Syrupy beer

mordeith

I bottled a rosemary and fennel ale last week. I was just checking on it and the beer is very syrupy and bitter. Any ideas what's going on? No real sign of priming either.

BeerNut

mordeith wrote: »

Any ideas what's going on?

Without you posting the recipe and the vital statistics, no, we don't.

mordeith wrote: »

No real sign of priming either.

Either you primed it or you didn't

mordeith

BeerNut wrote: »

Without you posting the recipe and the vital statistics, no, we don't.

You're right. My bad. It was a basic 30 min (bit less maybe) boil of malt extract with bay leaves and fennel. Transferred to primary fermenter, added yeast and spray malt. Waited for FG and then bottled.
(I've made a rosemary and bay ale successfully in the same way a few times before)

Either you primed it or you didn't

I definitely primed. Bottles rinsed with Starsan
I'm guessing it might be infected though.

BeerNut

"Syrupy" is an odd descriptor for an infected beer. Normally they turn very dry and vinegary if a wild yeast gets in. Similarly, an infection is far more likely to result in overcarbonation than under.

I would blame the recipe, only you said you've done it successfully before. Get someone who can identify off-flavours to taste it, is my advice.

RasTa

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Bogwoppit

Syrupy is a new one on me, doesn’t sound like an infection.

I wonder if it fermented completely? The yeast may have died for some reason and left a lot of your malt unfermented, would also explain the lack of carbonation.

mordeith

Bogwoppit wrote: »

Syrupy is a new one on me, doesn’t sound like an infection.

I wonder if it fermented completely? The yeast may have died for some reason and left a lot of your malt unfermented, would also explain the lack of carbonation.

Yeah, could be. To give a better description it has a very viscous quality. Not as thick as flowing honey for example but definitely a lot thicker than beer should be. Took about 2 weeks to reach FG but there wasn't a huge amount of foaming either (not that that is necessarily an indicator of something wrong). I guess I'll just leave it for a few weeks and see it anything improves.

irish_goat

Did you dissolve the extract and spraymalt fully? Only thing I can think was did it maybe turn to syrup and not ferment out.

Any gravity readings?

mordeith

irish_goat wrote: »

Did you dissolve the extract and spraymalt fully? Only thing I can think was did it maybe turn to syrup and not ferment out.

Any gravity readings?

Almost certain I dissolved the spraymalt fully. Added it slowly to make sure. Only took readings at the end check primary had finishes. It was around 1010

RasTa

Only 1 week in bottles. Give it another 3 before checking again.

irish_goat

mordeith wrote: »

Almost certain I dissolved the spraymalt fully. Added it slowly to make sure. Only took readings at the end check primary had finishes. It was around 1010

A starting gravity would have been helpful here just to confirm the spraymalt defintely did dissolve. 1010 sounds bang on for a final gravity anyway though.

As above, give it another few weeks. Time is a great healer when it comes to homebrew. :pac:

mordeith

So I opened another bottle early this week and it improved drastically. Quite a sharp flavour but still very drinkable. Fennel has a lot of oil apparently so that probably contributed to the syrupy texture. I won't be using it as an ingredient again but at least I didn't have to dump the lot.