I was asked to review my own home-brews by a few friends and commenters. Here they are.
This is the first beer I brewed. A wheat beer from Brewer’s Best. I added 2 ounces of blackberry beer flavoring
A – After 4 weeks, still very cloudy and murky with a sort of plum appearance. 2-finger head that subsides to a single finger pretty fast
S – I added too much blackberry extract. This beer is a blackberry bomb on the nose. Wheat is still there but not as strong as the nose of just wheat before adding the fruits.
T – Very florally nice with an opening up-front bright spring wheat taste. Grassy and the middle of the tongue tastes the blackberry. Its bigger than I wanted but actually not overwhelming on the tongue as it is on the nose. Finish is this very malty / wheat bitterness that reminds me of chewing on a tobacco leaf.
M – 20% carbonation. Light body. Fruity dry musty finish.
O – 65/100. The appearance is gross looking which is common with home-brews without a wort chiller or poor siphoning and boil temps. Smell is dominant blackberry. The finish is pretty yucky.
This is the second beer I ever brewed. A Double IPA from True Brew. I dry hopped with Citra instead of the initial recommendation. I also did an extra hop addition of Columbus at boil termination. I killed the keg on this as I poured the last ounce
A – Really nice clarity. Zero haze, totally clear throughout. Dark golden appearance. 2 finger head subsides to just a thin line of bubbles.
S – Huge dominating Grapefruit scent from the citra. Citra dry-hopping really hung on. Slight bit of lemongrass.
T – Ruby Red grapefruit juice, bananas and pine needles. Intense bitterness that stays around long after the beer is swallowed. The bitterness at the end is intense and disappointing.
M – 10% carbonation on the mouth swish. Probably my fault. Heavy body.
O – 75/100. The nose and up front taste is nice. Clarity is good but the finish is almost garbage like in taste.
This is the third beer I ever brewed. A Russian Imperial Stout from Brewer’s Best. I added 12 ounces of milk chocolate to the last 5 minutes of the boil which I now know was dumb and 2 ounces of toasted oak chips.
A – Pitch black in the glass. Dark brown on the edges. Almost no head at all due to the oil in the milk chocolate bars I used. No head at all after pouring.
S – Dominant oak presence followed by espresso beans and chocolate milk. Spicy feeling on the back of the throat.
T – Up front taste is a mixture of burnt wood and smoke. Tastes like I’m eating a campfire. It’s very intense and the finish is heavy dark malts and chocolate espresso beans which is pleasant but the smoke sticks around forever! UGH. A few friends enjoyed it but if you don’t like smoked beers, you won’t like t his one.
M – 5% carbonation, heavy body. Nasty campfire oily finish.
O – 20/100. Next time, less Oak chips, cocoa nibs and longer fermentation time .
This is my 4th brew. It’s an American Pale Ale from Brewer’s Best but I decided to dry hop it with Citra and Columbus.
A – Cloudy and hazy golden brown. I did a bad job filtering this beer so some hop sediment came with the beer.
S – Nice nose. Orange citrus peels. Lemon and wheat. Some level of funkiness and fresh cut grass. I also get orange soda. A sweet citrus sort of scent.
T – Yeah. I like this beer a lot with one exception. It’s extremely metallic. Copper taste in this beer and I’m not sure why. Bright orange citrus taste up front, slight bit of grass and vanilla. finish is a copper bomb and it stays around.
M – 25% carbonation, medium body. nasty finish.
O – 45/100. Everything is great about this beer but the horrendous nasty metallic taste I get at the finish is depressing and makes me go get a pepsi to wash the bad taste out.
You’re already doing a lot better than my first homebrews, that’s for sure!
I can’t help you much with the fruit beer since I so rarely make them myself.
IIPA: Any idea what made it literally taste like “garbage”? If it’s really clear then your chances of bacterial infection are low.
Stout: CoCo nibs work pretty well but take a lot of time. If you want to be lazy, you can also use chocolate powder — hershey’s is great for brewing since it has a very low fat content. You can add it right to the last few minutes of the boil. Did you use smoked malt? Also, I’d recommend oak cubes over chips. Oak cubes will give you a much more wine-like oak character and no harshness. Oak chips are VERY harsh — taste oaked arrogant basterd vs regular and you’ll taste this. THey use chips, ugh.
Pale Ale: Metallic? Hrmm. I’ve never run into that myself, to be honest. Any ideas?
