My last 2 beers have a taste I can't fully describe... Both tasted great before kegging but when poured tasted fine but kinda faintly soapy. Reading up and some suggestions are temp too high after fermentation. I leave mine in primary for 3 weeks then transfer to secondary and crash cool and fine (if necessary) with gelatine which also hasn't worked the last 2 brews.
I naturally carb in the keg and leave @20c for 3 weeks
I've a red ale just kegged and tasting real nice so I left it out of chamber at garage temp which will take longer but who cares if it points to a problem
Any ideas or suggestions or better still if any nearby wants to taste nd see
What temp are you fermenting at, what yeasts and what styles?
Belgian blond wlp530 abbey ale fermentation 19.5c
Pale ale Wlp001
Fermentation at 19c
Both nice before priming but just ok when pouring
Between 2.5/3 weeks carbing.
Cold crashed for a week before keg. Primed and kept at 20c until ready
They kinda taste the same so something is up
Just out of curiosity, what malts are you using?
-Barry
Quote from: Bazza on May 01, 2015, 03:05:14 PM
Just out of curiosity, what malts are you using?
-Barry
Belgian... Pale ale, Munich, biscuit and melanodin, hopes.goldings & saaz
Pale ale....pale ale, crystal 40. Hops magnum, perle & cascade@15 and flameout
The only time I got a soapy taste was when I changed to a different type of vinyl for my lines. What kind of tubing you using?
Quote from: Vermelho on May 01, 2015, 04:42:48 PM
The only time I got a soapy taste was when I changed to a different type of vinyl for my lines. What kind of tubing you using?
Got it from hbw, clear pvc stuff. But I've always that stuff
From Wikipedia...
SAPONIFICATION. 1 : the hydrolysis of a fat by an alkali with the formation of a soap and glycerol. 2 : the hydrolysis especially by an alkali of an ester into the corresponding alcohol and acid; broadly : hydrolysis.
You say you naturally carbed in the keg.
What sugar, target vols, etc.?
Cloudy at this point might suggest that the yeast has just not settled out. If the yeast is breaking down (see last post), that might explain soapy.
What is your garage temp?
Does it fluctuate?
Carbonation to style 2.3 volumes at 17c or what ever was called for
I put kegs into ferm chamber set to required temp so no fluctuation.
Leave for 2.5/3 weeks then remove and serve through cooler.
The cloudy part for the Belgian doesn't bother me but for the ple ale (snap clone) was cold crashed and fined withe gelatine 😡
Don't know if it's any help but a while back I was getting the same generic not horrible but just not great taste from a batch of brews. Didn't matter how many or how few hops went into the brew, or what style it was, first pint out of the corny was nice and flavoursome but after that it turned to the same bland muck.
The only common factor was the pale malt I was using. I normally use MO but got a bag of this stuff on the cheap and right till the end of the bag the beers were all poor. Back on regular MO again and happy with the results once again. One thing I noticed about the 'bad' malt is that it was darker than normal pale and brews made with it stayed cloudy till near the end of the keg.
My point being, your problem may be occurring way before conditioning and is just becoming more apparent over time.
Anyway, hope you get to the bottom of it.
Cheers,
- Barry
I would have thought warmer would be better for natural keg carbonation.
17C with no O2 present, your yeast might be upset. Maybe bump it to 25C or so.
That's the only thing o can see amiss.
Seeing as you have a ferm chamber, try force carbing next time.
Hmmmm
That's a possibility although the pale malt is uncrushed weyermanns from one of the homebrew shops here but that's not to say it's not part of the problem.
I have mci lager malt ready for a lager this week and am using bottled water to see if it's a water issue ,unfortunately it'll be a while before that's ready, I was planning a stout next but I think I'll have to brew another light colour to see if I can sort this out...cheers for suggestions
Quote from: johnrm on May 02, 2015, 11:25:57 AM
I would have thought warmer would be better for natural keg carbonation.
17C with no O2 present, your yeast might be upset. Maybe bump it to 25C or so.
That's the only thing o can see amiss.
Seeing as you have a ferm chamber, try force carbing next time.
That's what I thought. I can bump it up no bother. Force carbing isn't an option as I use a mixed gas regulator for pouring but will add co2 ti the other lines
Quote from: Oh Crap on May 02, 2015, 11:30:44 AM
Hmmmm
That's a possibility although the pale malt is uncrushed weyermanns from one of the homebrew shops here but that's not to say it's not part of the problem.
