First time brewer, aging question

[Mr. Self-destruct]

I made my first beer from a kit, and I am very curious about the aging process of secondary fermentation. I left the brew in the primary fv for two weeks before bottling. Now I want to see what the difference in flavour is so after a weekand a half I sampled a bottle.

It tastes horrendous and that sip alone made me think about dumping the rest of the 23litres. How much can the flavour improve over time or should I really just cut my losses, clean the bottles and start something new? It tastes much like it did upon bottling, just carbonated.

 

[Growler]

It depends on the kit I find that 2 to 3 weeks does my Tom Caxton kits but the Woodefords kits can take upto 6 weeks

best thing is to get another kit on and build up your stock so you can wait till they are conditioned :thumb:

 

[Brewmarc]

If it tasted that bad after primery fermentation i doubt that any aging would improve matters a great deal, It may well be that the beer has off flavours due to wild yeast infection, What does it taste like? Did you sanitise evrything thoroughly? Did you primary ferment under airlock? I usually leave mine in the secondary for about 3-4 weeks but thats just me there are certainly other ways that dont require as much patience. such as fining & crash cooling etc.

 

[robsan77]

yeah it depends what it tasted like, whether there is an infection or not. Generally after a couple of weeks i would say most beers are drinkable and the taste usually gets me excited. I dont have experience in kits tho but my ag beers are usually in primary 1 week, secondary 1 week then bottled for 2 weeks. Of course I taste at every stage and even after secondary they taste good and you know in 2 more weeks they'll be great.

 

[Mr. Self-destruct]

The only thing I could describe it as would be bad home made wine that someone tried mixing with a stout. Everything was sterilized and yes I certainly did use an airlock. Such a bummer because it smelled so very good during the first week of primary fermentation.

I suppose I will just have to take a trip to the home brew shop and start again.

Do you think temperature could have had a big enough effect to result in such an off taste? I live in a house with very poor insulation and the temp has been ranging from 19-27C over the past few weeks.

The kit by the way was Cascade Porter. I have heard some very bad reviews on this in the past but thought I would have a go anyhow.