Bad taste - ready to quit - Help!

The only thing I can think of is bad sanitation of bottles or other things you use for bottling, since the bad taste appeared after bottling.

I'm not sure if I understood correctly what you wrote: do you boil the

extract or not? Boiling no-boil kits like Cooper's is not a good idea. They've already been boiled sufficiently when they've been made, and boiling them will vaporize a lot the aroma from the hops.

What temp are you steeping the grains? What are you using to sanitize things with? How much of the sanitizer are you using? Are you sanitizing everything that comes in contact with the beer? How are you cooling your wort? Run us through your brew procedure..

Heath

I was concerned about sanitation as well and tried to be very careful. I have been using Idophor solution for all brewing items. For the bottles I cleaned with B-Bright and brush, then used dishwasher extra long cycle (w/ heated dry) to sanitize. Maybe it wasn't enough. Yes, I did boil the extract. I had read that was the normal procedure even though the kit did not require it.

OK, here what I did with the latest brew (Nut Brown Ale):

1) Brought 2 gal. filtered tap water in brew pot to 160 degrees 2) Added grains (in muslin bag), steeped for about 25 min. 3) Removed grain bags (no sparge), added extract, put back on heat to bring to boil 4) At boil, added boiling hops (1 hr. to go) 5) After 30 min. added flavor hops 6) With 5 min to go, added aroma hops 8) Off heat, removed all hops (all were in bags), Cooled pot in sink (3 basin fulls with ice) 9) Poured wort into bucket, added 3 gal ice cold spring water, waited about 10 min, then temp about 75 10) Took sample with sanitized meas. cup 10) Added yeast from foil pouch, shook to aerate wort, 11) Sealed plastic fermenter, inserted air lock (maintained at 68 deg.) 12) Transferred to carboy after 1 wk. (smooth siphon, no problems) 13) After one more week at 68 deg., transferred to bottling bucket w/ 3/4 cup boiled and cooled corn sugar/water mix, then bottled into sanitized bottles (cleaned by hand then run through dishwasher w/ heated dry). Bottles kept at room temp (about 74).

All brewing and bottling items were sanitized with iodophor solution (1/2 tsp/gal. for minimum of 3 min). Usually do not rinse solution off.

OG was 1.050, FG was 1.015.

You shouldnt run anything that you use to brew in the dishwasher. The detergent has elements in it that arnt good for beer. Also you should be soaking the bottles in idopher before bottling, Im unclear if you are doing this. Also in dishwashers (and those of us that use them know) that small particles can still be dryed onto the bottles and if there is even a small speck of food or whatever that stays in the bottle and gets dryed on during the drying cycle this could have bacteria in it. Also your bottling bucket, are you taking the spigot apart and cleaning the threaded part after each use? When you are cooling your wort are you covering it? Im betting that the bottles are the problem though, and possibly your priming bucket(spigot area). You said after your first batch everything after that tasted weird. So Im assuming your using the same bottles? If not are the bottles recycled from store bought beer? Bottles can be hard to clean, and soaking them sometimes is the best thing. Another way to sanitize the bottles is to put them in the oven at 200 for about 15-20 min than remove and cover them with a peice of aluminum foil. You dont have to do that because a good soak in idopher works great.

Heath

Take a look at this site

it has some suggestions of "off" flavors for beers, the closest I can relate to your problem would be Phenolic/Medicinal because of the rubbery/band-aid taste. Although it suggests this is caused by excessive chlorine in your water...you used spring water, I'm assuming purchased at a local store. You may want to fill your kettle the night before & allow the water to sit over night to ensure all the chlorine evaporates. But if this is spring water...it _shouldn't_ be applicable...unless the store is adding chlorine to ensure purity. And most filters do not remove chlorine, unless it is stated by the manufacturer, you may want to check into that.

Also, it does not hurt to do a "last minute" addition with your extract (if it is liquid), since the extract in the can is sterile, you don't really need to boil it the full 60 minutes. Make sure you turn off the heat first though before adding it. Not too sure this is true for dry extract...I'm an all grain brewer so don't do much with extract.

Another thing you may want to consider is adding your hot (or warm) wort into your sanitized bucket already filled with cold water, instead of cold water to your hot wort, it's much safer this way. Also, ensure the hot wort does not splash at all to cause Hot Side Aeration, which can also cause off flavors. And NEVER add ice to your wort to cool it. As a Public Health inspector I can vouch for the fact that 90%+ of our bacteria positive water samples come from ice...not water.

You may want to check your fermentation temps and make sure they match the yeasts recommendations. 68 is a good temp for ales & ale yeast, but it may not be recommended for your yeast...especially if your using lager yeast. (you did not specify which type). If you are reusing yeast...STOP!! This could be your problem, contaminated yeast, use a new packet or vial in your next batch.

