Leave wort for x days? Really?

[morethanworts]

Hi

One of the the points that has caught my eye on here is how some fellow homebrewers have a guideline number of days for which they leave fully-fermented wort in the primary vessel, regardless of how quickly it got down to a stable final gravity. They'll often leave it for say "7" or "10" days, sometimes suggesting that the yeast is 'cleaning up after itself', or such like.

I'm very keen to get rid of 'that' :evil: HOMEBREW TASTE :evil: which has plagued (if I'm really honest) maybe 90% of my 20-30 brews to some extent or other. A taste which appears despite careful sanitation and temperature control, quality two-can kits/extracts and yeasts and several weeks of conditioning. A taste which - if anyone is tempted to suggest may be fixed by a few ppm of water treatment for example - would not be overpowered by the presence of a dead pigeon in the keg.* A taste which often negates any interesting characteristic of the particular ale, rendering the type of hops irrelevant, for example.

Now the best brew I ever did, with no 'homebrew taste', was racked into DJs after finishing in 5 days. If I were to just look at that, I might conclude that it is safe to to get it off the bulk yeast ASAP. But am I missing something?


*Well, it might, but you get the idea

 

[pittsy]

The home brew tang is often down to sugar , out of interest what type of brew was your good 1 ? What type of beer is brewed locally in your area ? It may be your tap water ain't so good for the style of beers you brew .
Also temp control while fermenting is a big issue with how your beer will taste etc .
I would recommend brewing a extract beer (dark if your area makes dark beers or light etc if they do that ) with the best yeast you can get with fermenting at 20c .
The more info you post the more we may be able to help .

 

[PD]

In my limited experience I found that the TWANG appeared in most kits I made but not in all of them. It never appeared in any of my all grain brews ( so far )
I came to the opinion ( very unscientifically ) that it was the malt extracts that appeared to cause it. Which lead me to wondering why? In all grain brewing my ingredients are freshly boiled to produce the wort ( extract if you like ) whereas who knows how long the kit had been made and left stood on a shop shelf, in the heat of the shop window perhaps ? It certainly isn't as fresh as an all grain brewed one.
I am also of the opinion that moving my fermenting brew off the trub as soon as possible into a secondary fermenter helps.I usually wait till the brew has nearly finished fermenting before I do this,but I have read of people syphoning off after the first vigorous ferment ( after 48 hours or so ) and letting the yeast build up a second head of yeast in the 2nd fermenter and fermenting out there...
as I say its only my home grown theory and may be complete rubbish, all I know is doing it the way I do it, gives me a clear tasting beer without any of the associated twang.
I've also started to skim the foam off my boiling brew, thinking this must surely help in removing a lot of suspended debris, and help for a cleaner beer.
Then its a case of using correct temps for fermenting etc,and normal practises.

 

[morethanworts]

The home brew tang is often down to sugar , out of interest what type of brew was your good 1 ? What type of beer is brewed locally in your area ? It may be your tap water ain't so good for the style of beers you brew .
Also temp control while fermenting is a big issue with how your beer will taste etc .
I would recommend brewing a extract beer (dark if your area makes dark beers or light etc if they do that ) with the best yeast you can get with fermenting at 20c .
The more info you post the more we may be able to help

.

Thanks - I didn't post too much, because not everyone will read a lengthy post!

I have rarely added sugar to the primary - It's 3Kg kits/extracts and up.

I have brewed various styles in 3 different areas of the country (5 houses) and have usually had the same 'tang' regardless of any water treatment or type.

Temp control has always been ok, but I have recently added a water bath, two aquarium heaters and an STC1000, and my first brew back in the game has exactly the same tang.

The best brew used the same Gervin English Ale (Nottingham?) yeast that I often used, rehydrated and I followed my notes in the next brew to the letter, with the same tap water, but the tang returned. It's a mystery to me! The local breweries brew a real range.

 

[pittsy]

To be honest , i went from kit to extract to all grain very quickly because i could taste crap beer , so now i'm happy brewing and tasting my beer (mostly) and as mentioned all grain is the way forward , some like kit beer , i'm not really 1 of them .

 

[winelight]

My kits are great, thanks to the advice I've received here. I love them. No homebrew tang.

I now do the "always 14 days" thing, and also move to the cold for another 7 days before bottling.

I use cheap supermarket bottled water, not tap water.

I do mostly 3Kg kits but usually add a bit of LME even so. I change the yeast usually, too, for 04 or 05, depending on the kit. With a 1.5/1.7/1.8 kit I add DME / LME and some nice sugar (like muscovado, etc).

Fermentation temp is usually on the low side, I think that helps also.

Always bottle now, I do have a keg but haven't used it in a while. Much nicer if bottled.

And I will use hop tea, or dry hop, or both for some styles of beer.

 

[morethanworts]

Thanks for these replies.

