st peters gold.....disaster

kenmac

I brewed a batch of st peters gold in mid December.
Gave it a week primary, a week secondary and dry hopped for a week.
Batch primed with dextrose, boiled for ten mins.
Opened two tonight and they taste awful....like fizzy wort actually.....the only thing I can think of is that I created a few bubbles while siphoning to the bottling bucket....should I persevere or dump?

Martyn1989

Any off flavours like vinegar or the likes?

kenmac

Martyn1989 wrote: »

Any off flavours like vinegar or the likes?

No....just very like unbrewed beer....carbonation is quite strong....went for 2.3 volumes....think I got more than that...

BeerNut

What hops did you use? How much? And have you any idea how old they were? Sounds like underhopping to me.

Also, what was your FG?

Martyn1989

A few bubbles while siphoning has never caused major problems with my brews, you can rule that out. I wouldn't dump them either until you need the bottles, you never know.

Ive heard of those kits coming with hop powder sachets and stuff, was all that included? Check the instructions? (Just checked the homebrew companies web site and they list hop enhancers with other kits but not with the golden ale so I'd say your safe there)
Heres Craigtube unboxing a ruby red kit, skip to 1.40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWiIV5Cvmq4

The kit is designed to make 36 pints which is 4.5 imperial gallons or 5.4 US gallons. Could you have just added too much water?

Best off follow Beernut check your FG, if it hasn't fermented it would taste very sweet.

kenmac

I used the hop powder but I think i may have filled to 23lts....I got 40 500ml bottles out of it...og was 1.050 and fg was1.008.

Martyn1989

So by a quick calculation the kit should have been topped up to 20l (20.4l).
Surely if you topped up to 23l it wouldnt completely destroy the brew but just make it taste a little watery?

Your OG and FG is fine, the OG seems a little high for a kit and the FG shows the yeast worked there way down quite well.

Have you checked if the measurements on your fermenter are accurate, I have one thats a fair bit out and one thats fairly accurate.

pobrien

I brewed this in Oct, I think it really needs about 2 months conditioning for best results. It does have quite a rich golden syrupy taste to it. Maybe worth giving it another month to mellow.

(Sidenote: Had a pint of it from cask in UK last week, kit was very close to it, lacked a bit of hoppy freshness to it, still was 90% there though).

kenmac

Thanks for all your advice folks....I've decided to forget about it for a month or so....I'm not stuck for bottles and not having beer to hand has helped the old waistline a bit too...I have another pale ale in secondary at the moment so I'll try them both together in 5 or 6 weeks time and report back