Other than that, as everyone suggested, sanitation, sanitation, sanitation. Also ensure all of your wares are well rinsed to prevent your cleaning/sanitizing agent from contaminating your wort/beer.

I hope you find the cause of your problem...it can be very frustrating if it keeps occuring. Best of luck.

Kent

Good web page reference - thanks. It does sound like the phenolic problem, but my good batch was the second one, and I used all tap water for that one. Plus, my last batch was 3/5 spring water from the store and it HAD the bad taste. So, I'm thinking it might not really be chlorine. As for fermentation temps. I should have been OK, I specifically chose yeasts with higher recommended temps and was well within them. Of the other causes listed for this problem it could be wild yeast contamination, or maybe its the "boiling grains", although I'm sure temp did not go over 170 with the grains. Could boiling the extract also cause a similar problem? I guess it might also just come down to sanitation. As another poster suggests, maybe use of the dishwasher is not totally effective.

In my very first brew, I had new bottles and sanitized them in a chlorine solution. This batch actually did have the bad taste. In brews 2-4 I was not soaking the bottles in any sanitizer, just cleaning and using the dishwasher to sanitize (I had read that it worked for others). The bottling bucket spigot could be the culprit - I did not think to take it apart. When cooling the wort I did have it tightly covered. When I compared the 3 bad batches with the one good one, the only thing that stands out is that the good brew was all extract and used no steeped grains, or hops. I don't see what, but perhaps that's where I did something wrong. Or, maybe I just was better at sanitizing that time!

soak your bottles in idophor before every bottling sesson.!! thats your culprit

heath

Some people do claim that boiling is optional or that it'll make the beer out of a beer kit better. They're just wrong.

If you are making a beer from hopped extract without adding anything, there's simply no need to boil it. The extract in the can is sterile enough, so you don't need to worry about that.

If you want to add some steeped grains, you should boil the water after

steeping, add the extract to that, and after this just add the cold water.

I'm an extract brewer myself, mostly because I don't have the equipment

needed for all grain brewing, and also because getting the ingredients where I live would be quite difficult. I've made about a dozen batched of beer, of which only two have been not so good.

The first bad one was a pilsener, and while it did taste good it was overly carbonated because I bottled it too soon. The second one was a wheat beer for which I boiled the extract. The taste was ok, but it was the only batch I've ever had that suffered from chill haze.

So based on my very limited experience I'd say that boiling hopped extracts is not a good idea. There are also beer kits that especially instruct not to boil the wort (Munton's Gold and Premium Gold). The british Woodforde's beer kits encourage boiling, but also state that if you boil the extract then you need to add hops in order to make the beer good.

And finally you may want to check the Annapolis Home Brew website, and

from there the "No-boil beer kits" section:

After reading the above responses, I went to reference my Al Korzonas book, Homebrewing Vol.1. There are two other possibilites not yet touched upon. First, Korzonas recommends limiting the ratio of water to steeping grains to no more than 1 gal/lb of grain. Why? At this ratio the PH stabilizes at 5.2 to 5.5. Using much more water per lb. than this results in a high PH, which extracts undesirable compounds from grains. Next, there is a possibility of damage from prolonged exposure to light. This reacts with the hops in the beer to produce a skunky aroma , which could be the "rubbery" smell you referred to. I always cover my primary with something, even an old raincoat, altho a safety-pinned towel works as well. In secondary, a bath towel folded over itself is sufficient.

JS may have something, but skunking is just that, "skunky" and really cant be confused with the rubbery smell. INproper PH can lead to the extraction of tannins(high mash temps can cause this aswell. Tannins will give an acidic flavor and possibly could be confused with the rubber smell. I recomend another tasting. Do this after work before you eat or drink anything. When I mash, my grain ratio is always over the amount of water added. For instence 20# grain to 9 gals of water.

Heath

Yes, but in his case, he's steeping/extract brewing, not mashing/all-grain. It's easy to make the mistake of too much water in relation to grains when steeping before an extract brew.

Sounds like that would be a good idea. What solution do you use? How long do you soak them?

I think I was right on the ratio for my last brew at least, and I did have the glass fermenter covered with a towel so these two ideas are probably not the cause.

Just use idophor in the same ratio you sanitize anything else. Get a bucket and soak multiple in them. Clean that priming bucket, sanitize that as well.

What I would use to do before i started kegging, was to fill my priming bucket with sanitizer, and soak bottles in that. 2 birds ya know..

Heath

Have you solved the problem? What was it, or are you still open to suggestions?

Avery Brew on brother! SW US desert

Boiling it will remove the chlorine immediately. Leaving it a couple of days might pose a slight risk of contamination while it is sitting around ..... I imagine you keep it tightly covered.

Chloramines will not be removed this way, but their effect on the brew is debateable, and there might not be any in your water.

steveb