free as in BEER
May. 6th, 2005 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burnunit Phenol is an organic compound that is an alcohol derivative of benzene. It's poisonous. And thus obviously something you wouldn't want to taste, usually. However, beer can occasionally have a phenolic character. This is permissible in weizenbiers, as long as it leans toward the clove-like flavor and aroma. In virtually all other styles, phenolic character is considered a strong negative. You can identify its presence with words like sour, tart, medicinal, chlorinelike, electrical firelike, or most disgusting... band-aid like. Yeah. Band-aid beer. Bleearrrgh. Interesting site, little beer of horrors describes this presence in beer. Bob Devine had a good entry about it in HBD.
Since all but one of the 28 BJCP-recognized categories of beer say "phenols are bad," you can bet that my recent Guy Noir Porter entry in the AHA Nationals round 1 should not have been phenolic. I also misidentified it as a Robust Porter instead of Brown Porter, but the phenols made that whole distinction totally moot.
Yes, phenols or chlorophenols in my beer!! On an assigned score of 23.5 out of 50 (!) I received these comments from the judges: "sour phenolic quality, some roast grains comes through, but it's subdued. Hop levels are appropriately low." and "sour, tartness overwhelms malt, which should be prominent" "finishes sour and harsh" and "not complex, not malty sour out of character". Both judges said "check sanitation" (will do, believe me!).
The source of phenols generally comes from wild yeast infection. However, it also comes from chlorine in the water (boil all brewing water the night before) or some people have noticed it with improper rinsing of certain sanitizers.
It's possible that the gyle I set aside in the fridge in a sealed clean canning jar got infected (see what the hell is gyle?) and that the strong phenols took a long time to develop because there was a weaker infusion of souring compounds relative to the total batch size (1.1 qt injected into 21 qt). But I boiled it before using it to carbonate, so wild yeasts should have been dead. But there might be a sour character in it anyway, I realize. OR, it's possible that the phenolic character was there all along and my palate is less refined than I've been led to believe.
Okay, here's the deal. If I've ever given you free homebrew (and it's illegal to sell homebrew, so if I've handed you homebrew, it was free), but I've somehow given the impression I really need your approval or that I'm all too-weak for criticism...well that's just not true. I put my beer into a stiff competition judged by experienced pros and I'm not afraid of honest evaluation.
So if you get a free homebrew from me, it comes with a string attached: if there's an off flavor in it, say something. Even if you're not sure (maybe you're not a student of beer styles, like you have better uses of your time or something. By God, you ought to be repelled by a band-aid flavor though!) But if you're not sure, and something's weird to your palate, say so. Say, "huh. there's kind of a...a... I don't know... a fucking band-aid flavor in my beer. Is that normal?" Then I can go, "Really? Gosh, no, phenols are out of style for this beer. Mind if I taste that?" If it's a bad bottle, then I can go get you a different beer! Please don't tell me you think it's good just because you know I want you to like it.
They took the 'free as in beer' metaphor for certain kinds of software. Well, sometimes it works the other way: if you use my freebeer, and you detect a bug in it, report the freakin bug already!! Now I have to go check to see if my brewery has bad sanitation. I'm gonna have to re-do all the bottles (over 120 of them), all the fermenters and the tubing, maybe even replace some parts. Dang it. I'm worried about the two gorgeous batches I have in secondary fermentation now. 10 gallons of beer could be turning into mouthwash as we speak! Holy crisis on infinite earths, beerman.
Since all but one of the 28 BJCP-recognized categories of beer say "phenols are bad," you can bet that my recent Guy Noir Porter entry in the AHA Nationals round 1 should not have been phenolic. I also misidentified it as a Robust Porter instead of Brown Porter, but the phenols made that whole distinction totally moot.
Yes, phenols or chlorophenols in my beer!! On an assigned score of 23.5 out of 50 (!) I received these comments from the judges: "sour phenolic quality, some roast grains comes through, but it's subdued. Hop levels are appropriately low." and "sour, tartness overwhelms malt, which should be prominent" "finishes sour and harsh" and "not complex, not malty sour out of character". Both judges said "check sanitation" (will do, believe me!).
The source of phenols generally comes from wild yeast infection. However, it also comes from chlorine in the water (boil all brewing water the night before) or some people have noticed it with improper rinsing of certain sanitizers.
It's possible that the gyle I set aside in the fridge in a sealed clean canning jar got infected (see what the hell is gyle?) and that the strong phenols took a long time to develop because there was a weaker infusion of souring compounds relative to the total batch size (1.1 qt injected into 21 qt). But I boiled it before using it to carbonate, so wild yeasts should have been dead. But there might be a sour character in it anyway, I realize. OR, it's possible that the phenolic character was there all along and my palate is less refined than I've been led to believe.
Okay, here's the deal. If I've ever given you free homebrew (and it's illegal to sell homebrew, so if I've handed you homebrew, it was free), but I've somehow given the impression I really need your approval or that I'm all too-weak for criticism...well that's just not true. I put my beer into a stiff competition judged by experienced pros and I'm not afraid of honest evaluation.
So if you get a free homebrew from me, it comes with a string attached: if there's an off flavor in it, say something. Even if you're not sure (maybe you're not a student of beer styles, like you have better uses of your time or something. By God, you ought to be repelled by a band-aid flavor though!) But if you're not sure, and something's weird to your palate, say so. Say, "huh. there's kind of a...a... I don't know... a fucking band-aid flavor in my beer. Is that normal?" Then I can go, "Really? Gosh, no, phenols are out of style for this beer. Mind if I taste that?" If it's a bad bottle, then I can go get you a different beer! Please don't tell me you think it's good just because you know I want you to like it.
They took the 'free as in beer' metaphor for certain kinds of software. Well, sometimes it works the other way: if you use my freebeer, and you detect a bug in it, report the freakin bug already!! Now I have to go check to see if my brewery has bad sanitation. I'm gonna have to re-do all the bottles (over 120 of them), all the fermenters and the tubing, maybe even replace some parts. Dang it. I'm worried about the two gorgeous batches I have in secondary fermentation now. 10 gallons of beer could be turning into mouthwash as we speak! Holy crisis on infinite earths, beerman.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-06 09:00 pm (UTC)Maybe you should consider an open source model of brewing to get some help on the sanitation process. ;>
And maybe after you go through this arduous task you may notice an improvement in flavor.
Eventually, of course, your brews will be flawless.