I have mci lager malt ready for a lager this week and am using bottled water to see if it's a water issue ,unfortunately it'll be a while before that's ready, I was planning a stout next but I think I'll have to brew another light colour to see if I can sort this out...cheers for suggestions
My immediate thought was water alkalinity. I'm no expert but my light styles turn out soapy and dark styles are excellent. Alkaline water gives a soapy taste to lighter styles. I just brewed an ipa with treated water so if it turns out good I will let you know. At least it will prove it was the water profile
Quote from: auralabuse on May 02, 2015, 08:16:05 PM
Quote from: Oh Crap on May 02, 2015, 11:30:44 AM
Hmmmm
That's a possibility although the pale malt is uncrushed weyermanns from one of the homebrew shops here but that's not to say it's not part of the problem.
I have mci lager malt ready for a lager this week and am using bottled water to see if it's a water issue ,unfortunately it'll be a while before that's ready, I was planning a stout next but I think I'll have to brew another light colour to see if I can sort this out...cheers for suggestions
My immediate thought was water alkalinity. I'm no expert but my light styles turn out soapy and dark styles are excellent. Alkaline water gives a soapy taste to lighter styles. I just brewed an ipa with treated water so if it turns out good I will let you know. At least it will prove it was the water profile
Appreciate that
Cheers
I also have a question about carbonation.
I made an english brown ale and cold crashed before i bottled.
Now it about 6C when it was being bottled, and using an ap that determined how much sugar to add, (to get 1.2 volumes) it was in minus figures.
I had a taste to see if i could tell if it was carbonated and it was kind of flat.
So I ended up puttin it to 2 volumes to get some value of sugar to add for carbonation.
My question is, if i had bottled it with no sugar and then conditioned as normal, do you guys think it would have carbonated? The temperature of the beer at bottling is the big factor in whether or not the app told me to add sugar.
Quote from: neoanto on May 18, 2015, 11:31:07 AM
My question is, if i had bottled it with no sugar and then conditioned as normal, do you guys think it would have carbonated? The temperature of the beer at bottling is the big factor in whether or not the app told me to add sugar.
Without adding more sugar I don't think it would have carbonated if you hit your FG. Obviously if it didn't hit it's FG or there was an infection then that could change
I did a little bit of googling and came across this on the Brewersfriend website in regards to priming and the temperature:
* Temperature of Beer used for computing dissolved CO2:
The beer you are about to package already contains some CO2 since it is a naturally occurring byproduct of fermentation. The amount is temperature dependent. The temperature to enter is usually the fermentation temperature of the beer, but might also be the current temperature of the beer. If the fermentation temperature and the current beer temperature are the same life is simple.
However, if the beer was cold crashed, or put through a diacetyl rest, or the temperature changed for some other reason... you will need to use your judgment to decide which temperature is most representative. During cold crashing, some of the CO2 in the head space will go back into the beer. If you cold crashed for a very long time this may represent a significant increase in dissolved CO2. There is a lot of online debate about this and the internet is thin on concrete answers backed by research. We are open to improving the calculator so please let us know of any sources that clarify this point.
The equation this calculator uses to compute the amount of dissolved CO2:
CO2 In Beer = 3.0378 - (0.050062 * temp) + (0.00026555 * temp^2)
AFAIK the solubilty of CO2 in water (or beer) is well understood in terms of solubility at certain remperatures.
Note: Pressure in the container is not part of my simple model of the eqations!
So you chill the beer to a certain temp - lets say 12C, add CO2 under pressure and once all the CO2 has disolved that's it. Increase the pressure of CO2 into the container and you just increase the pressure in the container - no more CO2 will disolve.
If you then cool it to say 2C then more CO2 disolves and the pressure in the bottle drops
Allow it to warm up to say 20C and the pressure in the bottle increase as the beer looses CO2 from solution. Open the bottle and the excess CO2 is vented.
I understand that if you are kegging it might be easy enough to regulate the pressure.
If you're bottling like me, its a one time thing!
Well, when bottling, just measure the temp at bottling and add the appropriate sugar to the batch priming for the carbonation you want I'd assume? When you cool before serving, the co2 will just dissolve back into the beer.
For my kegs, I usually connect them to my co2 only when serving and I set the pressure to the correct co2 volume for the ambient temperature at that time. That means I'm keeping my keg at the correct target pressure at all times.