Funny after taste to all my homebrew

Hi, I've been home brewing for about 8 months, I've done a batch of coopers European, Canadian blonde and a porters ale, they've been bottled for 4-5 month now the fizz is perfect but they have a funny aftertaste, just after any advice as I want to brew done more but want to get it better this time or is that just the taste of Homebrew??? Cheers

What is the taste you are getting?

what I mean is can you compare to any texture or flavor others could relate to such as buttery, acrid etc.

You're probably experiencing what many people would refer to as "extract twang." It's kind of a sweet, maybe even a little metallic aftertaste. The jury is still out on what exactly causes it, but the best information I've seen to date blames stale liquid malt extract.

It's why I switched to all-grain. Hasn't been a problem for me since.

I would say it's acidic, it's not horrible just everyone mentions it, do yous think ill always get it off the coopers kits or is all grain the way??

RobJ said:

I would say it's acidic, it's not horrible just everyone mentions it, do yous think ill always get it off the coopers kits or is all grain the way??

Click to expand...

Probably the extract. Switch to another brand, buy fresh, or use DME instead. Use steeping grains for flavor and color, do not rely on canned premixed stuff.

Make 100% sure you don't scorch the LME (or DME) when you add it to your boil kettle. 100% as in: turn the heat OFF, and add slowly while stirring like crazy until it is all well dissolved. Then turn the heat back on. When you clean your BK and you see any darkening or residue stuck on the bottom, you're scorching. Stir more next time.

Also split your LME additions up, like 1/3 to 1/2 at beginning of boil and add the balance at flameout. It will improve your beer drastically.

RobJ said:

I would say it's acidic, it's not horrible just everyone mentions it, do yous think ill always get it off the coopers kits or is all grain the way??

Click to expand...

I am new to brewing....but it might be a yeast infection. Some professional brewers.....please, correct me if I am wrong.

By the way....do you sanitize all ur equipment thoroughly?

I think you should edit your 1st message...and detail a little bit your brewing process and the taste. Do you brew all-grain or extract beer?

RobJ said:

I would say it's acidic, it's not horrible just everyone mentions it, do yous think ill always get it off the coopers kits or is all grain the way??

Click to expand...

I have never done extract brewing so here is my guess at answering this a bit.

I would say it depends on how you are buying it, in store you should be able to check mfg dates and get the freshest you can. If buying online you don't have even that option to go with so it becomes a crapshoot of sorts.

Many brew extract with no off flavors, so it definitely isn't a fault of extract brewing and you can get off flavors just the same way with old grain doing AG brewing, but it is less likely.

The "extract twang" is a cooked malt sort of flavor that doesn't come from stale extract. That's a whole nuther flavor. Extract twang comes from mailard reactions,particularly with LME. It'll darken & produce that flavor moreso than with DME. Usually from using to much or all the extract at the beginning of the boil. When I brew AE,I prefer to use 1/2 of a 3lb bag of plain DME in the 2.5-3.5 gallon boil for hop additions. You'll get a bit more utilization of the hops with a lighter wort. Then add the remaining DME & all the LME at flame out. This'll work fine,as the wort is still boiling hot at that point,& pasteurization happens @ 160F. Stir it in thoroughly,then cover & steep for a couple minutes. C hill wort & proceed as usual. This will give lighter color & cleaner flavor. And good hop flavors.
Here's a list of off flavors to ponder as well; http://draftmag.com/offflavors/
And the wiki on maiilard reactions; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Do you make starters and control fermentation temp correctly? Your case may be different but after starters and correct temp control just about all off flavors in my beer went away (even in my extract batches that I made before I went to all grain). I'd venture to say that these two areas are about 80% of the battle. At least in my case it was.

Water treatment with brewing salts took care of any other off flavors I was getting with all base malt beers or beers with a lot of highly roasted malts. Since my water was kind of middle of the road I was having slight problems with really light and really dark beers.

Thanks a lot guys, AG is the way then, good to get some advice as I don't want to keep wasting my time on kits, I'm gona check out some recipes and go for it, ill keep in touch and let you know how I get on, cheers ;-)

IL1kebeer said:

Do you make starters and control fermentation temp correctly? Your case may be different but after starters and correct temp control just about all off flavors in my beer went away. I'd venture to say that these two areas are about 80% of the battle. At least in my case it was.

Water treatment with brewing salts took care of any other off flavors I was getting with all base malt beers or beers with a lot of highly roasted malts. Since my water was kind of middle of the road I was having slight problems with really light and really dark beers.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I was going to say, except that I also moved to full boils when I was doing extract. I get pretty vigorous boils going and lose just under 2 gallons/hour. So I always started with what I needed to not have to top off either. This, adding the LME later in the boil and what was said above really improved my beer. The last few extract brews I made really didn't have any of the "twang" or other off flavors that people usually associate with extract.

Kebeer, I was really good with the temp control I think I had it spot on, I used tap water in the three batches so do u think it cud b that? Cheers

Kebeer, what do u mean by making starters??

I make AWARD winning PM brews.

Only brews with any "twang" are dark beers with not enough base grain to mellow the ph.

