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I've found nothing works better than a Dr. Beer (doctored beer) type seminar, where you have several participants (hopefully some more experienced) tasting a fairly neutral beer with specific flavors added to allow the participants to experience the single flavor, identify it and associate a name/description with it and understand how and why it might come ...

The only way to train your palate is through practice. You can read about, theorize upon, meditate over taste descriptions, but to really get to know them, you have to practice. You can learn the aroma of the different hops by smelling some in your hands repeatedly until you can blindly identify each one. That's a helpful practice, but to really get to ...

There may be a bit of tasting elitist that goes with smelling before tasting, but in my experience smell, aroma, and most importantly, oxygen is key to getting the full taste/experience. I'm not talking about smelling it, setting it back on the table, commenting to your buddy how you detect hints of cherries, then picking it back up and taking a big swallow ...

Not in my experience. I did a test where I used corn sugar, cane sugar, brown sugar, honey and DME (maybe even something else) and also force carbonated a split batch. After 2 months of conditioning, none of the tasters in a blind test could distinguish one from the other, and no one exhibited a preference for any one method.

Somewhat. Lack of carbonation can really alter the flavor, but you should be able to pick out major characteristics or flaws in the beer. But I wouldn't advise reaching any real conclusions until the beer is carbed and has an appropriate conditioning time. That time will vary from beer to beer.

I would get hold of another sachet of yeast as a backup. If you have a local homebrew store, almost any type of yeast will work for this kit, but I'd recommend Safale US-05 if you can get that, since that will give you a cleaner profile. If they have liquid yeasts, then Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001 will produce equivalent results. Once you've got hold of ...

A few possible reasons come to mind: If you have added the same amount of sugar to each bottle (as opposed to adding directly to your bucket) then you have different "gravities" and depending on how much it's fermented, different flavour profiles. If you have left a large headspace in the bottle during the carbonation phase, you might find that the ...

Its not so much what others taste, its what you taste. Try putting your own words to a flavor descriptor first. Then compare it to some one elses notes. Maybe cherries aren't the best descriptor for your palate. But you do taste something, so what is it? Don't doubt your own palete and what its telling you. Taste is so subjective. And it takes ...

Sugar adds alcohol and lowers body. Small amounts of table sugar won't affect flavor much, but large amounts can yield a taste that's described as "cidery". Brown sugar will add some small amount of flavor, but not as much as you might expect. If you like your dark ales light bodied and high alcohol, go ahead and add some sugar. It's not, as far as I know, ...

You could try to just make a hop tea, either using a coffee press or just stirring it into the boiling water and letting the hops settle out. I think that should give you a good idea of the hop's aroma and flavor without any other hops or malts covering it up. Alternatively, just boil 2 quarts of water and add your hops. After 10 minutes, pour off a ...

The "yeasty" taste is most likely due to the ester production of the yeast. Esters can impart a variety of flavors, including banana, pear, plum, fruitiness, bubblegum, apricot, etc. A number of factors control ester production: Yeast strain Different strains produce different amounts of esters Temperature Higher temp = more esters Oxegenation Lower ...

The problem: As C4H5As said, the half-full bottle may have been under-carbonated due to having so much headspace. You also may have had more oxidation due having so much more air in the bottle initially. John Palmer has a list of Common Off-Flabors and says that oxidation causes "wet cardboard or sherry-like flavors". The solution: When I'm bottling, I ...

If you have a local homebrew club that has semi-regular meetings, they will often have tastings and such where you can hear other people describe the things that they're tasting. A lot of it is learning to be watchful for certain smells and flavours. You may taste them and not know it, or you may be more or less sensitive to certain flavours and scents. ...

Brew Strong made a great podcast about metals in beer. http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/Brew-Strong/Brew-Strong-09-29-08-Metals-that-Affect-Your-Beer It could potentially be some degrading or poor cleaning of your brew kettle. If your grinders blades actually touch that could definitely be it. You do want your grains to remain a little coarse. It ...

I had this problem when I first started. I found I was adding too much iodophor. I was told to add until "it looks like apple juice". Turns out my mental picture of apple juice is much darker than the LHBS guy's. To fix your problem: Either go with Brewchez's suggestion of half a box of baking soda and soak the bucket overnight, or fill it with HOT ...

