Brewing again after a bit of a hiatus

[Aussiekraut]

24 minutes ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

 

Yep, the two main ingredients needed for twang ... way back in those days 3 decades ago I would age the bottles for an eternity and make mostly "Dark Ales" and never ever ever a lager or a draught as they were disgusting. 

I remember "brewing" 20 years ago. A Cooper's can, a kilo of dextrose and can yeast chucked into a fermenter and let sit in the garage in a Queensland summer, storing the bottles in a shelf in said garage and then wondering why the beer tasted a little home brewy  

[Worts and all]

A lively and informative discussion. The consensus seems to be that the elusive “twang” is the same as, or a close relative of the cidery taste from the bad old days. As others have noted, the causes of that are well known and easily avoided.Regarding over use of simple sugars, why use any at all?. Cost aside,there’s no reason. Sugar provides alcohol,but malt provides that,as well as colour,taste,mouthfeel and head formation and retention. These are good things. Anyway, I’m glad some light has been thrown onto what, to me, was a mystery. I’ll tell the fairies next time I see them Cheers!

 

[BlackSands]

15 minutes ago, Worts and all said:

Regarding over use of simple sugars, why use any at all?. Cost aside,there’s no reason. 

Simple sugars are actually used quite commonly in some Belgian styles.  Belgian candi syrup ( a form of caramelised sugar) is found in beers like dubbel's and tripel's etc and is typically added at a rate of 5-20%.  

Brewers, myself included will occasionally small amounts of sugar (e.g. 5- 10%) for thinning/drying out the beer and making minor ABV adjustments. 

[Worts and all]

4 hours ago, BlackSands said:

Simple sugars are actually used quite commonly in some Belgian styles.  Belgian candi syrup ( a form of caramelised sugar) is found in beers like dubbel's and tripel's etc and is typically added at a rate of 5-20%.  

Brewers, myself included will occasionally small amounts of sugar (e.g. 5- 10%) for thinning/drying out the beer and making minor ABV adjustments. 

Thanks for your response to my rather dogmatic assertion.As I favour a fuller style, often dark ale I shy away from simple sugars. The Belgians ,of course ,have a long and proud brewing history, so can,I suppose, add as much as they like. The Germans, however, with an equally impressive record, are not permitted by law to add any. I think I might be with the Germans just this once! Cheers.

[BlackSands]

17 hours ago, Worts and all said:

As I favour a fuller style, often dark ale I shy away from simple sugars. The Belgians ,of course ,have a long and proud brewing history, so can,I suppose, add as much as they like.

To be fair I think you'll find that Belgian Dubbel even with 15% candi sugar is very much qualifies as a 'fuller' style.   It's typically a dark, higer ABV (6-8%), richly flavoured beer.  I brewed one once and though Belgian styles are not generally my preferred drinking it was pretty good I have to say and certainly as full of flavour as you could hope to get... shy of maybe brewing an imperial stout or barley wine!  

[James Lao]

I am putting Kit tang down to hot fermentation, too much simple sugars in the recipe and oxidation.

Controlled ferment temps definitely improve your brews without a shadow of a doubt in my opinion

After reading another thread on here I am now certain my bottled brews had a certain bottley taste, mainly I think because I was shaking the bottles , unknowingly oxidizing the brew.

Might be the second ferment as well, as the same beers that are kegged are way cleaner to the taste.

As most will agree too much simple sugars thin the beer and make it cidery.

Just try something from U brew it to prove that theory!

Cheers

James

[Marty_G]

On 10/7/2019 at 2:00 PM, Aussiekraut said:

A Cooper's can, a kilo of dextrose and can yeast chucked into a fermenter and let sit in the garage

I was in SEQ as well and did much the same, I open fermented with a tea towel over the FV and when I could see no more bubbling it was over and in the bottle primed with table sugar ... some time all done in 5 days .... no wonder it took months to age and get some reasonable flavour ...  I had 100's of tallies aging the best were the ones that were around 12 months ...  

[Marty_G]

2 hours ago, James Lao said:

I am putting Kit tang down to hot fermentation

in recent time the worst twang I have had was an under pitch at 10 degrees so it is not only the real of high temp fermentation  ... 

[MitchBastard]

I’m going to put my experience of what I call twang down to drinking prematurely. As mentioned earlier in this thread I drank a three month old kit beer that had zero twang, compared to once immediately carbonated. 