Baking soda goes in all of my dark beers. No twang. No kits either, maybe that is your problem.

I went AG. For the trouble and minimal savings I went back to using ALL pale DME and grains.

RobJ said:

Kebeer, what do u mean by making starters??

Click to expand...

Best results are achieved by pitching the right amount of healthy yeast. Making a starter is pretty much making a mini beer ( 1-2 liters, maybe more for a lager or really high OG beer). This will grow your initial yeast pitch to a level that will ensure a healthy fermentation. There are different calculators to figure out how much yeast you need for a given wort.

www.yeastcalc.com
www.mrmalty.com

I saw that you mentioned that you thought going all grain will solve your off flavor problem. My advice is that if your off flavors are coming from low pitching rates and pitching unhealthy yeast then you should stay extract and address those issues first. These off flavors will still be preset if you go AG and underpitch by a significant amount.

RobJ said:

Kebeer, I was really good with the temp control I think I had it spot on, I used tap water in the three batches so do u think it cud b that? Cheers

Click to expand...

Could be, especially if you have chlormine in the water. Next time, get some store bought reverse osmosis water and use that, see if it makes a difference.

The coopers kits have the right amount of yeast and ME, ill try the bottled water and c how it goes, ill keep u posted, thanks for the advice everyone

RobJ said:

The coopers kits have the right amount of yeast and ME, ill try the bottled water and c how it goes, ill keep u posted, thanks for the advice everyone

Click to expand...

Kits can sometimes lowball you on the yeast. At the very least you should run the numbers from your last batch into one of those calculators to see if you were close. It'll take less than 5 minutes and then you will be able to ether eliminate pitching rates as a problem or you can address it if it turns out to be the problem.

RobJ said:

The coopers kits have the right amount of yeast and ME, ill try the bottled water and c how it goes, ill keep u posted, thanks for the advice everyone

Click to expand...

Starter is basically a mini-beer that you use for different reason. Read this one: http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php

If your kit comes with a sachet of dried yeast, then you dont really need a starter (it is said that you dont need a starter with dried yeast, since the sachet contains nutrient too that you want to add directly into the wort). You can rehydrate that yeast though....which I dont do either....but then again, I am no professional either.

Ill do that mate cheers, it makes sense, ill check those links out aswell, nice one

Rehydrating the 7g Cooper's dry yeast packet helps a lot. NB & Midwest also have that same yeast in 15g packets that are fresher than the one that comes in the false lid on the Cooper's cans. Those larger Cooper's packets worked real well for me when I wanted fruity esters in an ale with citrusy hops.

IL1kebeer said:

Kits can sometimes lowball you on the yeast. At the very least you should run the numbers from your last batch into one of those calculators to see if you were close. It'll take less than 5 minutes and then you will be able to ether eliminate pitching rates as a problem or you can address it if it turns out to be the problem.

Click to expand...

+1 on this. Best to use a calculator and do a starter.

Chris

Rule of thumb, if you enjoy your tap water, you will like it in your beer. Also extract beer does taste different then AG beer. When making an AG porter or stout a typical water profile for it has a high bi carbonate level, such as smart water. Soft water is like a Figi water which is great with lighter beers, especially HEFE type beers. Don't worry. Just get a few extract beers under your belt, then upgrade to AG. It's not harder, just a little longer process. With AG beer, you really want to focus on your gravity readings. That is very important because it will have the right concentration/water versus the beer being to watery.

I've done an AG mash, cooker 4kg of crushed malt in 18l of mineral water, I steeped it at 64deg for 1.5 hours n then got it to 74 deg, I had the grain in a mashing bag, I then rinsed it off with 250ml got water, but I only ended up with 15l at the finish, would I just have to do 2 batches to make it up to 25l, also will I get good recipes off this forum?? Cheers

RobJ said:

I've done an AG mash, cooker 4kg of crushed malt in 18l of mineral water, I steeped it at 64deg for 1.5 hours n then got it to 74 deg, I had the grain in a mashing bag, I then rinsed it off with 250ml got water, but I only ended up with 15l at the finish, would I just have to do 2 batches to make it up to 25l, also will I get good recipes off this forum?? Cheers

Click to expand...

If your pot is big enough (mine is a 50L pot...so it can handle batches between 15-28L easily)......then just adjust your recipe to your needs. It will take some time to figure out how much water is 1, absorbed by the grains 2, how much water is boiled off, 3, how much water stays in the pot as trub. In my case it took 3 batches to figure out....because we used different recipes. I think u will also realize that depending on your batch size, the whole brewing might become less or more time consuming......obviously, bringing an 18L batch to boil is a lot easier than bringing a 25L batch to boil....if you dont actually have strong enough burners.

Anyway....I think in your case you need to tweak your system and calculate all the water you lose....that will help you get to the desired amount of wort. I think brewing 2 batches and mixing them would be a total waste of time if your system can handle the desired final amount of wort.

Just wondering.....a day ago you were talking about extract brewing and now you are already AG brewing? Are you operating at the speed of lighting?

By the way..what's your method? All the water loss I talked about is in case if you use BIAB.

