tubz

Recipes 

I need your help oh lords of homebrew. I have been brewing about twice a month for 6 months or so. I have never made a single drinkable batch of beer. Every single beer I do ends up with the same puckering, sour smell and taste, which I'm sure is an infection of some kind. I've been trying to troubleshoot by removing one element of my process at a time but nothing has worked. I've stopped making starters, pitching straight out of the smack pack (which i sanitize, along with the scissors i use to cut the pack). I've started only doing month long primary fermentations in order to reduce my chances of infection. I feel like I've tried everything.

I do 5 gallon all grain batches on my stove. I soak and scrub everything in PBW followed by StarSan. I'm very careful with cleaning and sanitization even pre-boil because I've gotten so obsessed with avoiding infection. I ferment in a glass carboy which I also soak overnight in PBW followed by a several hour soak in StarSan.

The only things I can think of are the fact that my electric stove doesn't exactly boil very vigorously so perhaps it's not killing off microbes in the wort? I also never cover the kettle when I'm using my wort chiller, perhaps the little guys are falling during that ten minute period?

I need to get this figured out. I would like to just once make something that I can actually enjoy instead of pouring it down the drain.

Any ideas/suggestions?

-Tubz.

ShakerD

Recipes 

Maybe you can walk us step by step through your process in as much detail as you can give?

Oh and don't discount how frustrating shipbuilding in a bottle would be.

PurpleJeepXJ

Recipes 

Maybe you are trying beers that are beyond your current skill. Not to sound like an @$$ but did you just jump into home brewing by starting with AG? Any extract kits ever? My first couple of AG batches were bad but drinkable. I am a firm believer in starting with extracts in order to get the basics down. Let me know a little more about your processes post boil and hopefully I can help.

tnbrewer371

Recipes 

wow. thats terrible to hear. wish i had the know how to tell you where your going wrong but if your doing everything your saying there im stumped, though i am no expert thats for sure. maybe sanitize everything with just a simple bleach water solution if you really think that infection is the problem. another thing to consider are you allowing your beer to ferment in the same area every time? if it is getting the same infection (similar off taste everytime??) i would maybe move it to a different area during brewing, cooling, fermenting, and bottling. just my .02 best of luck

__________________
Primary1: Cider 4
Primary2: Session XX Pale Ale
Primary3: Twonty Riy
Primary4: Dirty Southern Blonde

Corny1: Southern Blonde
Corny2: sierra madre pale ale (nb)

Bottled: A bunch of stuff

MNDan

Recipes 

Are you using an immersion chiller? If so, boiling it in your wort for at least 15 minutes? And if it's a counterflow, how are u cleaning it?

It sounds like you are doing a full-wort boil, which is good. If you are concerned about the strength of your boil you could always invest in a turkey fryer, but as long as you are boiling even a little bit no beer-spoiling microbes will survive. Any grain dust around? That can be a source of lacto, but I have grain dust near where I chill my wort and don't have any of those problems.

Are you topping off with tap water at all? Are you boiling your priming sugar? Have you tried the beer right out of the fermenter to see if it's the fermenter or the bottles that is causing it?

Homebrewtastic

Recipes 

It sounds like to me that your first batch got an infection and it still lives in your gear.

Throw out any plastic gear you have been using. Fermenters, funnels, siphons etc... Even with vigorous cleaning and sanitizing they can still easily harbor bacteria.

Switch any gear that you can to glass or metal. You might even try switching the rooms in which you ferment. It might sound extreme but it's worth a shot.

__________________
On Deck:
Primary: Lambic-ish
Kegged: Das Funken Weisse, Un Poquito Wylde
Bottled: Epik Barleywine, Chocolate Chili Pumpkin Porter, EKG Amber
Adventures in Zymurgy - Homebrewing and Sour Beer Blog

Mparsons327

Recipes 

More specifics would surely help. Do you use tap water or bottled?

tubz

Recipes 

It starts the night before when I fill my carboy with PBW to soak overnight. I give it a good scrub with the brush in the morning and fill it when Starsan. This soaks for a few hours while I mash and boil. I fill a five gallon bucket with pbw and soak and scrub everything else (racking cane, tubing, airlock, even my mash paddle, etc.), then I soak all of these things in Star San until I'm ready to use them. I mash and lauter in my home made cooler mash tun for an hour. I collect the runnings in my kettle and boil. After flame out I move the kettle to the sink where I cool with an immersion chiller. While this is happening I empty the star san from the carboy and rack the wort into it. I aerate the wort and pitch the yeast, throw on an airlock and put it in the closet.

Several weeks pass.....

I crack open the carboy and I'm greeted with the same sickening smell. At first I thought it was just green beer so I let it go for a while. But every batch is the same.

MNDan

Recipes 

And now that I reread it, u are doing all-grain? There are lots of other potential areas to look at then. Getting full conversion? pH not too high?

joety

Recipes 

Where are you in Wisconsin?

__________________
Conical 1 - Kern River Citra IPA
Conical 2 - Empty
Carboys - Empty
Secondaries - Empty
Lagering in Kegs - Munich Helles
Kegged: American Wheat/Rye, Kolsch II, American Original Pale Ale, Belgian Stout, Resurrection Milk Stout, House IPA, Bourbon County Stout, Gulden Draak, BLC
Bottled: Oaked Bourbon Porter
Planned: ???
Now Open: My new 10 gallon Kal inspired RIMS brewery