Home Brewing Tips

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Tips on Home Brewing

• The 5 Scary Things that Could be Lurking in your
  Beer.

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1. Acetaldehyde - The green apple flavor.

• Cause
• Occurs naturally during the fermentation process
• Its usually converted to alcohol during
  fermentation.
• Your yeast hasnt had enough time to convert all
  the Acetaldehyde into alcohol.
• Solution
• Simply allow your beer more time to age and
  condition.

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2. Chlorophenol - The plastic or medicinal taste.

• Cause
• Using chlorinated water at any point during the
  brewing process.
• Solution
• Never use chlorinated water during your brew.
• Tap water may have chlorine, avoid using it. Even
  to rinse equipment that will come into contact
  with the beer.

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3. Diacetyl - The bad butter flavor.

• Cause
• Natural by-product of brewing process.
• Yeast should naturally break down this chemical,
  however, mutated or unhealthy yeast will not be
  able to.
• Solution
• Aging should cure this problem, unless your yeast
  is mutated.
• Always use high quality, healthy yeast.

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4. Dimethyl Sulfide - Like vegetables in your
beer.

• Cause
• All malts have a chemical in them called S-methyl
  methionine (SMM).
• During the mashing and heating process this is
  converted to Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS). This is what
  causes the vegetable taste.
• Solution
• Luckily most of the DMS is evaporated during the
  boiling process.
• To be sure you evaporate all of the DMS, keep
  your brew at a rolling boil for 60 minutes.

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5. Astringency - Tastes tart, vinagery, or
metallic.

• Cause
• Astringency is usually caused by tannins found in
  grains. All grains have them.
• They are released when grains are steeped too
  long, too hot, or when they crushed too finely.
• Solution
• Never mill or crush your grains too finely.
• Always steep grains at the correct times and
  correct temperatures.

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