Hi Elysium, my boiler is only a 25l bottom off the t500 still, the AG mash if to run through a pot still, but they recommend that u don't squeeze the grain and just steep it at 64deg, so I lost 3l in 4 kg of grain, ill just adjust recipe to get a little more water, cheers

If you're using tap water for all or part of your water, you might want to find out if your local municipality uses chloramines to treat their water. Many municipalities are switching to chloramines from chlorine, because it's more stable. Unfortunately for brewers, it's harder to get rid of than chlorine and leaves beer with a nasty medicinal / bitter after taste.

1/2 of a campden tablet (available at most homebrew stores) per 15 gallons of water should neutralize chloramines.

My first few beers were pretty bad. Once I started treating my water with the tablets, the beer got a whole lot better.

I disagree that you will necessarily get better results going all grain. There are plenty of brewers who brew only extract and make great beers. I used tap water filtered with a Brita filter and now an inline charcoal filter. My extracts were every bit as good as my all grain.

I have heard opinions that Coopers kits are on the low end of extract brands. I would try a quality kit from Northern Brewer of Austin Homebrew supply. There are others out there also.

You should also give store bought water a try. Water often seems to be the source of problems.

RobJ said:

The coopers kits have the right amount of yeast and ME, ill try the bottled water and c how it goes, ill keep u posted, thanks for the advice everyone

Click to expand...

The problem isn't doing extract batches- the problem is the poor quality of the Cooper's kits, their poor instructions (don't boil, add sugar to save $$ instead of malt extract, ferment too warm), and the poor yeast they use.

If you find a different brand of kit that uses unhopped extract, some steeping grains, and a good quality yeast, you can make some great beer!

I don't know where you are located, but if you can avoid the canned extract stuff, that flavor you get will magically go away. If you can ferment at 66 degrees or so, the beer will improve greatly!

Thanks for all this help and info, ill stock up on bottled water and go in search for a better brand kit, so would I be better to use mor extract and no sugar, is a 1.8kg can the same as 1kg of dextrose? Just because I might aswell by the bits separately then I can get the best quality, cheers everyone, ill get there ;-)

RobJ said:

Hi Elysium, my boiler is only a 25l bottom off the t500 still, the AG mash if to run through a pot still, but they recommend that u don't squeeze the grain and just steep it at 64deg, so I lost 3l in 4 kg of grain, ill just adjust recipe to get a little more water, cheers

Click to expand...

Why dont you wanna squeeze the bag? Are you afraid of tannin extraction into the wort? Tannin wont be extracted...unless you boil grains....if I am not wrong.

Tannin extraction is more a function of how mash water volume relates to PH.
Squeeze away,I do. I just don't try to crush them under the weight of my mighty hands...

Next time squeeze the bag and see, it's all trial and error, just gettn sick of the error, cheers everyone, all taken on board

There is a world of difference between pre hopped extract in a can and a custom kit. I'm one of the few who prefers doing extract batches over all grain. I'm going to assume your not from the US. If you couldn't find a decent HBS to go to or order from. I could see where one might go all grain as there isn't any choice.

Take a look online at the popular home brew stores. All if not most have "kits" that show the ingredients . Big difference from Coopers or Muntons in a can.
http://morebeer.com/images/file.php?file_id=919

BxBrewer said:

There is a world of difference between pre hopped extract in a can and a custom kit. I'm one of the few who prefers doing extract batches over all grain. I'm going to assume your not from the US. If you couldn't find a decent HBS to go to or order from. I could see where one might go all grain as there isn't any choice.

Take a look online at the popular home brew stores. All if not most have "kits" that show the ingredients . Big difference from Coopers or Muntons in a can.
http://morebeer.com/images/file.php?file_id=919

Click to expand...

There is also the fact that all-grain brews are about half as cheap as extract brews (at least here in Spain).

I'm in not bothered about the cost, what I want is perfection, or close to it, ill try a few different ways and by next year hopefully I'm therre

Sanitation, diligence with fermenting temps, yeast selection, trial and error with the same process and recipe, good notes to look back on, and patience, patience, patience.

iancl said:

Sanitation, diligence with fermenting temps, yeast selection, trial and error with the same process and recipe, good notes to look back on, and patience, patience, patience.

Click to expand...

Ferm temps are key. Yeast pitch rates are important too. Fresh ingredients are definitely a plus, especially if using LME. If you pay attention to these three you will see a marked improvement in your beer. Proper conditioning time is important as well. Green beer is not as good as properly conditioned beer.

Tried a few bottles on Saturday with a couple of the lads, the taste has gone, they've been in the bottles now for about 7-8 month so they've obviously conditioned more, going AG at the minute so I'll see how that gets on

DrunkleJon said:

Ferm temps are key. Yeast pitch rates are important too. Fresh ingredients are definitely a plus, especially if using LME. If you pay attention to these three you will see a marked improvement in your beer. Proper conditioning time is important as well. Green beer is not as good as properly conditioned beer.

Click to expand...

cheers Jon
They've conditioned for longer now like I've just said so hopefully that's all it was mate, onwards and upwards