That bottle conditioned taste

[DMAC]

Hi,

I've recently got back to brewing after a 6-8 year break. Recently I got a couple of kegs and have started force carbonating my beer.

One batch I did half bottle conditioned and half force carbonated. Their is a clear taste difference with biscuity taste (too my senses) in the bottle conditioned beer. Every beer that I've bottle carbonated has this taste. Its the same flavour/smell I can detect coming out the air lock on my current batch.

Any idea what compound it is? I have had commercial bottle carbonated beer that doesn't suffer from this taste. If I know what it is I can work on removing it.

Still, isn't it great how much more variety of ingredients and equipment there us these days and its so much cheaper than it was in the olden days. I never thought I'd get a hold of kegs...

Ta

Daniel

[Ralph]

Generally it is the yeast and especially the amount of yeast sitting in the bottom of the bottle. There are a couple of things that happen.

1. There are a bunch of complex ageing changes to flavour that take place when there is yeast present

2. There can be yeast autolysis over long periods of time, which will add a distinctive flavour.

I think bottle conditioned home brew tends to be more pronounced in these flavours as often there is much more yeast in the bottle than in commercial examples. Many commercial brewers will also brew with one yeast and then either settle or filter the fermentation yeast from the beer before adding a very small amount of another yeast to do the bottle conditioning. The yeast used for their bottle conditioning is usually in much smaller amounts and may be a very flavour neutral yeast.

As a side note I brewed a big hoppy IPA last year. I put half in a keg and bottle conditioned the other half. I entered an IPA comp with both beers. The keg beer scored really well - got second in the comp. Score was about 40 from memory. The bottle conditioned beer scored really badly. Score of less than 20 from memory. The bottle conditioned one was slightly undercarbonated, but still it was exactly the same beer... but tasting them side by side you would not have believed it was. The bottle conditioned one had a much more subdued hop flavour and aroma, seemed less bitter and had more malt and yeast notes coming through.

[Grant R Baker]

Yep there is a difference and that transformation of BC brews is why I bottle some beers and kegs others.

Porters, Stouts are bottle conditioned, where as PA, IPA, lagers etc are kegged. Hoppy brews seem to lose the hop aroma & flavour quicker when bottle conditioned.

[Peter Smith]

I have just started to add 25-50g of hops into a sock in my kegs...   yummy....  makes a huge different.

Also your beer once kegged just after dry hop never gets warm again, MUST be better for hops

If you look at most breweries they dont leave beer warm for long, in fact once it leaves the fermenter its normally straight into the cold conditioning room...

[DMAC]

What ever it is, plenty of it blows through the airlock during primary fermentation. I think its a single compound. Perhaps its acetaldehyde? Doesn't smell like green apples to me though.

[Barry]

The stuff that blows through the airlock is surely yeast krausen?

[DMAC]

krausen in my bottle conditioned beer would be impressive...

[Barry]

impressive underuse of your hydrometer, sure :)