Kolsch tasting notes

The Kolsch is horribly estery. Similar to my other blonde ales. I almost can't drink it. I'm not sure if they are beer esters or acetaldehyde. I don't think it is acetaldehyde since that is usually from green (young) beer. This beer was in primary for three weeks. It was pitched cold at 55F and fermented at 65F. After three weeks it was moved to a keg and lagered at 34F. It been in the chest freezer for two weeks now and as it cleans up, the taste becomes more and more pronounced.

So either the taste was always there and as the yeast dropped out and stopped contributing to the flavor of the beer it became more apparent or as the beer sat in the keg it become more estery. I the former rather than the latter although I have no data to support my theory. What I need is a series of experiments to run this thing down. I've done some before like when I put the beer in plastic bottles and fermented it but I think I need to go a little more overboard here.

As I try to beat these easters out I'm continually going colder and pitching more and more yeast. Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe the right thing to do is pitch the correct amount of yeast at the correct temperature. Maybe the cold is what is upsetting the yeast and causing them to drop out of suspension.

One thing I'd like to note is that the starter for the Kolsch was different. First it was very hot. I left it in the garage and it was hot to the touch the next morning. Just before I pitched it, I smelled it and it smelled more estery than any starter I've ever had. Maybe that yeast was already stressed from the starter. Maybe pitching from the hot starter to the cold wort caused it to become stressed. There are a lot of variables here that I can't know. The next beer is a bitter and I'm going to do two things. First I will ferment at 69F. Haven't done that in a long time. Second I will cool the starter down to the pitching temp by adding wort before pitching.

It the bitter comes out wrong, I'm going to try to some more experimentation. Hell I might just do that anyway. One thing I thought of recently was that the chest freezer is a common element to all this eastery beer. Maybe when the freezer turns on it cools things too quick and causes the yeast to become unhappy. Maybe a good test would be to ferment a batch in the chest freezer and ferment a batch in a cold room in the house and compare.