First taste

Ok so I took my FG test today then tasted my beer today it looks real good but didnt taste so great will it be better after bottling , It wasnt bad but a little bitter...:smack:

Don't fret too much over this, beer will change in taste a good bit between bottling, condition, and cooling (to serve temp that is). Don't put too much judgement on it until you have popped the first one 3 or 4 weeks after bottling!

Bitter, watery, bland, weak, funky are all very common descriptions of warm, flat beer in the fermenter. You'll be amazed what carbonation - and a litle age - can do for a beer.

Relax! It's really hard for a newbie to have a much of an idea how the beer is going to turn out at this stage.

homebrewdad said:

It's really hard for a newbie to have a much of an idea how the beer is going to turn out at this stage.

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But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to try. Absolutely keep drinking those samples!

Ive learned that the brew will definitely change as it ages. Time depends on type of beer. I recommend always tasting your brew because over time you will learn what flavors will turn into later in its life. Thats what brewing your own beer is all about. Testing,learning and having fun doing it.

yes, it will get much better after a few weeks in the bottle. My bottling minimum is 3 weeks.

Its been two weeks should i bottle my Wheat beer now.....

I've earned to set aside 3 or 4 beers to try whenever I want. But- I have to tell myself, " you can't drink the others for at least 6 weeks?"

So far it works.

wildcatman17 said:

Its been two weeks should i bottle my Wheat beer now.....

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You need to figure that out by the gravity - taste and airlock activity can give you ideas, but they are false readings. If you take a reading a few days in a row with your hydrometer, and your readings are the same, then it's probably time to bottle.

And samples are an acquired taste. If you hear people say "the sample tasted great," it's relative to the samples they've had for beers that got @$&#'ed up .

Popped open my first beer after only 4 days of carbination it was really good and will only get better as it sits........

Personally, I think its a waste of beer to keep popping them open to find out when they are carbonated. Just let them sit for a MINIMUM of 3 weeks. ( I do 5 weeks just because the beer taste better after aging some)

Its never a waste if you are drinking it!!!!

Ok so my first batch turned out super bitter think my recipe was incorrect. 1oz. Cascade@ 60 then another oz at 15 with half of liberty @30 all in all it was drinkable. Hope for better second time around

So my first batch was pretty bitter 1oz cascade 60 min 1/2 oz liberty 30 min 1 oz cascade 15 min think the cascade at 15 was incorrect what do you think

wildcatman17 said:

So my first batch was pretty bitter 1oz cascade 60 min 1/2 oz liberty 30 min 1 oz cascade 15 min think the cascade at 15 was incorrect what do you think

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That depends.

"1 oz of cascade 60 min" means you add the Cascade when you have 60 min of boiling left. A lot of new brewers instead interpret that to mean the exact opposite - after 60 minutes of boil. If you did it correctly, most of your bitterness is from your 60 minute addition. That is where I would tweak next time if bitterness isn't where you want it.

The 15 minute addition provides very little bitterness. It is mostly a flavor addition. Anything in the last 5 minutes (none in your recipe) is mostly an aroma addition.

Elevated bitterness can also be from not getting your wort cool fast enough after the boil. The longer it is over 180F, the more bitterness you are going to get from that 15 minute addition. If you think that is part of your issue, try moving all your hop additions up 5 minutes (55, 25, 10).

wildcatman17 said:

Ok so my first batch turned out super bitter think my recipe was incorrect. 1oz. Cascade@ 60 then another oz at 15 with half of liberty @30 all in all it was drinkable. Hope for better second time around

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I don't know but this *sounds* like you made a mistake with the flavor at fifteen.

*if* the recipe said:

1 oz at 60
1/2 oz at 30
1 oz at 15

What you should have done was:

1 oz at 4 o'clock when the boil just started and you have 60 minutes to go.
1/2 oz at 4:30 when the boils been going for a half hour and you have 30 minutes to go.
1 oz at 4:45 when the boil's been going for three-quarters of an hour and you have 15 minutes to go.

What it *sounds* like you did was:

1 oz at 4 o'clock when the boil just started and you have 60 minutes to go.
1 oz at 4:15 when the boil has been going for 15 minutes and has 3/4 of an hour to go.
1/2 oz at 4:30 when the boils been going for a half hour and you have 30 minutes to go.

Thus 1 oz of hops cooked for a half hour longer than it should have (and got bitter).

At least that's what it *sounds* like. Forgive me if I misinterpreted.

Think of it as a counter counting down (which is precisely what the display on my microwave looks like). 0:60, 0:30, 0:15 and at the very and 0:00.

It also helps to realize that although the bittering hops are at 60 and at the beginning of the hour. All the other hops are nearly always (although there are probably exceptions) put in near the *end* of a boil. Simply assume that except for full hour hops *no* hops ever cook for over half an hour (unless you are doing a specifically unusual recipe). They are *always* less than half and always in the second half.

[Now I imagine I'll run across thousand of recipes with 45 minute hops....]