My second gruit just finished carbonating, and it came out the same as my first. It has a strong tart fruit flavor with an acidic bite. When my first batch came out like this I assumed it was bacterial infection due to some improper sanitation methods and shoved it away to age. This time I thouroghly sanitized everything, and even skipped secondary clarifying just in case. Both times the beer tasted great coming out of the primary, and both times was undrinkable out of the bottle. If anyone has advice or info I'd appreciate it since I really want this to turn out. As soon as my paycheck comes I may be willing to send a bottle to anyone with experience in gruits if it'll help diagnose what's wrong.

Here's the recipe

7lb light malt extract
3/4 lb Roasted Barley
1/4 lb Chocolate Malt
1/4 lb 60 Crystal Malt
1/4 lb CaraPills
1 tsp Irish Moss
2.5 oz Yarrow
1.5 oz Bogmyrtle
1 oz Sweet Gale
1 oz Fennel Seed
Nottingham Ale Yeast

First time I made it I added the sweet gale and fennel right at flame out and the second time I dry pitched them.

How long has the previous batch been aging? What effects did the aging have on it, if any?

Cheers,
Dave

I just grabbed a bottle of the old stuff. It's been aging just shy of 2 months. The fruity taste is less strong, but more distinct and has a stronger sour character to it now. The bottle I just poured was much clearer then any of the previous bottles. I would be tempted to blame it on the bottling equipment but I've bottled other batches with no prob. I'm really annoyed beause I apparently bottled 5 more gallons of steak marinade.

I've sat and sipped on it for awhile and after some research the phrase oxidation keeps popping in my head. However if this is oxidation it's on some intense steroids to dramaticly ruin this beer like this. So all that to say. Could the ingrediants I used make this yummy beer highly suceptable to oxidation? Or am I grasping at straws? My bottling method has always been carboy to bottling bucket and bucket to bottles. This has never allowed oxidation to even dramaticly flavor any of my other beers. So is there something about this recipe that's different. The change always comes after the beer is in the bucket so that's why I'm wondering if it's oxidation.