what went wrong? (white house honey porter)

[brewsitorloseit]

Ugh, I don't know what happened here but it's abject failure.

I used a gallon kit from Northern Brewer for the white house honey porter.
It smells like candy, tastes like sugar water and has zero carbonation.

I used 3tbsp honey in 1/2 cup water as the bottling sugar instead of the fizz drops from the kit, was that it?
Is there some way I could have killed the yeast? It was a little bit close to the high end of the temperature range.

This is the second beer I've made so maybe I should have gone rogue on the kit instructions like that, but the first one I made ended up being pretty good and it used the honey water mix for carbonation.
But it doesn't even have a flat beer mouth feel, I'm just confused by what happened.

 

[burninator]

Have you taken a gravity reading? That description makes it sound like it never fermented.

 

[Stauffbier]

What was OG and FG?
What was the batch size?
How long has it been bottled?

 

[chisena]

Did it finish fermentation? Take a gravity reading. Also, those fizz drops have sucked in my experience.

 

[sanguine]

When you say "upper end of the temperature range," what do you mean by that? Being on the higher end of a recipe's recommended temperature range (for example at 68 for 64-68 recommended) isn't going to cause problems, if that's what you mean. Yeast cells will do just fine even at well above room temperature, although a beer fermented at 80+ degrees Fahrenheit would probably come out tasting pretty nasty. Unless you did something really strange like adding yeast during your boil, my instinct is that temperature probably isn't the problem here, although I could be wrong.

What kind of yeast did you use? What kind of state was it in when you pitched it? How did you add it to the wort?

 

[bhanson]

Sounds like it's unfermented. Could there have been a traumatic event that killed the yeast at onset? Hi temp pitch/rehydration - or you have unopened yeast somewhere that should have gone into the fermenter?

 

[dnslater]

From your description, it almost certainly never fermented in the first place. Need more about your fermenting process.

 

[brewsitorloseit]

This was definitely between 64-68.

I used Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast, and dry pitched it.
I still have no idea what happened but after failing again with a brown ale that blew up on me. I just decided to get back on the horse.
So two weeks ago i brewed up another batch (its a 1gallon kit from northern brewer) and I just bottled today.
OG was 1.042 and I took another reading before bottling and that was 1.004
It's been sitting in the same room between 64-68.

The sample tasted exactly like the original screwup batch.
Wet cardboard and "brown water" notes and the had a mouth feel that reminded me of weak tea.

I drank the last bottle of the original which had an FG of 1.006 though I didn't write down the OG.
It was a little more carbonated than all the others that I choked down for science. But was still mighty flat and still tasted like wet cardboard.
This time I used fizz drops, last time I swapped them out for honey. (3 tbsp in half cup water)

One thing I'm most worried about is that the activity in the primary seemed to peak early.
I attached a picture to illustrate.
any advice? Thoughts?

 

[mrgrimm101]

It's not uncommon for yeast be finish and flocculate within 6 days, as shown by your photos.

The wet cardboard flavor can definitely be caused by oxidation. I've had this issue before. How are you bottling? Are you using a bottling bucket and a bottling wand? Are you siphoning? If so, are your connections tight, or might they be loose and letting in some oxygen? Are you taking care to not create bubbles and introduce oxygen to the beer once it's done fermenting?

That was my problem, I was filling my bottles straight from the spigot and it oxidized like crazy. Tasted ok at first but quickly degraded into that funky, wet, moldy cardboard taste.

 

[Zolon]

Well, I will be following this one, as my friends have requested I give this kit (full batch) a try.

 

[barnaclebob]

You'll need to describe your bottling process in detail. Even oxidized beer should carbonate though.

Looks like you are at least using flip top bottles.

 

[PLOVE]

This was definitely between 64-68.
One thing I'm most worried about is that the activity in the primary seemed to peak early.

But it also seems to have started pretty late . . . I can't be sure about when things kicked off exactly without a time stamp, but you reporting essentially no visible activity on the 9th and 10th. Then things get going on the 11th. I'm thinking you may have underpitching, which led to stressed yeast and off flavors. For most of my brews, if I pitch at 5PM, things are at krausen by the next morning.

Just a thought.
P

 

[brewsitorloseit]

Last time was just flip tops, this time i used two flip tops and 6 longnecks with oxygen absorbing caps.
If it was oxygenated would the caps reverse some of that?

Auto-siphoned into a sanitized pot and then into the bottles.

 

[barnaclebob]

How much splashing was there during the bottling process? I'm guessing you siphoned into the bottles too. How does that process actually work, do you essentially pump the beer into the bottles using the auto siphon?

 

[mrgrimm101]

How much splashing was there during the bottling process? I'm guessing you siphoned into the bottles too. How does that process actually work, do you essentially pump the beer into the bottles using the auto siphon?

If you were to just siphon the beer into the bottles, it would create a lot of splashing and introduce oxygen to your beer.

Ideally, you want to mix your priming solution and add it to the bottom of the bottling bucket. Then you want to put your autosiphon into your fermenting vessel and attach the hose so that the end is coiled in the bottom of the bottling bucket (the one with the spigot). Do everything you can to avoid splashing and creating bubbles, as this introduces oxygen which is not good at this point.

Then you start racking your beer from the vessel to the bottling bucket. If the hose is coiled in the bottom of the bottling bucket, it should mix the beer with the priming solution naturally. Once all of the beer is transferred, you hook up a small hose with a bottling wand to the spigot on the bottling bucket. Turn on the spigot, and the bottling wand acts as a flow stopper for the beer. Put the wand into the clean and sanitized bottles, push it to the bottom of the bottle, and the beer will flow into the bottle. Once the bottle is full, remove the bottling wand and you should be left with the perfect amount of headspace in your bottles.

Repeat this process until you are out of beer.

Some people prime each bottle individually. Bulk priming is the method that I prefer.