Weizenbier a.k.a "Not So Good Ale" Sample

Last night after stopping up the Hulmeville Inn to meet the brewer of River Horse Brewing Co., I decided to crack open a Weizenbier to take a little sample. It has been sitting roughly 5 days, so I couldn't wait any longer.

The beer poured with a nice head as shown in the picture. The beer also smelled very good. So, I was hoping that the taste test I took on bottling day tasted bad because their was no sugar added in the beer. Sadly, I was wrong and the beer still tasted off. It still had an acidic/soapy aftertaste. The beer also looks very clear... probably from adding too much water. A weiss beer should be somewhat cloudy.

I can't really say much about this batch other than it was a learning experience.

Some reasons I have that may have ruined the batch:

1. We did not boil the water before topping off the wort. We used cold tap water which could have caused some of the off-aftertastes.


2. The lid was left off the wort while cooling down which may have let some germs in.


3. The yeast starter we made was from warm tap water. This water should of been boiled. Also, we did not cover the yeast starter while we were brewing.
   

I will be bottling the Fat Tire Amber Ale (clone) tomorrow. I will post some pictures for that process and try to document everything we did.

BONUS!

Here is a picture of my River Horse Burnt Sugar Ale from last night. It was a very tasty beverage.

Bottling Day - Weizenbier

Well... bottling day went well. We did not really have any issues as far as the bottling. All the tubing fit as needed. We picked up a auto-siphon, a bottling bucket and some empty bottles from the home brew shop. The bottling process went very smoothly, however, the beer tasted VERY watery.

Joe holding the tube

Racking the Weizenbier

Empty Bottles Drying

The Final Gravity (F.G) reading was exactly as it should of been at 1.010.

Hydrometer Reading of 1.010

The issue that pretty much 'effed up the batch was the fermenting bucket. The bucket we purchased in our kit did not have any of the gallon markers labeled on the side. So, when we originally made the beer, we assumed it was a 5 gallon bucket, and topped off the wort just a bit below the lid. The bucket is actually a 6.5 gallon bucket. This caused the batch to have a very watery taste to it. I also calculated the alcohol percentage to be around 2.6%. It should have been around 4% - 5%.

Joe Taste Test

Mark Taste Test

So, this has been a learning lesson, again! We did bottle the beer and I will give it a taste on Saturday (1 week). If it still tastes watery, it's going down the drain so I can use the bottles to bottle the Fat Tire Amber Ale.