That was just the results from a Google search for "Home brew twang home brew talk" I haven't searched the actual sites so there is probably a lot more.
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That was just the results from a Google search for "Home brew twang home brew talk" I haven't searched the actual sites so there is probably a lot more.
There is more, as you suspect; however, I've had my fill on the subject: "Twang, the unavoidable taste present in every extract beer no person can seem to clearly define". Goooooo All-Grain!
Clint, my wherry beer is about 5 months now in bottle but just has funny twang.. its not spoilt or off, followed cleanliness routine and temps for pitching yeast etc, but people say its an easy good beer to do... taste is quite woody with funny sharp twang after (not nice) ideas??
There is nothing that can be done about it. I have no explanation of the source of "the twang", only observations.
I did a fair number of brews that were half grain and half kit. Actually on checking, there were 27 of them. Usually a Coopers kit and around 2.5kg up to maybe 2.75kg of grain, using a 15L pot, the oven to mash and a BIAB bag. Number of "partial mash" brews with twang - none.
Kit beers - did 60 of those, before moving to Partial mashes and AG. Twang noticeable in maybe half of these. Hard to say exactly, as the twang is more noticeable, if you have made non-twangy beers using grains. Made no consistent and reliable records that might give an indication of root cause or how to avoid it with kits. No extract brews from just DME alone, only the LME from cans & kits. I don't think it is due to "kit yeast".
As not all the beers I did from kits were twangy, I have great difficulty with explaining its source. It can't just be boiling all the water, for instance, as I would add 10-12 litres to a partial mash straight from the bathroom tap.
So - wild guess - enzyme related. Enzymes from recently mashed grains that control the production of twangy off-flavours. Maybe they stop "the twang".
AdeDunn
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I tried a lot of variables too Slid, as per various theories on the internet. From using cooler water to mix the extract, to different yeasts, to using bottled water, to using much more expensive kits. None of it made any difference, they all had twang in there. The only thing I found was that by dry hopping with hops I selected myself I could sometimes bury the twang in so much hop flavour that it wasn't as noticeable (hence my Wilko's Golden Ale was actually just about drinkable), but once the dry hop faded it was back to undrinkable again. I didn't try temperature controlled fermentation, as I don't have a fermentation fridge, plus to be quite honest surely if it was this then you'd get twang in all grain too? For me it has to be something produced during the process of concentrating the wort into a syrup. Surely any enzymes would be denatured during the boil? So that would seem unlikely no? Or it could just be that the wort becomes "stale" so to speak when not used fresh.
As I've said before though, I really do suspect that whatever the flavour that causes twang is, it's a flavour that people have different levels of sensitivity to. So it seriously isn't about snobbery when people hate on kits, just a case of sensitivity to the twang. I often wish I could enjoy a kit beer every now and then (I even keep trying a sip of some leftover bottles from last year, as I still have a few bottles of Wherry and Youngs AIPA from back then, but it literally curls my lip and I just end up giving it to my wife to drink) as all grain is a LOT of work for sure. On the bright side, kit wine and kit cider is very very drinkable (I have a Richies On The Rocks blueberry waiting to be made that I bought a couple of months ago that's been waiting for cooler weather in fact). The Solomon Grundy Zinfandel style kit I made for my family last year turned out delicious, everybody who tried it has said how nice it is, many saying that it's nicer than some of the brand label white zinfandels they have had. So I have nothing against using a kit per se, just against kit beer because of that nasty darn twang...
As I've said before though, I really do suspect that whatever the flavour that causes twang is, it's a flavour that people have different levels of sensitivity to. So it seriously isn't about snobbery when people hate on kits, just a case of sensitivity to the twang. I often wish I could enjoy a kit beer every now and then (I even keep trying a sip of some leftover bottles from last year, as I still have a few bottles of Wherry and Youngs AIPA from back then, but it literally curls my lip and I just end up giving it to my wife to drink) as all grain is a LOT of work for sure. On the bright side, kit wine and kit cider is very very drinkable (I have a Richies On The Rocks blueberry waiting to be made that I bought a couple of months ago that's been waiting for cooler weather in fact). The Solomon Grundy Zinfandel style kit I made for my family last year turned out delicious, everybody who tried it has said how nice it is, many saying that it's nicer than some of the brand label white zinfandels they have had. So I have nothing against using a kit per se, just against kit beer because of that nasty darn twang...
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