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My first brew was made with recipe below. Bubbling commenced within a few hours and was completed after 3 or 4 days. I left it standing for a further 6 days making a total time of 10 days in the fermenter. After bottling (750 ml Pet with 2 x carbonation drop seach) the beer cleared crystal clear in 2 days. I couldnt wait, so I took a bottle after 5 days and cracked it, impatience I know...

Its head, carbonation level and colour were great, but the taste was just too sweet, and quite frankly I dont like it. I thought I'd have gotten rid of most residual sugars by the long standing time after bubbling had ceased and the addition of the Cluster finishing hops to the fermenter, but obviously not.

I do have a problem with heat, fermentation and matururing was at a steady 27 deg C. I know most of u will say thats too hot but I have no choice. I would have expected the higher than desirable brewing temperature would have assisted in the conversion of the residual sugars.

The million dollar question is, is 5 days too short for maturing and will a longer time remove the sickly sweet taste ?

Guess I'm kinda disappointed. .




Recipe:

Morgans Australian Lager kit
1kg Brewblend Enhancer No 20
250g Enhancer No 10 (dextrose & glucose)
15g Morgans Cluster finishing hops
Standard yeast

Looks like there is a whole hockey sock of unfermentables there including some Maltodextrins which will generate a sweet taste in your brew. Way better going for the extract and you may need to add about 12 to 15 grams of a hop with about 7% alpha acid to it during the boil to take the edge off the sweetness. (you hop head )

Doubt you can do much to make it more bitter and time will only make smoother which in all likelyhood will mean the apparent sweetness will increas

Sorry

Dogger

thanks Dan.
Reckon it might be a fertilizer.

But, what do u mean "Way better going for the extract ".. ?

Also, how do u minimise the "unfermentables", considering I thought they were not supposed to be sweet... guess I figured anything that was sweet could be fermented...

On further thought, could it be the BrewBlend No 20 bre enhancer that is making the beer too sweet ? Maybe I shoulda just used Dextrose.

Anybody used Brewblend No 20 and found similar problems ?

Yeh,

see you are using these "Brew Blend 20" and such which are maltodextrins from what I can tell, We have them here but I have never used one. The maltodextrins amongst other things impart body and lead to head retention etc. Nevertheless they have a sweetness associated with them, I believe off the top of my they have DE of 15 or so, (Dextrose Equivelent) or have a sweetness level of 15 percent that of dextrose. This is what is giving the sweet taste. Remember, yeast is simple and it can't digest sugars which are bound in long carbohydrate chains (which is why all grainers have to mash, to convert the starch to sugar through enzyme action). So you can be adding something which is 50 percent unfermentable while pure malt rings at about 80 percent and thus giving less apparent sweetness.

That make sense? It is a bit of a science lesson and I have to run off to HBS and ski hill.

I can really clear it up later if you want.

Dogger

Thanks Dogger. Hell that was my first try so I hought I' give it the works to try to make a good one. The manufacturer describes "Brewblend No 20" (manufactured by "BrewCraft" in Australia) as "A blend of dextrose, powdered corn syrup and light malt". Now I've got one more bag of this stuff and was about to use it in attempt 2. Instead I might just subsititute that bag for a kg of dextrose, aka the following:

1 x Morgans 1.7kg Royal Oak Amber Ale kit
1 kg Dextrose (or may go to 1.25 kg)
Finishing hops : Fuggles

What do you think ?

Now if this one is too sweet I'm gonna be very sad.

NewBrew,

Yes, give that recipe a try. It certainly shouldn't be too sweet.

If you think it's a bit watery, you could make it a third time using 500g glucose and 500g dried malt extract. In fact, I'd even try that for you second brew.

And I would leave your first beer for at least eight weeks before writing it off.

Five days isn't really long enough to get a good indication of how the finished product will be. It might turn out to be magnificent after a couple of months.

Cheers,

Oliver

Hey thanks Oliver.

What about a can of golden syrup i/o the dried malt ? I read somewhere you gave that a whirl once. Or does this stuff have a high degree of sweetish unfermentables ?

Also before I write off my first brew the first one I'm going to try another bottle. The one I tried was the very last bottle I filled, and it was very cloudy initially (caught some sediment of course) but it settled quickly. The other bottles were almost clear from the moment of fill. Though I'm doubtful this is going to have any impact, I'll let u know after lunch

NewBrew,

Do not, I repeat DO NOT use more than a few hundred grams of golden syrup in a beer, unless you want something that takes a short lifetime to mature, like the pearler described below that Geoff made. I don't think I need say anything else. Read the results for yourself

Geoff's No.41 Bockin' Good Beer

Started 21.08.93 Bottled 03.09.93

1 can Muntons Bock
1kg golden syrup
500g dried dark malt extract

OG 1056 FG 1012 ALC/VOL 5.9 %

BREWING NOTES God knows where I got this insane recipe. With the benefit of hindsight, no more than 250g of golden syrup would have done the job.

TASTING NOTES Hmm, where to start? The beer was simply undrinkable for a number of years. The first note is dated 22.05.95 (some two years after bottling) and describes a "very nice tasting beer but woeful head retention".

Oliver,


Sure it isn't the Muntons doing it?

That's the stuff we call Treacle isn't it? Golden Syrup Made by Tate and Lyle? Never tried it but sounds like it has potential as long as you can wait for the second coming.

New Brew

I would do a 50/50 as Oliver suggests. In fact I have a generic can running that way now, I just left out the finishing hops

Dogger

Dogger Treacle and Golden Syrup are different stages of refinement, I think in the order of Molasses, Treacle, Golden Syrup, Sugar.

NewBrew, personblly I would start with a basic recipe and gradually work up from that, adding one or two new ingredients each batch. That way you can identify what is giving that flavour, characteristic etc. Much easier than saying I have a dozen possible causes.

Alos only using a part of a packet of Brewblends etc, amy not be a good idea. I don't know whether they are mixed in bulk then packaged, but my local HBS makes his own and obviously packages each bag indivbiually, you can see the Malt and the various ingreients in different parts of the bag.