Brew Number

37

Style

Fleurs Mexican  FM 18/10

 Ingredients

Beermakers Mexican kit

Dry enzyme supplied with kit

1 kg dextrose

250 g corn syrup

Brewing notes

Boil 2 L water, add kit, dextrose, corn syrup, bring back to boil.  Add to fermenter with cold water and ice, make up to 23L total volume.  Wort temp 25 degrees.  Pitch enzyme and yeast together, stir in, 14 Oct 12pm. First bubble about 8 pm.  Fermentation temp about 22 degrees.  18 Oct, fermentation slowed to 1 bubble per 40s.  Decant through siphon tube, bulk prime with 7oz dextrose, bottle (29 long necks).  Store in shed for 2 days in case of incomplete fermentation.

Tasting notes

First attempt at a less flavoursome beer for Fleur.  Should be 5.2% ABV, medium body, low flavour.

30 Oct, 12 days old.  Pale amber colour, good carbonation and head, dry Mexican taste, limited body.  Has dry taste to the point of being slightly sour.

10 Nov – Good carbonation and head.  Dry, slightly sour taste remains, but good with slice of lemon.

17 Nov – Same, sour taste is pretty annoying, but can be masked with lemon.

3 Dec Sour taste seems to be less.

13 Dec Sour taste definitely declining, present only as slight aftertaste, becoming a much nicer beer, excellent carbonation and head.

19 Dec – a very dry and sour one, seemed to get a bit better after being left in the jug a while.

Further research suggests sour taste is YEAST BITE, a taste resulting from autolysis of dead yeast cells (the stronger yeast cells cannabilize the weak ones releasing the cell contents into the beer), caused by too long in fermenter (definitely not), pitching too much yeast (nope) suspended yeast (maybe a bit), bad conditioning (maybe the two days in the shed).

6 Jan – big improvement.  Not much sour taste, strong apple flavour, starting to taste like Mexicans previously have after about a week in the bottle.

10 Jan – slightly better, but still significant yeast bite – beer is not improving, but different bottles are affected to different degree.  Still looks very clear, suspect two days in shed were the cause.

Feb - you now, we have got to the point where there is no need to drink a beer we dont enjoy. The last 8 bottles of this brew went down the sink. Oh my trusty little yeast cell friends, why did you let me down?