Turns to white beer

[Kevin Green]

I am still learning with mixed results but there is one thing I cant find an answer to


Among my brews, 2 of them have ended up the same and I don’t know why


Pilsner – yeast Saflager S-23

Duvel – yeast Belle Saison.


Both were ok at first and in fact the Duvel tasted rather similar to the original but over time the taste of both of them turned to that of a white beer.

(3 weeks fine, 4 weeks white beer)


It is still very nice but not what I was aiming for.


My only thought would be the flavour is the fruit esters being too strong and this could be caused by me pitching the yeast when the wort was way too warm (75-80F).


Is this it or is there something else that could cause this.


Thanks

 

[Miraculix]

I am still learning with mixed results but there is one thing I cant find an answer to


Among my brews, 2 of them have ended up the same and I don’t know why


Pilsner – yeast Saflager S-23

Duvel – yeast Belle Saison.


Both were ok at first and in fact the Duvel tasted rather similar to the original but over time the taste of both of them turned to that of a white beer.

(3 weeks fine, 4 weeks white beer)


It is still very nice but not what I was aiming for.


My only thought would be the flavour is the fruit esters being too strong and this could be caused by me pitching the yeast when the wort was way too warm (75-80F).


Is this it or is there something else that could cause this.


Thanks

Let me have a wild guess, you brewed the lager after the saison, right?

What you are describing as the flavour of white beer is probably the flavour of phenolic compounds, being produced by many wheat beer yeasts and by many saison strains like belle.

Belle also has the ability to get a bit stuck in your fermentation system, meaning the next batch might easily get contaminated when not taking really good care of sanitizing everything properly afterwards.

The effect of a belle infection is that you will taste it (basically what you described) and that there is suddenly a very high attenuation, as belle is diastaticus, meaning it is able to ferment almost every sugar there is in wort.

This can get dangerous when bottled as it continues in the bottle and might make them explode.

Another possible source of the taste can be just a central infecting with whatever else is flying around, as a lot of wild yeasts also produce those phenolic tastes (ie. Clove-like). Had this with a pilsener myself once.

 

[Kevin Green]

The lager was brew 2, saison brew 8.

My sanitization is pretty good also, but will tighten it up as much as possible.

I got two new ones conditioning now, using 34/70 and wlp840 Let’s see if they stay free of the white beer

 

[TGFV]

When you say white beer, how exactly do you mean?

Does it taste like it was brewed with wheat?

Does it taste like it was brewed with a Hefe yeast? Or Wit yeast? Or a saison yeast (for the lager obviously)?

 

[Iseneye]

What the hell is white beer? If your beer tastes like something for a few weeks then changes character the likely answers are infection or oxidation.

 

[TGFV]

What the hell is white beer? If your beer tastes like something for a few weeks then changes character the likely answers are infection or oxidation.

White beer is the name that applies to wheat beers (Hefe, wit, American wheat, wheat wine, some saison and beire de garde)

 

[Kevin Green]

Tastes like weizen and I used no wheat

Thanks all. Looks like rouge yeast. I’ll need to be more careful