Contaminated Wheat beer or high Acetaldehyde?

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:23:03 -0400, "RobO" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

Just a fussy point, but you don't want to boil the grain - you want to steep it at about 160 degrees F, then bring the wort (water, malt and what you got from steeping the grain) to boiling and add the hops.

How did you get it down to 70? If you just let 5 gallons of boiling wort sit until it was at 70 degrees, you're asking for contamination. Next time try a chiller - they're pretty cheap to make, and they can cool 5 gallons to pitching temp in 10 minutes if your tap water is cold enough..

The test is whether the SG keeps dropping. It probably stopped after a week. You DID have an airlock on the fermenter, right? Letting it sit exposed to air after all fermentation has stopped for a week is asking for trouble.

I've made beers with 2 fermentations and I've made beers with one fermentation. Neither one ruins the beer. However, if I were to want to keep the beer fermenting for more than a week, I'd rack it off to a secondary fermenter.

Refrigerated beer doesn't condition. Most ale yeast is dormant at 40 degrees.

No real idea of how to solve your problem, or whether you should dump the whole batch. We've all had bad batches - it's just too bad that your first one may be bad.

Thanks for the fast reply. See inline responses...

I got it down to 70 by putting a lid on the brew pot and placing it in the bathtubs cold water for around 20 minutes. Then dumped the wort into the carboy and followed it with very cold spring water.

I've read posts with SG readings, Gravity, etc. Those are all new terms to me and I'll have to research the equipment to meausre them, and what they mean.

I had a blowoff hose that ran into sanatized water -- using a solution

The strange thing is, it tasted perfectly fine pre-botteling. A week after botteling I noticed the off flavor and increased as time passed.

From what I've read, it seems that the way to get Acetaldehyde tasing remininants from the beer is to increase the fermentation time -- alow more time for the yeast to break it down.

Maybe I could re-open all the bottles, add some yeast, and let it sit for a week. However, I doubt it would taste good and non-effort worthy.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 19:11:59 -0400, "RobO" said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

Sounds good enough. Except that you have no idea what was living in that spring water - which is why I prefer whole boils.

A hydrometer. And, to make things easier, if you can find one (I have no idea what continent you're on, but your use of Fahrenheit seems to indicate that you're in the US). a "Wine Thief".

An airlock is simpler. :)

That sounds like a bacteria of some sort but, since I've never had it, I can't give you any advice from experience - only from the same books and web sites you can read.

In the carboy. Doing that in the bottles, with tiny little airlocks, or even balloons, would be terribly labor-intensive.

Beer-brewing is all about experimenting. You have to decide how much experimenting, and in which direction, you want to do. I'd be curious to see whether I could turn something disgusting into something drinkable, but that's me.

Remember, you HAVE active yeast in the bottles, as-is. Perhaps you can just let this batch age for several months and go ahead and make another one in the meantime.

wheat beer is a nasty thing if ya don't get it right. i expect your protein levels to be off the wall high. revisit your recipe. did you add kilograms instead of pounds. liquids have a saturation point. i used a single tank for many years only. but then again i was not really out to makee screeech.

oh yes i remember the green apples acetelene smell/taste.

well invite over all your worst back stabbing, spitefull buddies, and give them a aprty. YUP it is gonna be killer hangovers. robust and profound.

finally you can get even, and be smug about it.