Disaster

[a-slayer]

Hi folks
I thought I better share my latest brew with you all. A normal ten gallon all grain bitter made from maris otter and crystal malt, hopped with challenger and goldings in the boil with fuggles for the the last 15 mins. Fermented for a week and then bottling (which I always do), when I started bottling I thought yuk, oh no the dreaded phenol taste was there. Anyway to cut it short I only bottled six pints and then lost heart and chucked the rest.
That was a fortnight ago and last night by mistake opened one of the six pints I had bottled......hmm, thats good. I thought it must have been a mistake and found another, yep.. you guessed it, good as well. So folks the moral of my tale is "Don't write a brew of too soon, you never know what it might mature into"
I feel real pigsick now to think that I have poured 74 pints of nice brew away and unless I am real sure it is off I shall give it the benefit of the doubt.
We live and learn the hard way!

[MightyMouth]

I posted something similar in another thread though I am too much of a tightwad to actually throw beer away. Mine actually had the medicinal taste after a couple weeks in the bottle but I left it for a couple months and it turned good.

[a-slayer]

Wish I had been a tightwad as well.. it really is a nice beer now. Bugger....ah well live and learn.

[Zatoichi]

That is a truly heartbreaking story............. I almost had a tear in my eye 72 pints in this case down the Swanee!!! your right about live and learn it is indeed a learning curve but I think that i speak for all of us here when i say pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase never throw a batch away no matter how bad you think it went, just bottle or keg it and forget about it for a while before tasting and making a judgment!

I dont think i will be able to sleep tonight now......................... without having nightmares!!!!

[crookedeyeboy]

I had exactly the same sort of thing with my very first Wherry kit. It absolutely stunk of sulphur once fermented..chucked it all down the drain and kept a small sample at work. Lo and behold a few weeks later the sample tased amazing....again learning curves!

[a-slayer]

Zatoichi
I am dreadfully sorry about giving you nightmares.... have another beer or two to ward them off. But I just had to put pen to paper to save some other poor soul from making the same tragic mistake and really getting tears in their eyes!