Beer Off-Flavours Tasting Panel

[Quiet_Man]

So Belfast Home-Brewers (and not forgetting our more rural cousins)........any more takers for this? We could squeeze in a couple more.

1. Quiet_Man
2. sub82
3. Will
4. Ciaran
5. Bazza
6 Shane

I have the kit. So we need a date & venue. Then select a suitable bland beer as a base to spike with the off-flavours. Any suggestions? (I know everyone is going to crack a joke here about using one of Bazza's, but let's spare him - this time). Something mainstream. Some jugs for mixing. Some glasses (probably disposable plastic ones best so we don't get any cross-over). Some water. Some cream crackers. Paper and pens to write down our thoughts. Copies of the tasting notes.

So, lets get a date in the diary. Can someone, more proficient in the use of this forum post a poll to get us started?

[johnrm]

We ran one of these about a month ago.
10 bodies with 750ml of beer.
We got through 24 offs in about 3 hours. 4 hours would be better.
We used Molson Canadian, mostly tasteless.

[sub82]

Great stuff on the kit! Really looking forward to this.

Thank you for the comment John. I assume, given the time it took johnrm, that a Saturday would be better? Or would we want to split the kit over a number of weeks?

[johnrm]

Doing it in one fell swoop was easier on peoples schedules - All or nothing.

We squeezed it in on a Friday night, but its really up to you.
24 samples over 3 hours is 7.5 mins each.
We tended not to say the off for the first minute, to allow people to guess, but how you do it is up to you.

Probably a good idea to pick out the key offs and put these aside and have a quiz at the end.
We didn't but should have.
Diacetyl, DMS, cardboard, etc.

The recommended dilution was 1 vial per litre, we did 750ml so maybe dilute them a tad more for the final dose.

[Will_D]

What we found was that some of them were barely detectable by most people at the recommendd dilution. Its no point giving someone the off flavour which is below their detection limit!

Make it up a little stronger. Some will be detectable inches from your nose and some people may not want to taste it! If so they can dilute it a bit in their sample.

Some of the lesser tasters will need warmering, swirling and tasting.

[banjobrew]

If it's not too late and there aren't too many I'll chip in!

[redshift]

If it's not too late and there aren't too many I'll chip in!

Likewise if I haven't missed the boat I'd love to get in on this!

[robotmonkey]

If there are any spaces left I'll give this a go (and then realise all of them are in my own beer lol)

1. Quiet_Man
2. sub82
3. Will
4. Ciaran
5. Bazza
6 Shane
7 Banjobrew
8 Redshift
9 Robotmonkey

[Andrew]

What we found was that some of them were barely detectable by most people at the recommendd dilution. Its no point giving someone the off flavour which is below their detection limit!

Make it up a little stronger. Some will be detectable inches from your nose and some people may not want to taste it! If so they can dilute it a bit in their sample.

Some of the lesser tasters will need warmering, swirling and tasting.

Were you using the Siebel kit? I found the Aroxa kit much better- it's 3 times the recognition threshold at recommended dilution.

[johnrm]

I am not in favour of one kit over the other, but the opposite also applies.
i.e. In order to get a true dilution, you need 3 times the volume for the Aroxa kit.

[Andrew]

I am not in favour of one kit over the other, but the opposite also applies.
i.e. In order to get a true dilution, you need 3 times the volume for the Aroxa kit.

It isn't really a true dilution though as off flavours in the wild don't conform to human taste thresholds.

[Will_D]

Were you using the Siebel kit? I found the Aroxa kit much better- it's 3 times the recognition threshold at recommended dilution.

Yes we used the Siebel kit twice!

First was at the BrewDock (that seems ages ago!)

2nd time was the BJCP training at Farringtons and then we used less dilution

[johnrm]

It isn't really a true dilution though as off flavours in the wild don't conform to human taste thresholds.

True, but regardless of kit you can use less/more beer on any kit to make the compounds more/less detectable.

[Bazza]

Regarding timing, I think, Andy, we spoke about maybe doing 8 of the more 'obvious' types one night and the rest some other night. What's the expiry on these things?

CHeers,

-Barry

[johnrm]

The Siebel has 6 months.
The one we did was just at 6 months and was fine.