The best one I ever did was PME with 12oz of crushed crystal malt steeped in before the boil (then fuggles and goldings) pitched with rehydrated Gervin English Ale yeast. Primary 5 days, secondary 6 days, then kegged. Tasted superb from the moment it hit FG onwards. Maybe it was a combination of a nice, fresh, well kept can of extract and adjuncts, and the fact that the mashed grains covered up any potential kit 'tang'. My attempted repeat was nothing like as good though - maybe the ingredients had not been kept as well. This particular extract brew is what keeps me going - it really was properly superb and if I could make it like this all the time I wouldn't bother going to the dark side.

The thing that confounds me is the consistency of the off-twang, except for the couple of REALLY good ones I've done. It's always the same. You'd think that by the law of averages alone it would have varied more if my methods were hit-and-miss. A friend's homebrew I tasted was quite decent in many respects, but still had that dry twang too.

 

[winelight]

Maybe mine have that twang, but I don't taste / recognise it. Only one neighbour has tried any of my beer so far, and he loved it. (He's very honest, he'd have said.) I should organise a tasting evening one day.

 

[RobertP]

I've come back to home brewing after a break of many years.

I'm only brewing kit beers and was back then. None of my recent brews have had any 'off twang' but I can remember there being a taste in some brews way back when.

I used to brew with tap water and granulated sugar and sterilise (i think) with crushed campden tablets.

Now I brew with Tesco value bottled still water, brew enhancer or brewing sugar and only sanitise the bucket and siphon etc (with VWP) not the bottles. I bottle into the empty Tesco water bottles that I keep in a box until needed.

Works for me so far. Must be frustrating having off tastes and not being able to find the cause. good luck.

Oh and as per the thread title and what I'd read here... I leave the fermenting vessel alone for 2 weeks before bottling even if it has been calm for some time.

 

[ScottM]

What do you use to sterilise your equipment? Is it a no rinse steriliser? Just thinking that the twang you are noticing may be due to the steriliser not being rinsed properly.

I had trouble with VWP a while back, really hard stuff to get rid of.

 

[morethanworts]

Years ago I used Chempro SDP and rinsed well. Today I use Chemipro Oxi no-rinse stuff, so it shouldn't be that.

 

[graysalchemy]

That homebrew Twang THT is due to oxidised LME used in kits, basically not being as fresh as they could be.

 

[morethanworts]

That homebrew Twang THT is due to oxidised LME used in kits, basically not being as fresh as they could be.

Brilliant! I hope you're right. Do our forum sponsors offer some sort of guarantee of freshness and storage?

 

[graysalchemy]

You can always ask but be sure to buy a kit from a store which shifts a lot and well in date. :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

just a note a few have mentioned using bottled water , this is not a great idea . It would be better to use some tap water 50/50 maybe , simply cuz too low in calcium prob too low in magnesium and too low in chloride .

 

[morethanworts]

You can always ask but be sure to buy a kit from a store which shifts a lot and well in date.

I'm going to. This might just be it - I have always bought from local small shops, with low turnover, and I really would like to support them - but they've got to have fresh stock.

My lager, which seems to have 'THT' (as you call it!) was dated August this year. The Wherry in my FV at the moment is dated July 2014 and tasted more promising (still at 1.016, though). Might just be a coincidence, but it's something I will scrutinise from now on. Thanks. I've got a Brewferm Abdij on the shelf too, dated October this year.

How long do they tend to give extract from the date of manufacture?

just a note a few have mentioned using bottled water , this is not a great idea . It would be better to use some tap water 50/50 maybe , simply cuz too low in calcium prob too low in magnesium and too low in chloride .

Good point - thanks. I added 2/3 Campden tablet to my recent Wherry. Will see how that goes.

As to the original point, I think I'd like to know the science behind the idea of leaving it on the bulk yeast once it's done it's job. My best brew was off it after 5 days, so I'd take some convincing yet...

 

[Hawks]

Once the yeast finishes fermentation it will start to reabsorb diacetyl and acetaldehyde that it earlier produced.

I think you'll find varied opinion on when you should take it off the yeast.

Personally I like the approach from Jamil Zainasheff and Chris White in Yeast - which is to leave it in primary until it has done and cleared naturally - then package it.

Partly because it's the easy way, partly because there's not much they don't know about yeast :thumb:

 

[morethanworts]

Does it not also give the beer a yeast taint, standing on the bulk yeast for ages? Seeing that yeast tastes bad, it seems instinctive to get it off promptly...? Just asking. I'm sure this is not THT by the way.

Maybe a Mod might want to add THT to the glossary!

 

[Swift Pint]

I wouldnt worry about picking up any off flavours from leaving it on the yeast.
I think you only need to worry if its set on the yeast for a very long time ( over several months)

I'd definitely try using some camden to knock the chlorine / chloromine out of the water.

Another thing that I think really improved my brewing was proper aeration. Previously I would just splash as I transfered in to the FV and then rock it around a bit to try and aerate it, but now I give it a good blast with an electric whisk!

 

[winelight]

I think you'll find varied opinion on when you should take it off the yeast.

yes, and the great thing about this forum is that people explain patiently and clearly the reason for their views, so we can make up our own mind what's best for our situation