Also backing this thought up with my last kit beer prior to going AG. The steam ale from the recipe section on here. Bottled just under three months ago. Major twang once first RTD, I left it well alone until just this weekend past. I put two bottles in the fridge for two days prior to drinking.....not a sniff of twang. Actually a really nice beer. Tastes like proper beer IMO. This beer was temp controlled, so my twang didn’t come from high temps

[James Lao]

I reckon an under pitch and drinking green beer would affect flavor as well.

Just putting the 3 main things in the mix based on my experiences.

But defo agree correct treatment of  yeast and conditioning will only help improve the beer

Cheers

James 

 

[BlackSands]

4 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

I’m going to put my experience of what I call twang down to drinking prematurely.

I know the taste of 'green' beer.  It's not the same as the 'twang' I know.  Both ar not particularly pleasant, but they are different.

[Norris!]

On 10/6/2019 at 11:37 AM, Loch Brewer said:

Well all i know is what my taste buds have been telling me. Everyone is different and some people cannot taste things that others can. I can definitely taste it and it's very off putting.

Hi Loch,

I to have picked up twang in a few early brews, I don't know what it was from but I stopped using liquid malt AND made adjustments to my process as I learned more and I never got it again. Like others have said, people cannot tell it is homebrew. But like you said, it is about personal taste. Some hate lagers some hate stouts some people get cat piss from citra hops, etc. I don't brew beers I don't like so if you are getting it, no matter what someone else says, we have to stop it.

If the lager comes out good, use that for a while, if you want and adjust it to fit your tastes. Make it an ale or another lager with more hops. I would try dry malt and see what you think. I eventually just ditched the extract and went to partial boils with like 2kg of grains and a cerveza kit.

Good luck

Norris

[Norris!]

I didn't explain fully, when I used two cans of liquid malt, I felt the beers were thick and sometimes had some twang to it. I quit using 2 cans of lme for just 1 can 1.5kg of lme, whether it was bittered or not the beers after that came out as expected. I used BE3 a lot but preferred mixing my own of something along the lines of 75% light dry malt and 25% wheat and then some steeping grains, when using mostly extract. After that I never got twang,but I have made beers that were bad or not to my tastes due to bitterness levels and poor ingredient choices.

At the end, I found a good mix of ingredients and just ran with it. It allowed me to make beers that I wanted to drink. I hope this lager comes out right and it gives you a nice stepping stone for this leg of the journey.

[MitchellScott]

Certainly odd that some people seem to get this "twang".

I'm no professional beer tester, but honestly, since my first brew (that was brewed during a summer heatwave with no temp control), I haven't had a brew that had off flavours. After that first brew I got myself temp control which obviously made a huge difference but even many of my mates have tried my home brews and although some of them are not fans of hoppy brews (most like megaswill), none of them picked up off flavours.

I have brewed beers with only liquid malt, only dry malt and many things in between.

But I certainly agree that each persons tastes are different and something that someone else picks up you may not taste at all.

Mitch.

[Lab Cat]

I've never tasted home brew twang, but I have drunk some commercial craft-madness beers that have tasted far, far worse.

There was the nut brown stout that tasted like a slab of Dairy Milk had been fermented in it. Then there was the farmhouse ale, that smelled like rotten eggs in a bag of vomit, and didn't taste any better. It was $18, I know the shop owner and took it back. He almost gagged and said "i can see what they're going for there, but they've not pulled it off". Thank you, Captain Obvious.

 

[Hairy]

27 minutes ago, Lab Rat said:

Then there was the farmhouse ale, that smelled like rotten eggs in a bag of vomit

You probably had the lovely experience of Butyric Acid. It can be really nasty.

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Butyric_Acid

[Otto Von Blotto]

I can usually pick up if a beer is brewed from extract, I don't know whether you'd call it twang as such, more just a little less fresh flavour, or something that makes me think it's been made from a concentrate rather than fresh grains. It's one reason I haven't gone back to extract brewing at any point since moving to AG (other than one kit brew). If I don't have time to brew I just don't brew, and wait until I do. 

[Lab Cat]

1 hour ago, Hairy said:

You probably had the lovely experience of Butyric Acid. It can be really nasty.

