Mansfield Bitter-Ish Ale

[MyQul]

I strained them through my tubs false bottom, then chilled in a FV. It doesnt take like the beer is overly bitter, more a sharp, acidic taste. Basically its faintly like some brews I've thrown away to infection.

Hopefully it's not an infection. I still reckon it's because it's green. To give you some examples;

1) I'm always trying to drinkmy beer too soon. I recently made a mild. Firstly the base malt was stale so it had a twang like a kit and secondly I'm pretty sure I got the acidification wrong when trying to adjust my water chemistry so it had a chemically taste. I tried to start drinking it after 3 days but the chemically taste was too much so I left it for a couple of weeks. It was just about drinkable but both the twang and chemically taste were sill there but I carried on drinking it nontheless. I've almost come to the end of it now, it's four weeks in the bottle. It's now actually quite nice now, won't win any prizes but pleasant.

2) I bottled an ESB about a week ago. Again I tried a bottle after about 3 days. It had a strong 'hot' alcohol aftertaste like you get with fusils when you ferment to warm. But I had this brew fermenting between 19-22 in a water bath and ice bottles for the first week of fermentation plus I used S04 which has an upper temp tolerance of 25C so it couldn't of been because I had fermented too warm. After doing a bit of googling I came to the conclusion it's just too green as the mo. I tried a bottle again last night and the hot alcohol has marginally faded. So I'm going to try to condition it for 4 weeks before drinking it.

 

[Antony]

Okay, another week, another taste. The apple flavour is fading, there is still an odd flavour as an aftertaste. However I dont need the PB space currently so I'm going to keep it and see what happens. Its still incredibly cloudy considering how long its been in the barrel, so i'm suspecting a wild yeast infection or something.

I feel it may be time to have a look into my fermentation methods to look at how to avoid issues in the futture, as there looks to be some manky stuff on top of my oatmeal stout too. :/

 

[Antony]

Okay, another week, another taste. The apple flavour is fading, there is still an odd flavour as an aftertaste. However I dont need the PB space currently so I'm going to keep it and see what happens. Its still incredibly cloudy considering how long its been in the barrel, so i'm suspecting a wild yeast infection or something.

I feel it may be time to have a look into my fermentation methods to look at how to avoid issues in the futture, as there looks to be some manky stuff on top of my oatmeal stout too. :/

 

[Antony]

Okay, another go here.


3kg Maris Otter
0.4kg Crystal
500g Invert sugar (golden syrup)

Hops

27g progress at 60mins (40 no chill mins)
10g Progress at 20 mins (0 no chill mins)

Its going to use London ESB yeast, just because I fancy it. I feel for future attempts I may try and find somewhere that does cask mansfield, to attempt to culture the actual yeast.

 

[Antony]

Okay, I've tasted my second attempt, and I have to say its pretty damn close! I think It will be kegged shortly, and then I might even try a side by side comparison with the real deal.


Antony