This evening I bottled 3.25 gallons of the Palace Bitter I brewed almost two weeks ago. I had taken a hydrometer reading after a week of the beer sitting in a primary bucket, and I noticed a fairly sharp Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio or buttery smell, otherwise known as diacetyl.
I'm not exactly sure what to attribute the smell to; that is, what caused it to be so plentiful. It naturally occurs in fermentation, the science of which I'm no expert on, but I do know that the yeast also ends up cleaning it up at the end of the fermentation. I did what's called a diacetyl rest since Sunday where I let the beer warm up a few degrees (I did a little more than a few) to help the yeast get moving on cleaning up the butter.
Well, some 25 bottles later, and an hour and a half of sanitizing and bottling, then another 20 minutes cleaning up my primary bucket and every piece of equipment, and I finally got to trying the hydrometer sample of beer again. I didn't think it tasted any different than it did on Saturday or Sunday, whichever day it was that I tried it first.
Could it be that I should have let the beer sit another week or two? Maybe so. But I also wonder if there's something else that caused the very pronounced diacetyl flavor. I did pitch the yeast higher than normal (81 degrees F), but I have never read that that would be associated with diacetyl. Other byproducts of fermentation, sure, but diacetyl, not from my understanding.
If you have experience with this off flavor, leave a comment below and let us know about it.
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