From How to Brew (http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html/):
Metallic flavors are usually caused by unprotected metals dissolving into the wort but can also be caused by the hydrolysis of lipids in poorly stored malts. Iron and aluminum can cause metallic flavors leaching into the wort during the boil. The small amount could be considered to be nutritional if it weren’t for the bad taste. Nicks and cracks ceramic coated steel pots are a common cause as are high iron levels in well water. Stainless steel pots will not contribute any metallic flavors. Aluminum pots usually won’t cause metallic flavors unless the brewing water is alkaline with a pH level greater than 9. Shiny new aluminum pots will sometimes turn black when boiling water due to chlorine and carbonates in the water.
Hey Alan. My beers were drinkable so that was a total surprise. At least that happened.
1. Garbage, it was just very very harsh almost too malty on the finish with a sort of rotting cheese sort of finish. I know hops can get cheesy over time..it was brewed over a month ago which is still fresh for DIPAs but IDK. Just wasn’t what I wanted.
2. I didn’t know about the nibs taking longer. I “Kitchen sinked” that beer meaning I had leftover boxes of chocolate bars from last year’s 4th of july smores extravaganza and decided to throw a few in at 5 minutes left. Then I find out head retention is now gone due to oils. Oops. Noted on the cubes. I’ve tried a lot of smoked beers and don’t care for it. The DME / LME wasn’t smoked though..just the chips.
3. I read the exact same thing you just sent over about possibly reasons for metallic tastes. However, I used the same brew setup for every one of my beers and the only variable was that it was the keg. I’ll mark the keg and if the next beer I put in that keg tastes metallic then I’ll know it’s the keg causing that. That’s the only variable.
Still though, I’m happy with the results. The DIPA keg is killed now thanks to my neighbors. I want to take steps to improve beer clarity going forward (wort chiller + cold crashing + possible secondary fermentation) and I’d like to reduce any off tastes..only thought on the DIPA garbage taste beyond the cheese is that it was my 2nd beer and maybe I got some DME carmelization as I didn’t stir it very well during the boil and some stuck to the bottom of the kettle.
Anyway, thanks for the tips as always!!! Still trying to figure all of this out.
Hey Adam, saw your blog on HomeBrewTalk and figured I would stop in to post a bit. Like the blog, good format, easy reading & interesting.
Some stuff that I have noticed over my first year of homebrewing is to really focus on core beers and even SMaSH beers. When I started I was doing crazy shit & throwing all these spices and stuff into the beers and causing detrimental effects. Sounds like your off to a good start but play around some with single malt-single hop beers and you will be surprised how good they can taste. Munich malt is absolutely amazing! I don’t know if your doing AG yet, but if your not don’t let it intimidate you. It’s really easy to transition over, especially if your logically sound and do a good amount of research on brewing which I can tell you do.
For the stout, try bakers chocolate next time and the garbage like character in the finish on the IIPA could be from the water chemistry you are brewing with. If the sulfur content is too high could be an example or a bacterial infection from a possible contamination somewhere in the process. It’s trial and error though, so you won’t really know until you brew the same recipe again. Anyways man, looking forward to reading up on your blog! Cheers
Hi Jonathan. I appreciate you stopping by! I’m new to brewing…very new so for sure open to all suggestions.
Maybe a barleywine is not a good 5th batch beer to try but that’s what I have fermenting now. For sure, the APA was my favorite so I’ll be doing another one very soon. I’m not a huge fan of Lagers but just the difference in process is interesting so I’ll do one of those as well.
Good idea on sticking to a single hop. I agree on helping me when drinking commercial beers.
The garbage taste was in no other beers though. We’re using well water here and the water analysis I got looked pretty good but the water is “very soft” according to the group that tested it. Not sure how to correct that but it’s better than very hard.
Thanks for reading.
Hops do get cheesy, but they need to be cheesy when you put them in the beer, once they’re in the beer, they won’t “cheese over time”.
On clarity, try using gelatin in the keg. 1/2 teaspoon per keg, dissolved in a bit of hot water. Just enough water to be easy to work with. I boil the water for about 10 minutes, turn off the burner, and then I put in the gelatin. I’ve heard that boiling the gelatin can cause issues, may just be an old brewers tale.
Keep at it! Being able to make a great beer is a great goal, and is mine, but it takes many years. Something I think you’ll really get out of homebrewing is your beer palate will improve dramatically as you taste your own brews at various stages. I couldn’t even pick out ‘hop flavor’ until I started brewing my own batches!
If you really want to learn, listen to the ENTIRE back catalog of thebrewingnetwork.com. The Session, Brew Strong, and The Jamil Show.
gonna subscribe to that now. Thanks Alan.
Do Brew Strong first as John Palmer is part of that crew and it is INCREDIBLY informative!
Okay, so many advice pieces. I just need to jack into the matrix and get loaded up with Kung-Fu and Homebrewing tutorials :)