7 weeks in the bottle and not tasting good

jdk

Hi guys, I am onto my second brew and things don’t seem to be going too good. My first brew was a Woodfordes Wherry in the Barrel which was great but sadly is nearly finished. My current brew is a Woodfordes Admirals Reserve in Coopers bottles. The bottles are approaching the 7 week mark and I have to say does not taste very good – very bitter! Something that concerns me is that shortly after starting the brew I noticed that the sell-by date under the box had been tampered with. I suspect that the shop I bought it from does not shift much. I should have gone back to the shop but took a chance and carried on. Is it possible that the kit was stale? Do I abort and start again or carry on? If I carry on when should I abort? Cheers, J

HBO_Staff

The problem with out of date stock is not usually the extract in the tins, it is the yeast which if a long way out of date may not be up to the job of making it ferment properly, so if the yeast has failed it could mean the brew did not ferment properly and may account for the taste. The Admirals would normally take a while to taste it's best, but after 7 weeks it should be OK. What would help is if you have taken hydrometer readings, the final reading for an Admirals Reserve should be 1020 or below. You could leave it in the bottles for a few more weeks and try again and see if the taste has improved, if the fermentation was believed to be complete then it may well improve with time, it's a shame to throw away a brew so it's worth giving it a chance 

jdk

Thanks for your advice. I left the bottles a bit longer and am pleased to say that the taste has greatly improved. Admirals Reserve obviously takes longer than some of the other brews. I just hope that my Nelsons Revenge currently undergoing primary fermentation does not take as long.

HBO_Staff

Thanks for the update, it's great to hear it is improving. Temperature can be a major factor on the clearing and conditioning, leaving it even longer may well see further improvements to the taste too, this is especially so with the stronger tasting brews.

With your Nelsons try and keep the temperature around 20 degrees for the fermentation and for the first week after bottling/kegging, then put it somewhere a few degrees cooler to help it clear. The initial week in 20 degrees or so after bottling/kegging will help the priming sugar dissolve and secondary ferment