Troubleshooting Higher Esters and Hot Alcohol in a Kolsch

[cdburg]

Yeah, I cleared a drawer in the refrigerator for them so they've just been chilling out in the dark. Haven't given them a full inspection in a while but they were still doing alright the last time I checked on them. I've wanted to get them in the ground for a while now, but Montana's 'spring' isn't very conducive to putting a shovel in the ground. IIRC, it's snowed 1-2x/week since they've showed up. We've finally had enough warm afternoons to thaw the ground out enough.

Impressive! Good luck! Hopefully, they take and grow pretty quickly.

[Ozwald]

Yeah, I cleared a drawer in the refrigerator for them so they've just been chilling out in the dark. Haven't given them a full inspection in a while but they were still doing alright the last time I checked on them. I've wanted to get them in the ground for a while now, but Montana's 'spring' isn't very conducive to putting a shovel in the ground. IIRC, it's snowed 1-2x/week since they've showed up. We've finally had enough warm afternoons to thaw the ground out enough.

Impressive! Good luck! Hopefully, they take and grow pretty quickly.

I made some good progress yesterday evening, but it rained all night & still hasn't let up. Not hard enough to have to redo anything, but enough that I'm not about to go work in it this morning.

[Ozwald]

Man you weren't kidding, they were trying to grow in the fridge. A couple of the Cascades had several tiny leaves forming already on 4" shoots. I had to chop off a little bit of mold; I left the paper towel in the bags, figuring just opening them would be enough, but you sent me way more than enough. There were a couple dozen eyes on the Cascades & just a few less on the Centennials. I dug the holes about 5' down - I would've gone further but I didn't have a post holer & it was starting to get difficult with just my dirt shovel. Got some good quality soil in there, plenty of nutrients, we should be rockin'! Thanks again brotha. I saved the return address off the package; as soon as I get all this new brewing equipment dialed in (I've been doing massive upgrades for the last 4 months) I'll send you some brew. Since our season is so short & these went in so late, I'm not planning on much of a harvest this year, but I'll definitely send a bottle of fresh hop if I can get enough.

[cdburg]

Man you weren't kidding, they were trying to grow in the fridge. A couple of the Cascades had several tiny leaves forming already on 4" shoots. I had to chop off a little bit of mold; I left the paper towel in the bags, figuring just opening them would be enough, but you sent me way more than enough. There were a couple dozen eyes on the Cascades & just a few less on the Centennials. I dug the holes about 5' down - I would've gone further but I didn't have a post holer & it was starting to get difficult with just my dirt shovel. Got some good quality soil in there, plenty of nutrients, we should be rockin'! Thanks again brotha. I saved the return address off the package; as soon as I get all this new brewing equipment dialed in (I've been doing massive upgrades for the last 4 months) I'll send you some brew. Since our season is so short & these went in so late, I'm not planning on much of a harvest this year, but I'll definitely send a bottle of fresh hop if I can get enough.

Sounds awesome! Good luck!

[cdburg]

An update on this, for anyone who is interested... I let a bottle of the Kolsch age in a cabinet in the kitchen for about 3 weeks to stress it and see if any off flavors intensify. I put a second bottle in the fridge. I opened both this afternoon, and tasted them side by side.

Both have definitely developed some band-aid type phoenolics. Those in the room temp stressed version are definitely stronger. I would also describe the stressed version as being more minerally, with almost a baking soda or club soda flavor. The esters in the stressed version are also more pronounced and the color is slightly darker.

Based on the results, I'm thinking that the beer picked up an infection somewhere. I think the culprit may have been the plate filter I used. After checking out everything else, I remembered that I also filtered this batch. The filter tubing hasn't been changed in a while, and it had a few suspect spots in it. I'm going to replace all of the tubing in the filter and the transfer equipment before the next batch and see if it makes a difference.

[spiderwrangler]

Yeah, soft parts like tubing are prone to hanging onto things like that. Have you used the filter on anything since?

[Ozwald]

Yeah, soft parts like tubing are prone to hanging onto things like that. Have you used the filter on anything since?

+1

Soft parts are definitely prone to infections if you're not careful

[spiderwrangler]

Soft parts are definitely prone to infections if you're not careful

So as long as your parts stay hard, you're fine.