Neck Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Today my gf and mate bottled some beer for me, I got home and tasted some and it tasted very oddly hoppy**, now they left the FV for me to clean and the yeast left inside smells pretty strongly of a chemical like acetone or nail polish remover. Is this beer harmful to drink? we downed a bit of the dregs. Details of the brew: coopers euro ale kit coopers BE2 1kg crystal malt mashed at 67degrees, strained through siv and added to wort US-05 yeast this was started from the previous brew (IE I bottled then that beer just added new wort ontop the old yeast cake in the original FV) a late dry hop of 12g amarillo pellets steeped, non bagged nor strained about 5 days into fermentation. Gravity seemed normal, fermentation seemed okay, left it sitting for about a month, temps have hit around 27-30degrees a few times with the average temp being about 26+ attracted some fruit flys around top of FV* (never seen this before but assumed it from leaving it sit for so long) *using cling wrap method for lid. **The odd hop flavour I put down to the eurolager kit and amarillo really not going together, could be described as slightly chemical Any ideas guys? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamB8 Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Sounds like your temps are way to high mate, that will cause that chemically taste. I dont see why the dregs would be harmful but why the hell would you want to drink that [sick] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neck Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Thanks mate, I thought that might be it.The beer itself isn't too bad but the FV smells like a nail salonm [crying] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Graham is most likely correct. Here is a link to common off flavours from How to Brew, including a description of solvent-like flavours: How to Brew - Common Off-Flavours Also, I would dump that yeast and not te-use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 there are some standout issues here mate, firstly those temps are about 10 degrees too high, you will struggle to make decent beer that high, look up the yeast instructions on the manufactures web site. Pitching onto a whole yeast cake is a MASSIVE overpitch, if the previous brew was done at similar temps, the yeast will not be in great shape to begin with, look up Mr malty's yeast pitching calculater and choose the slurry option. 1kg of crystal?? Good lord thats ALOT of crystal. Crystal grains are steeped, not mashed, a typical addition may only be a few hundred grams, 1 kg is way way way too much. A bit of research is called for in all 3 areas here mate, maybe a chat to someone at the LHBS would be a good place to start. Personally, a brew with this many issues, id toss it and start again giving attention to all the above areas. Yob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Yes I agree, there are so many things here that would contribute to a crap drink imo. 1/ Never ever let anyone bottle your brew when you are not there. You have no guarantee the process that was used and in the event that something goes wrong then you have no idea how to fix it for next time. Make sure you are present when bottling. 2/ It is not a Euro Ale Kit, it is in fact a Euro Lager Kit with true Lager Yeast. However, if you did not use this yeast and used US05 at the correct Ale temps instead then it will work. 3/ The temperature was far to high. You need to work on temp control and get your Ales no higher than 20C imo. If it is too hot and you can't do this then don't brew until you can. 4/ As Yob righly pointed out, 1kg Crystal is far too much and would impact on your brew. If you want to add Crystal then try only 200-300g. 5/ Massive overpitch of yeast. I often use the slurry from a previous brew. However, I only use about 200ml for an Ale and not the whole yeast cake. 6/ Using the whole yeast cake of your previous brew will impart some of the characters from the previous brew. this also includes all the dead yeast cells and other by-products of the last ferment. 7/ Fruit flies,any other insect or any foreign matter whatsoever will play a massive impact with regards to possible infections and the more often it occurs then the more chance something bad will go wrong. +1, a positive for cling wrap. [biggrin] I highly doubt that using Amarillo with the Euro kit would produce a chemical hop flavor. Albeit not the greatest combination. However, correct use it still would have imroved from the standard Euro brew and not deteriate it. Clearly you need to imrpove on several areas of your technique. Unfortunately if it were me I would ditch the one you have now. However, please don't get disheartened and do try again with better procedures and I am sure you will be impressed once you get a decent one under your belt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithy Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 4/ As Yob righly pointed out' date=' 1kg Crystal is far too much and would impact on your brew. If you want to add Crystal then try only 200-300g.[/quote'] Slightly off topic here. But how much is too much specialty grains (all up, not just for each grain)? I've read it can be different for different beers (darker beers allowing more), but is there a general rule? ie, 15% of fermentables be specialty grains? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Good question, i wish i had a good answer to match it [lol] Answer from me is, dunno exactly, depends on the grains you are using to a degree, amd there are many speck grains, buiskit, crystals caramalt, maltodextrine grains like carapils.. For the right reasons in the right beer you may use a fair bit, it also has quite a lot to with the whole recipe, great beer is ballanced with the malt sweetness and hop bitterness etc. As long as you are respecting the balance i guess you could go as high as 20%, that number though is fairly pulled out my clacker and will be happy to read differently. Yob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Eh!L Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Neck, I'm with BillK and Yob on this one, Your brew sounds undrinkable[sick]. Smithy, Go with 20-30% of total fermentables. More than this will impart harsh flavours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.