One of the biggest pitfalls and arguments against plastic is the fact that it absorbs flavor. Most sanitizers we use in brewing have about a 30 second contact time. That means that after 30 seconds, the vessel should be sanitized. Note: Sanitizers only work if the thing you're sanitizing is already clean. You can't sanitize soil. Anyway, that could very ...

If you're not drinking beer for the smell, you're missing out. Hops provide bitterness, flavor and aroma. I love the smell of a good IPA, just as much as the flavor. Aroma adds a dimension to beer, and can also change the way it tastes (usually for the better). To take your analogy further, consider the aroma as DVD extras. Sure you can just watch the ...

"Many aromatics in beer are quite volatile and tend to dissipate rapidly. Quickly sniff a beer after it’s poured to detect these. Also note how the aroma changes over time." This is from the article written by Gordon Strong (BJCP President) on Beer Evaluation for the Homebrewers Association. To read the full article ...

In terms of the basic senses, flavor comes from the sense of taste, which is primarily from the tongue. There are 5 types of flavor the tongue can detect: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and savory (the last one is a relatively new discovery.) Our sense of smell can detect an almost infinite number of different smells, since a single smell is really a combination ...

Many beers also taste different from how they smell, and so you get the full experience of the beer by smelling it first. That difference can be quite substantial in a sour beer or one fermented with brettanomyces (A sour/malty/goaty flavor combined with the scent of bad feet or good cheese). The smell of a beer can also be an indicator of quality. If ...

From the information in your post your beer sounds green to me. Less experienced brewers tend to rush the process along, and they also have less than ideal fermentation practices. I'd recommend you start pitching 2X packs of dry yeast, or be sure to rehydrate the one you do use in clean sterile water. I'd also watch the fermentation temps and time. Let ...

On one of the recent Basic Brewing podcasts, one of the commercial brewer interviewees said they simulate staling by subjecting a bottle to extended high temperatures. Stick a bottle behind your refrigerator or on top of your water heater for a week. That, apparently, will accelerate some of the staling reactions you're interested in.

I think you can taste "stale" in hoppy beers that have been sitting around for a while. It's definitely a matter of personal opinion, but try a super hoppy beer the day it comes off the line, and try one after its been on the shelf for a few months. A great example of this is 90 minute. Or, to try at home, dry hop a pale ale or IPA, and let it sit in ...

Yep, it seems it does affect it. You will get lower carbonation at higher elevation and also the boil temperature is lower in higher elevation. See a forum post and communication on HomeBrewTalk: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/effects-altitude-carbonation-1523/ "The other issue is when you drink the beer. Since you are at altitude when you open and drink ...

The most common methods of carbonating your beer will not offer differing flavor profiles, but there are exceptions. When force carbing, your only addition to the beer is the gas itself, CO2. When using corn sugar, your addition to the beer is 100% fermentable, so the CO2 gas your looking for is created, with no sweetness (or flavor) left behind. The ...

Possibly, although "yeasty" is a tough flavor descriptor to get a handle on. T-58 is a Belgian yeast and has many flavors that are different from other yeast, no matter what the temp. High temps can exacerbate that. Frankly, if you can't keep the temp under 70, you should consider alternative methods of fermentation, like using a refrigerator or water ...

I think its a function of whether one likes the flavors it contributes. Its pretty subjective person to person. I for one think my dark ales are fine without the need of sugars. Using things like brown sugar, maple syrup, honey or molasses can add a different dimension. But straight up sugar really doesn't do anything for the beer. If your fermentation ...

Airlines routinely select their wines and foods to account for taste differences during flight, nothing that they taste typically less sweet in the air, although this is more to do with the in-flight conditions - pressurized climate, dry air dehydrating passengers, harsh light, engine noise etc, all go to affect the perceived taste of the wine and food. In ...

Agreed, you have to 'see past' the lack of carbonation, and I have found that the lighter, lower ABV beers that have had a yeast that settles really well do taste OK at bottling at as little as 7 days and are a good indication of the final outcome at say a few weeks or a month in a bottle. I've brewed some with Nottingham yeast that already seem ready to ...

It seems to me that you are describing phenols when you talk about the "plastic bag burp" taste. Phenol production does vary quite a bit from one yeast strain to another with the Bavarian weizen yeasts and many Belgian yeasts producing more desirable phenols. Unwanted phenols produce a medicinal, band-aid, smoky, or plastic aroma and flavor. These are ...