I tasted my marzen today for the first time and it’s very yeasty and a much more cloudy and brown than it should be. I used a packet of rehydrated us 05 and fermented at around 62F. The gravity was in the normal range and I can’t think of anything that was abnormal. What could lead to yeasty flavors? Thanks for any help.
If it’s cloudy I would say too much yeast in suspension. How long did you ferment it? Did you secondary it? Did you have the beer in the fridge before you drank it?
First of all, it is not a Märzen because you used an ale yeast, so it is a “Mocktoberfest” or something of the sort. Second, most homebrewed beers will be too yeasty and cloudy for their respective styles unless you filter or fine or give a good long cold conditioning (meaning lagering). US-05 in particular is not the easiest yeast to get out of suspension. Next time, try (if you can), dropping the temperature of the fermenter down to 32F a few days after fermentation is complete. Give it a week or two at 32F, then ad some gelatin solution or isinglass (or other fining agent). Wait a few days or a week to bottle it. Your beer should be clear.
If you can’t do that, just look out for “highly flocculant” ale yeasts (like WLP002), and use them as much as you can. They will produce clearer beers without filtration or aggressive fining.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll take that into consideration. It was in primary for 20 days, no secondary. Bottled for a month and refrigerated for a day before drinking. I’m confused because I’ve used this same yeast before using the same techniques and none of my other beers tasted this yeasty. The only thing I can think of was that this was the first batch where I used a swamp cooler. I can only believe that would help though because the temp was in the low 60’s during the entire fermentation rather than in the high 70’s without it.
Give it a good week or two in the fridge and the bottles will clear a bit (meaning the yeast will fall into a sediment on the bottom of the bottle. Pour carefully and your beers will be clearer.
+1 to the fridge for a week trick. I do this with almost all beers with good results. I had a wheat beer turn out extremely yeasty, tasted horrible, from then on after a little research…and this is the common practice now. The batches are enjoyable work, but I’m not doing them for nothing!
