates and family can't seem to taste it but to me it's really obvious and disappointing.
The first brew was a strong winter bitter and the most recent a weissbier. For the first one, I know I under hopped it, as I've since determined that hops dry to perhaps a fifth of their original weight. I used wild hops I'd picked myself and the recipes I was copying were obviously using dried hops from a shop. Amateur error! The weissbier is exhibiting similar flavours and perhaps I was over-cautious with hopping that as I've heard they don't need much to balance out the not-so-sweet wheat (compared to barley).
I do whirlpool and the result of sinking trub was incredibly obvious with the weissbier- loads of crud sank over half an hour. I can't help but think the taste is down to recipe (not enough hops to balance out the sweet & dusty flavour) or not adjusting mash temperature appropriately for the given recipe. I can't imagine it's my processes for boiling, whirlpooling, fermenting, etc. as I'm pretty consistent with these and would have therefore expected the taste to be present in all four brews so far.
Any good knowledge or random stab-in-the-dark suggestions welcome! Thanks in advance.
I've brewed 4 different "all grain" beers now, with the first and the most recent displaying a bit of an odd taste I'm hoping somebody can identify the source of. I should point out the middle two "successful" brews were to the same recipe as each-other and were heavily hopped IPAs which are in my opinion better than any commercial example I've ever drank! That's why the off-taste in the other brews is bugging me!
I can only describe the taste as "dusty" and sweet, perhaps what I've seen others describe as like butterscotch, but I'm not sure. It's only there in the initial taste and doesn't linger into the aftertaste. It also strangely becomes far less noticeable after a couple of swigs, but to anyone tasting the beer for the first time, it could be pretty off-putting. My mates and family can't seem to taste it but to me it's really obvious and disappointing.
The first brew was a strong winter bitter and the most recent a weissbier. For the first one, I know I under hopped it, as I've since determined that hops dry to perhaps a fifth of their original weight. I used wild hops I'd picked myself and the recipes I was copying were obviously using dried hops from a shop. Amateur error! The weissbier is exhibiting similar flavours and perhaps I was over-cautious with hopping that as I've heard they don't need much to balance out the not-so-sweet wheat (compared to barley).
I do whirlpool and the result of sinking trub was incredibly obvious with the weissbier- loads of crud sank over half an hour. I can't help but think the taste is down to recipe (not enough hops to balance out the sweet & dusty flavour) or not adjusting mash temperature appropriately for the given recipe. I can't imagine it's my processes for boiling, whirlpooling, fermenting, etc. as I'm pretty consistent with these and would have therefore expected the taste to be present in all four brews so far.
Any good knowledge or random stab-in-the-dark suggestions welcome! Thanks in advance.