My beer tastes like wine?

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timstalltaletav

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Nov 8, 2012
826
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Llewellyn PA aka God's Country
Any idea what might have happened? This was the Mr. Beer Red-White-Blue ale kit. Brew and bottling dates are on the bottle pic below. I know this probably needs 3-4 more weeks of bottle conditioning but I wanted to try one.

The taste is not bad at all but it has a distinct red grape taste, actually like dry red wine which I love.

I'm as certain as I can be that sanitization was solid on this one. There are no off tastes, but I was expecting an ale and seem to have a mix of ale and dry red wine. I'm not complaining, just curious.... I have 7 more bottles. Going to drink one each week and note the changes.





Stay tuned for more progress.

BTW - Pumpkin ale brewing starts tomorrow morning. It's weird to think about pumpkin beer and fall... I barely have a pumpkin nub on my pumpkin plants.
 
After more research I answered my own question. The wine taste is from too high of a primary fermentation temp.

Much like BBQ... brewing is very temp specific. I thought my dark basement bathroom would be cool and ideal. It was still a bit warm for the yeast. They like 59°-62° and that's that.... my basement is probably 65-70 constantly. Next batch will need some cooling assistance?

Here's week 2 of bottle conditioning.



The red wine taste has backed off and now I'm getting a strong raisin taste. Still really liking this one.
 
I think you need to put up a 12 x 16 shed in the yard somewhere..... maybe where she parks her car, and leave the craft room alone....
 
I don't see any other solution... lol!! I'm sure the better half wouldn't mind if I took over her craft room.
Good luck with that !
roflmao.gif
 
I live in a very hot place here in Africa. Judging from your comments it looks like I will need a cool room to brew my beer in.

What does that consist of? Is it expensive to setup?

Cheers
 
I live in a very hot place here in Africa. Judging from your comments it looks like I will need a cool room to brew my beer in.

What does that consist of? Is it expensive to setup?

Cheers

I'm actually going to try using one of my bigger coolers to hold the primary fermenter in with some freezer packs/frozen water bottles. I think if I switch them out every day or two it should get the temp down to where it needs to be. It's a bit of work, but it's only for 21 days so it shouldn't be overkill. I'm actually doing another batch this weekend. I just bottled the pear cider I tried last Saturday, I can't say for sure but that one seems like it's going to be a failure. The color looked like slightly tinged water and it tasted like a real dry champagne coming out of the primary. Maybe some carbonation will help it, who knows?
 
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I'm actually going to try using one of my bigger coolers to hold the primary fermenter in with some freezer packs/frozen water bottles. I think if I switch them out every day or two it should get the temp down to where it needs to be. It's a bit of work, but it's only for 21 days so it shouldn't be overkill. I'm actually doing another batch this weekend. I just bottled the pear cider I tried last Saturday, I can't say for sure but that one seems like it's going to be a failure. The color looked like slightly tinged water and it tasted like a real dry champagne coming out of the primary. Maybe some carbonation will help it, who knows?
Good idea with the coolers. Let us know how it panned out. 
 
A good trick for keeping the fermenter cooler than ambient is to place the whole thing in a shallow tub and drape a t-shirt over the fermenter. Put a few inches of water in the tub and then get the whole t-shirt wet.  Make sure that the bottom of the t-shirt is in the water so that the water will wick up.  Evaporation will drop the temp of the fermenter by 5 to 10 degrees.  Aiming a fan at it makes it work even better.  Works like a champ.
 
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