Well 84 hours after pitching the yeast (3.5 days), the foam has subsided, the gravity has dropped to 1.018 (so still not quite finished), and there is a good deal of sediment at the bottom of the 25l fermenter. Approx 1 inch of what looks like like solid and compacted dense trub etc. Here is the fermenter as it stands:
- 27 84 Hours on.JPG (67.21 KiB) Viewed 1012 times
And here is a shot of some of the beer in a wine glass from the hydrometer test:
- 28 Clarity.JPG (29.82 KiB) Viewed 1013 times
It smells absolutely divine. My wife (who uses wine-tasting words etc.) and I could pick out these smells: Blackcurrant, honey, apple blossom, jasmine, dry apricot, raisin/sherry, some malt and a general aroma like that of a dessert wine.
Colour is pale amber, still some yeasty haze, but strangely no yeast aroma or flavour. There is still some sediment floating around in the glass, but that's to be expected since fermentation hasn't finished.
The flavour was a slight let down after the aroma. Tastes and textures we picked out: Very bitter, creamy, almost a liquorice flavour, slight caramel. The bitterness does detract a lot, I hope this all melds together, and the bitterness fades a bit. I think a bit of acidic flavour from carbonation might balance out the bitterness. I'm trying to bear in mind that it's sitting at 20C, and there are probably some flavours in it that wouldn't come through if it were served at 10-15C.
Does anyone else have a taste at this point? (Obviously only a sip, from the gravity test). Am I getting normal flavours for this amount of time in the fermenter, or should I be worried about the overly bitter flavours?
Cheers,
Craig
- not looking forward to it. Still I've started using iodophor in a spray bottle now, which makes things easier.