i made a young's harvest stout about 3 weeks ago which was absolutely delicious. really fantastic. i said i'd never drink guiness again. i drank about half of the 30-odd pints that week.
then i had a busy week at work, and then i was away for a week (in donegal, drinking, umm... guinness)
and so now i'm home and my own stout tastes kinda, well, sweet. this seems to happen to all the beers that i keg; they just start to seem sweeter towards the bottom of the barrel.
now, this could 1) be all in my imagination. the beers might all have always been sweet from the first sip. the stout was kegged at 1012 gravity, which isn't bad for a stout i think (?) but there must be a good lot of unfermented sugar in there, i guess, huh?
or 2) maybe there's some process by which the beer gets sweeter in the keg? please don't laugh - i'm in my second year of homebrew (just) and kinda just muddling along!
or 3) maybe it just seems sweeter in contrast with the real guinness i'd been drinking?
so what should i do? i'm drinking my beer anyway, it has a complex and not unpleasant flavour, i'm just drinking less of it at a time cos it's, well, too sweet.
but is there something i should do in my brewing process to reduce the end sweetness? any suggestions?
cheers!
sweet stout
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rhodian
i didn't add an excessive amount of priming sugars, about 55g, i think, for about 30 pints. and they did their job, giving good pressure, though i'm now having to top up from a CO2 cylinder, but that seems pretty standard.
is it possible to get stouts and ales down to a commercial level of "dryness" of taste at home, or does that require special conditions? would it mean sacrificing the complexity of flavour that i quite like? that said, i've had another sup of my own and it's actually not that bad again... i guess this is just another of the joys of homebrew - a living product to go with my fickle palate!
is it possible to get stouts and ales down to a commercial level of "dryness" of taste at home, or does that require special conditions? would it mean sacrificing the complexity of flavour that i quite like? that said, i've had another sup of my own and it's actually not that bad again... i guess this is just another of the joys of homebrew - a living product to go with my fickle palate!
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sparky Paul
An interesting question.
I've found lots of the stouts I've done are 'easier drinking' than Guinness, but I'm not completely sure if they're sweeter... I think it's just that the Guinness is more bitter. I quite like the the kit stouts, particularly Cooper's and the JB Masterclass ones, but they're not exactly the same as Guinness.
Perhaps you could try boiling some black malt and adding it the kit, and perhaps some more hops...
I've found lots of the stouts I've done are 'easier drinking' than Guinness, but I'm not completely sure if they're sweeter... I think it's just that the Guinness is more bitter. I quite like the the kit stouts, particularly Cooper's and the JB Masterclass ones, but they're not exactly the same as Guinness.
Perhaps you could try boiling some black malt and adding it the kit, and perhaps some more hops...
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rhodian
ah! i've had an epiphany!
the keg is in a room which is, at this time of year, warmer than i might like it to be. oh, for a spare fridge...
anyway. the beer is therefore also warmer. this makes the PERCIEVED sweetness of the beer greater. true.
i put some ice in my glass tonight and, lo and behold, there in the cooler beer was the great taste i had before the warm weather! you learn something every day!
the keg is in a room which is, at this time of year, warmer than i might like it to be. oh, for a spare fridge...
anyway. the beer is therefore also warmer. this makes the PERCIEVED sweetness of the beer greater. true.
i put some ice in my glass tonight and, lo and behold, there in the cooler beer was the great taste i had before the warm weather! you learn something every day!
