Bottled The Australian Pale Ale
1396 days agoFinally I had some time to spare and I decided to bottle the Australian Pale Ale I have brewed about 3 weeks back. Yes, I have been busy with work and my nephew had fallen sick a few days back, I had to go and take care of him. Poor boy, he had a very high fever. Anyways, the whole process of bottling took about 1 and a half hours. If you remembered, previously I used glass bottles to bottle the Hoegaarden clone. But this time, I used the old PET bottles I had. The reason is that I found no advantages of using glass bottles. Not only is it heavier and more difficult to handle, you need to be very careful as well. You won’t want bottle bombs which could be very dangerous. But I bottled 2 APA beers in glass so that I can age them longer.
Anyways, I had a little sample of the brew and I discovered that this time, there isn’t any some sort of weird flavour. In ALL my previous brews, I always felt that there is some little aftertaste which I can’t really describe and I can’t put my finger into. Sort of like a dull soapy feeling in the beers I had brewed. I have been very thorough in my sanitization all the time, so I doubt it could be infection. And even after I used different kits(like Cooper’s and Morgan’s) I still felt thatweird dull soapy taste in the beers. Perhaps it is due to the santiziers? The problem what that is I will always rinse off the rinser even for non-rinse sanitizers. I don’t like the smell and flavour of Iodophor in my beers. So,this could be possibly the “kit twang” that brewers often complain about. Kit twang usually comes from the metal can that the malt extract comes in. If it is kept under warm or hot conditions, this will cause the malt extract to darken and very likely the ingredients will no longer be fresh. Plus, the metal can will impart some metallic flavours into the malt extract. Possibly the cuase of the dull soapy flavour in the beer? Well, the thing is that nobody has actually describe this “kit twang” in detail before, so it very difficult to be sure. The good thing about this is that I no longer tasted this soapy flavour in this brew and I am happy. Note that this “dull soap” taste isn’t exactly strong in the previous brews. Once you drink the beer cold, you can hardly taste it at all.
First of all, this Cooper’s APA kit is a very new can. The due date is somewhere March 2010. Usually these kits will last about 2 years and so I am guessing that this APA can is about just 3 or 4 months old. Wow, talk about freshness. I will be brewing my next APA (with another can with the same expiry date) perhaps next week and I will compare the results. Hopefully, it will be just as delicious as this time. Thank you, iBrew for bringing in new and fresh kits for us to enjoy. You won’t want old kits when you are brewing beer. However, I believe that Homebrew has also brought in some new kits (Morgan’s) just a few months back. They are the Queenslander and the Chairman’s Selection from Morgan’s.You can also give them a try.
