Time to taste our latest batch of Sahti. It's batch number five. The drink is now three weeks one day old, that is pretty much optimal. We also brewed a couple of Sour Ales of the second runnings of the wort, they are still developing. The sixth Sahti we brewed yesterday plus some other beers. This is an interesting hobby, I must say, although the end product is not always up to the level of my expectations. More than the beers themselves, this is a learning process where, I hope, the curve goes upwards. Remains to be seen. A case in point is our Sahti brewing. The first two batches were successful since we followed the instructions. With the third and fourth batches, we sort of slipped away from the formula and thought we remembered how the process was supposed to go. Well, shit happened and we didn't. First we made a mistake with temperatures that we learned from the internet. We failed and abandoned that. Then we thought we had corrected the failure but didn't realize that we had another, bigger problem that we noticed only when we had already brewed the fourth batch: we took the wort out of the mash and then brought the wort to boiling point whereas we should have done it vice versa. Well, glad that we realized that we had done it differently in batches 3 and 4. Now, batch 5. We have done this Sahti according to the original instructions. However, the ABV ended at 6.1 % only. "Shallow Waters" describes it well... The amount of malt looked smaller than before although I thought we had weighed it correctly. My explanation is a measurement error. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Just when we thought that we knew how to proceed. Obviously we weren't vigilant enough. That's also the reason why we brewed the sixth batch as early as yesterday. The Sahti looks rather limpid and raisin brown. Faint bubbles emerge on the surface and die then away. The scent is rather pleasant: a good amount of sweet malt, nice ripe banana, cantaloupe and a suggestion of clove. Clove originates from the baking yeast. The olfactory provision is decent but clearly thinner than it could be. The taste is what I was afraid of: basically okay with most required components present but unfortunately rather thin. Not thin as I would say a thin beer is but thin compared to what a good Sahti should be. As to the composition, the taste profile portrays medium-sweet malt, a tad slightly fermented banana, a pinch of bun, faint apricot and a silent sigh of clove. Additionally, there's also a slightly dry note of citrus. As a conclusion, the gustatory experience is decent, not even close to a wow, and unfortunately thin as already reflected and falls short of the wanted sweetness. On the other hand, I have sometimes had similar forays by commercial breweries that don't have experience in brewing Sahti but still produce a small batch for the first time or only seldom for special events. In the same vein as they are not successful, this batch is not successful either. The light-bodied Sahti finishes with fermented banana, medium-sweet malt, a pinch of apricot and a suggestion of bitter orange peel. I expected that the aftertaste would disappear hastily but it actually dances in birchbark shoes with the tastebuds for some time. The mouthfeel is, first and foremost, light, which is an unexcusable handicap. The mouthfeel is merely remotely lip-glueing and faintly dry. The satiating fullness is totally missing. Not much to write for the future generations. Brewed, tasted, reviewed, forgotten. Sailing is full of unexpected risks as we have noticed. Repetitio est mater studiorum. The sixth batch is already on its way.