CrealCritter
Sustainability Master
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2017
- Messages
- 10,641
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- Location
- Zone 6B or 7 can't decide
Why is it the more beers I brew the more confused I get?
I only made one beer I didn't like, a Oktoberfest that was to hoppy. I've brewed 3 different Oktoberfests. Sadly the best one when I pulled the facuet handle tonight and after about 3/4 of a pint, I got the dreaded foam from an empty keg. I got sad... But that last pour from the bottom of the keg was the best of the whole keg. It's like it was taunting me to make another batch and see just how good it can become. So I ordered the ingredients for another 5 gallon batch of delicious malty sweet Oktoberfest.
My confusion is the last glass from the bottom of the Oktoberfest keg contained the most yeast and was the most delicious. As a matter of fact, I noticed that every glass from when I first tapped the keg, tasted just a little better than the glass before and the last glass from the keg pegged the totally delicious scale.
I'm wondering if I'm getting my beer to clean by racking it off the yeast trub into a new clean keg after 6 weeks of lagering @ 35 degrees? What if I just tapped the keg after lagering 6 weeks instead of racking it off the trub into a new clean keg? Yes it would be cloudy but how would it taste?
I need to study how they make lagers in Germany vs how we do it in the US. I may be working to hard at brewing lagers and missing out on something really good. Live yeast has it's own flavor that contributes to the overall flavor profile of the beer. Commercially speaking, most American lagers are filtered to .5 micron which is sterilization and then they force carbonate with CO2 much the same as soda is made. I really need to re-think what I'm doing and try a different technique with some sample brews.
A good beer for me should be malty sweet, have a complex flavor profile, with a creamy head that you taste in the back of your throat as you swallow. It also should be of a high enough alochol content that it warms you up slightly as you drink it. It must not be bitter or be a hop explosion in the sinus cavity. Appearance is secondary to to me and really doesn't matter, as long as it fulfills the above requirements.
I only made one beer I didn't like, a Oktoberfest that was to hoppy. I've brewed 3 different Oktoberfests. Sadly the best one when I pulled the facuet handle tonight and after about 3/4 of a pint, I got the dreaded foam from an empty keg. I got sad... But that last pour from the bottom of the keg was the best of the whole keg. It's like it was taunting me to make another batch and see just how good it can become. So I ordered the ingredients for another 5 gallon batch of delicious malty sweet Oktoberfest.
My confusion is the last glass from the bottom of the Oktoberfest keg contained the most yeast and was the most delicious. As a matter of fact, I noticed that every glass from when I first tapped the keg, tasted just a little better than the glass before and the last glass from the keg pegged the totally delicious scale.
I'm wondering if I'm getting my beer to clean by racking it off the yeast trub into a new clean keg after 6 weeks of lagering @ 35 degrees? What if I just tapped the keg after lagering 6 weeks instead of racking it off the trub into a new clean keg? Yes it would be cloudy but how would it taste?
I need to study how they make lagers in Germany vs how we do it in the US. I may be working to hard at brewing lagers and missing out on something really good. Live yeast has it's own flavor that contributes to the overall flavor profile of the beer. Commercially speaking, most American lagers are filtered to .5 micron which is sterilization and then they force carbonate with CO2 much the same as soda is made. I really need to re-think what I'm doing and try a different technique with some sample brews.
A good beer for me should be malty sweet, have a complex flavor profile, with a creamy head that you taste in the back of your throat as you swallow. It also should be of a high enough alochol content that it warms you up slightly as you drink it. It must not be bitter or be a hop explosion in the sinus cavity. Appearance is secondary to to me and really doesn't matter, as long as it fulfills the above requirements.