I popped two bottles in the fridge on Saturday morning as it was now officially ready for tasting. I tried one Saturday night and was disappointed. The carbonation was complete, however, the off taste that has been there throughout the staged of the brew has not mellowed out, so i'm starting to think something went wrong. I also wasn't feeling the greatest after a week of Hot Sun, Corona, and Tequila. I didn't even feel like drinking beer this particular Saturday night. (which is very odd for me) The beer did look good, it was very dark brown that appears red in the light, very clear with a nice foamy head.
I tried one Sunday, It tasted better, but not much, so I decided to give it another week for conditioning.
Wednesday night rolled around and the NHL playoffs were starting. I had 5 while watching the game and I admit, it has improved in a few short days. I will continue to wait on this batch as I do not want to give up on it quite yet.
It is a drinkable beer, not bad .... however, I don't think I would brew it again, unless I can determine if I made a mistake and what it was.
There are some possibilities since I have been reading and learning more-
1) The grains were steeped at 170F - was this too hot? Did I extract tannins?
2) I am reading my hydrometer wrong and the alcohol content is through the roof making the off taste excessive alcohol? After three on Wednesday night, I had quite the full body buzz, and this beer is only supposed to be 4.5% alcohol.
3) tossed in my bittering hops too soon. I only learned to wait for the hot break after this brewday.
This is a learning process and I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that it tastes better by Saturday.
Chocolate Stout-
The Chocolate Stout was racked to the secondary on The 10th, giving it 9 days in the primary. The gravity has only dropped to 1019 putting it at around just over 3% - hopefully some more fermentation takes place in the secondary, and perhaps I should have left in the primary for a few more days? I'm learning that I should not follow the recipe when it comes to the amount of days in the fermenter, especially when the yeast I am using is different than the original recipe. I may have racked this beer before the fermentation was complete. I will not make this mistake the next time. On the bright side, this beer already tastes great. Here are some pictures:
Lid removed from primary
The Kids don't think this one will be good
Delicious chocolaty Beer in the secondary fermenter.
Nice Rack!
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