Oops! I think I brainwashed myself into loving yeasty off flavors.
Lately all of my beer batches have come off tasting bland and flavorless to my palate. And my wife agrees mostly. So, today I went back through my notes. My first "bland" batch was immediately after I added a fermentation fridge into the equation. I had one or two non-bland ones after that, either where I knew the added flavor came from the ingredients and the other one was before I had the temperature control unit.
Before the fridge and TCU, all of my beers fermented "too high".
Funny thing, as you'll gather from above, I actually preferred those beers over the "properly" controlled ones.
As I've said in the past though, beer making is far from an exact science. It is very forgiving, and many recommendations make a ton of assumptions. Here, I think the assumption is the water. I have very hard water and I don't treat it. I think this might be why my hops flavors and aromas rarely (if ever) seem to come through. It may also be why I don't get the same off flavors from the yeasts everyone talks about. For instance, even when brewing at ambient house temps of 24C using US-05 I never once tasted or smelled banana and cloves.
Water chemistry will change how the yeast react. Maybe (and I know far too little on the topic for this to be anything but a wild theory) my water chemistry is such that the yeast aren't producing off flavors or at least not the expected ones, despite the warmer temps.
But then again, maybe my beers are turning out as they should and I just enjoy the off flavors produced by the warmer temps and I find beers bland without them.
Before the fridge and TCU, all of my beers fermented "too high".
Funny thing, as you'll gather from above, I actually preferred those beers over the "properly" controlled ones.
As I've said in the past though, beer making is far from an exact science. It is very forgiving, and many recommendations make a ton of assumptions. Here, I think the assumption is the water. I have very hard water and I don't treat it. I think this might be why my hops flavors and aromas rarely (if ever) seem to come through. It may also be why I don't get the same off flavors from the yeasts everyone talks about. For instance, even when brewing at ambient house temps of 24C using US-05 I never once tasted or smelled banana and cloves.
Water chemistry will change how the yeast react. Maybe (and I know far too little on the topic for this to be anything but a wild theory) my water chemistry is such that the yeast aren't producing off flavors or at least not the expected ones, despite the warmer temps.
But then again, maybe my beers are turning out as they should and I just enjoy the off flavors produced by the warmer temps and I find beers bland without them.
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