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Butyric_Acid

That describes it perfectly. He contacted the brewers and it was no stuff up - they were going for an olde worlde farmhouse sour brew. Yeah, and back then in ye old farmhouse they didn't bathe for months on end and had a life expectancy around their 40s. This sort of beer probably contributed to that.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Lab Rat

[MitchellScott]

1 hour ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I can usually pick up if a beer is brewed from extract, I don't know whether you'd call it twang as such, more just a little less fresh flavour, or something that makes me think it's been made from a concentrate rather than fresh grains. It's one reason I haven't gone back to extract brewing at any point since moving to AG (other than one kit brew). If I don't have time to brew I just don't brew, and wait until I do. 

To me, the AG brews I have had tend to have a stronger flavoursome malty flavour. Something that I have (so far) not been able to achieve with extract.

That being said, I am still stoked with the extract brews I have been producing :).

Mitch.

[BlackSands]

28 minutes ago, MitchellScott said:

That being said, I am still stoked with the extract brews I have been producing :).

Yeah there's no doubt that the gap between kits/extract and AG has closed.  I'm not confident that I could pick an extract brew if I was served one blind.  

Brulosophy did a few extract vs AG trials with interesting results:

Quote

When asked to select the beer they preferred overall, prior to being informed of the nature of the exBEERiment, 57% (8) of tasters selected the extract beer and 43% (6) selected the AG beer.

Quote

Overall preference was all over the board with 4 tasters preferring the all grain beer, 2 preferring the extract beer, 3 experiencing no difference, and 2 saying they noticed a difference but had no preference. 

Side-by-side I reckon AG definitely has the edge but without the benefit of comparison if you served me an extract brew and told me I was drinking AG I'd probably believe you. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I remember being at a party once and someone gave me a taste of some home brew they'd brought along. I think his mate made it. Straight away picked it as a kit beer, and the guy said as much when I asked. I'd already been brewing AG for 2 or 3 years at the time.

Whether I could do the same again now I wouldn't know. Nobody gives me beer to try

[Norris!]

56 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I remember being at a party once and someone gave me a taste of some home brew they'd brought along. I think his mate made it. Straight away picked it as a kit beer, and the guy said as much when I asked. I'd already been brewing AG for 2 or 3 years at the time.

Whether I could do the same again now I wouldn't know. Nobody gives me beer to try

Sorry Mate, I said I would send a bottle to you and Cap and I never did, the batch I wanted to send was drunk by the in laws by mistake, they say, and then I had work commits up in the air...basically I didn't do what I said, sorry. I might make a batch of extract up this weekend and send that out.

I have had a couple of batches that I wished I had also bottled but only kegged and should of sent, I might as well get a bottle filling wand so it ain't an issue or one of those filler attachments that Hairy posted. Either way, I will make It right and do what I said. So with that, would you like to try a coppery colored pale ale made with pretty much all extract and a small steep of chocolate malt and carapils or a XPA style pale ale? Both would use the hop combo of mosaic, azacca and citra but the coppery ale would have a short fwh of Amarillo for 30 minutes.

Captain you can give me your choice also, but I am only brewing one. I will send one to Lusty and Ben also. I only did the coppery pale once and it was pretty nice, the XPA would be a partial mash with maris otter, some wheat malt extract, some dextrose and carpails and a can of cerveza with flameout additions of the MAC with a smidge of nelson sauvin and a big dry hop of that mix at 2.5:1 MAC vs nelson sauvin. Let me know and I will brew it and send it.

The welcher,

Norris

Edited October 10, 2019 by Norris!

[porschemad911]

I get a particular malt flavour in every kit and extract beer I've ever made. It is subtle and barely / not noticeable in the more heavily hopped and darker beers, but I swear it's there. It's not necessarily bad, just something that reminds me it is a kit or extract batch as I drink it, and it fades with conditioning time.

In my experience it's not there in my similar AG beers with the same yeast strains and similar pitching rates. 

Cheers, 

John 

[The Captain!!]

@Norris! . I’m just sad it’s come to this........................ it’s a death to the Greek descendents with blunt force or nuthin! 

Ha ha ha ha 

Kilowog!! Kilowog!! Kilowog!!Kilowog!! Kilowog!! Kilowog!!Kilowog!! Kilowog!! Kilowog!!Kilowog!! Kilowog!! Kilowog!!

whatever you would like to send me Norris! I’d be thrilled to taste you beer!

 

[Norris!]

Nuff said. The Kilowog Krush is on! Hahaha. That name and interpretation always cracks me up.