First AG went bad

[AndyRN]

I made the New Castle clone from Beirmuncher and I tried my first bottle yesterday and it was no good. It has only been bottle conditioning for a week and a half but I wanted to see how it was doing. The flavor reminds me of really cheap wine, which I think many would describe as vinegar. I sampled it when I checked the gravity before bottling, and I don't think I tasted anything off; I actually remember being pretty excited with how it tasted. Oh well, I will try another bottle or two in another week just to make sure. I have almost enough grains to do another batch, so I might give it another go in a few weeks.

 

[JonM]

Patience. Patience. Patience. Patience.

Did I mention patience?

Relax, RDWHAHB, etc. it is way, way, way too early to judge this beer. Seriously - don't wait another week. Wait a month and taste this beer again. I bet you'll have a totally different beer. In the meantime, brew another batch of something different to help take your mind off the bottles that are conditioning.

 

[vincentAlpha]

Might just be a bad bottle, I'd sit on it for at least another week and then crack open another, then another week and open another. Rinse and repeat until you are happy or until it starts to get worse (probably not the case). Either way if you've got the bottles and want to brew I say go for another round, if only to compare and contrast with any changes you'll (likely) make.

 

[AndyRN]

Patience. Patience. Patience. Patience.

Did I mention patience?

Relax, RDWHAHB, etc. it is way, way, way too early to judge this beer. Seriously - don't wait another week. Wait a month and taste this beer again. I bet you'll have a totally different beer. In the meantime, brew another batch of something different to help take your mind off the bottles that are conditioning.

I agree; however, I'm 99% sure this is not a lack of conditioning/time issue. I'm going to try another bottle tonight, just in case it was a bad bottle, if that one is bad as well, I will let them sit for a few more weeks and see how it is. I've got plenty of other beer to drink right now; however, I did want to take this one on vacation with me, but I might just take my wheat with me instead.

 

[DennisinIowa]

Try a bottle every week till it tastes great and is all gone.
D

 

[chickypad]

So it tasted good post fermentation on sampling and now it tastes like vinegar? I agree that sounds a bit concerning. I wouldn't expect a low gravity brown like that to need significant aging - might smooth it out a bit but vinegar sounds bad. Hopefully it's just an infected bottle.

 

[boicutt]

Vinegar, when using that word to describe there is bound to be an infection somewhere. Expect bottle bombs eventually if more than one bottle tastes like that.

 

[JonM]

C'mon - give the guy a break and let's not freak him out. Acetaldehyde is sometimes described as vinegary, and that can condition out. Just wait it out and see what happens.

 

[Sir-Hops-A-Lot]

I had a similar situation with my first all grain English Bitter.
I thought that I had a vinegar infection but it was really the "green apple" (Acetaldehyde) taste from a beer that got taken off the yeast cake too early. I noticed that the portion I had kegged continued to taste off and the bottled ones cleaned up. I reasoned that the addition of dextrose at bottling had helped the yeast clean up the off flavour so I put some dextrose in the keg and it worked!

 

[AndyRN]

Well, I will let them rest and see how it goes. Thanks for the advice.