How long did it take you until you made a awesome batch?

Just tasted my British style pale ale, which is the 8-9th batch I have ever made, which sat in primary for 3 weeks, then bottled for 2 weeks. It was midwests Big Ben pale ale extract kit.

It tastes weird. Something is off about it. I'm not good at pinpointing tastes or flavors, unless its a smack in the face. The smell is unappealing too. It's just not good. I'm starting to lose faith. Some of my batches have been good, most moderate ie drinkable, but none have tasted close to commercial quality.
How long until you get it right? I tried a lot of things differently according to what I have read on here, but it seems worse. I'm starting to think my equipment might be tainted. Although this batch i used a bunch of starsan thinking I'd be safer.

About the only thing I tasted tonight was disappointment

I'm on batch 8, and I'm still going for drinkable... Never mind awesome

Interested to see where this goes... And yes, it is a little annoying

My first 3 batches were decent beer. My 4th was a RyePA, dry hopped, from an extract kit, and was amazing.

If you're getting weird off-flavours that you just can't figure out, I would suspect your kit was old and had some stale extract. Try to get some fresher stuff if you can next time. Could be something else though.

Start with extract brewing. It eliminates a large portion of the potential problems. When fermenting, control your temps. This eliminates a lot of off flavors that the yeast could create. If there is a brew club or local homebrew shop you can take your beer to, maybe they can tell you what is going on. I have made 50+ batches (And yes a few of them were huge failures). But I learned from my mistakes took notes so I could reproduce the good as well as eliminate the bad. Keep the faith, you will get there from here.

Hmm.... Well post your recipe and your process, temps, and equipment. We'll see if we can point you in the right direction.

Personally, I haven't really compared much that I've brewed to commercial standards, rather I compare to the BJCP style standards. As long as my beer fits in, and tastes good, I'll consider it a success. There is a reason why there are a million different commercial Pale Ales out there, and they all taste different. If your beer doesn't taste commercial don't worry about it.

But, most importantly, all of us on here are learning all the time; and, good batches or bad, we enjoy the brewing process and brewing as a hobby. If you do too, then who cares if you get an off flavor in your beer every now and then. Chances are, that it might mellow with age anyways.

Lastly, extract kits are a gamble anyways. Some kits are great, others are stale, and for the most part, the quality of your ingredients are out of your hands. So don't worry about it, and if you really like brewing as a hobby, consider moving to all grain or partial mashes in the near future.

My first extract was Northern Brewer's Irish Red Ale. I fermented a little warm for a day. It was good.

My second was Northern Brewer's Patersbier. It was awesome!

All 28 (except for one experiment) since them have ranged from quite good to excellent.

4 extract, partial mash, 2 BIAB and the rest all grain batch sparged.

Give us an idea of what the off flavor tastes like or is it the aroma? What is the ferment temp and do you control it? Give us an idea of your process?

It took exactly 7 batches of extract. The magic bullet? FILTERING WATER. Minneapolis tap water apparently sucks for beer straight up, every single batch had a slightly metallic taste. I carefully changed one thing at a time until I decided to use spring water in batch 7. Bingo. Now I use a carbon block filter.

I would suggest you closely monitor your fermentation temps. Remember, ambient air temp is not the same as fermentation temp. Your fermentation will be warmer 3-10 degrees than ambient air. Speaking for myself, I always tend to be overly critical of my brews which takes away from the enjoyment...try not to fall in that trap. One more stupid question, are you sure you're brewing a style you like?

My first two were "meh". Very first one I had no desire to drink but was told it was an easy brew to learn from. It was a Mid Western Red IIRC, not a fan of the style but it was an add extract, boil-> carboy -> keg beer. Second one was an cascade extra pale that was good but not great, I was a little confused with the whole steeping grain aspect of extract brewing and never heard of dry hopping. The third, fourth and fifth was a repeat since I discovered I really like cascade... I like cascade a lot. And those were very very good. I didn't really hit great till about 8 batches in when I decided to give AG a try. My first was the Bells two hearted clone that is floating around this forum, never had a real Bell's but god damn was that batch good!!

I really enjoyed the jump to AG even though I probably didn't give extract a decent try. Not to sound too full of pride, but I enjoy my AG home brew much better than a lot of stuff I spend money on. Biggest impact since I've been homebrewing is freshness and carbonation. A lot of bar's beer do not taste fresh to me anymore, and they all seem over carbed and too cold.

My beer kicks ass!! Props to this forum!

I brewed a few decent extract kits early on. When I went into all grain I started off pretty much from the beginning with my own recipes and it took 3-4 beers before they reached a really great flavor. Some of that was recipe-related, some process.

The ironic thing is, this was the first batch I incorporated a swamp cooler to control my ferm temps. Kept the swamp water in the mid sixties. First time I rehydrated the dry yeast, used distilled and or spring water, and first time using starsan.

I can't really describe the taste. A little Homebrewish, little yeasty, metallic?, harsh? I don't know. Just not good or wanting me to come back for more.

And yes I do enjoy pale ales very much.

Sounds like you're down to the old "can't make chicken salad outta chicken poo". Maybe try an alternative source of ingredients if you haven't already. If you're doing extract kits, give northern brewer a try. I find their ingredients to be really fresh and the kits well designed.

wilsojos said:

"can't make chicken salad outta chicken poo".

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HAHA I may be from the city, but I have never heard this phrase before in my life.

I dunno about "awesome." But 4th batch I tasted and was like "ooooh, this is nice!"

My previous goal was drinkable & better than pabst/high life. 1st three brews hit that. 4th was actually "nice."

Obviously I want to get a lot better.

5th is fermenting now, a red IPA kit from austinhomebrew. I do believe these are better/fresher ingredients, and it will also be my 1st attempt dry hopping. As long as each brew is better than the last I'm happy and I have to say, I'm really getting to enjoy the process.

Different kits and recipes help. Simple stuff like the 4th kit basically said start w/ 3 gallons water for steep/boil and add 2 gallons top off. Previous kits/recipes said steep/boil 2.5 and add 2.5 top off water.

Probably obvious to experienced brewers but instead of each step in the process being kind of mysterious or clinging to the directions I put together from reading here and I guess personal experience it's better to steep/boil as much as possible but it doesn't really matter.... you steep/boil some and top off the rest and the grand total should be around 5 gallons or enough to get you to OG.

One small detail but my point is as you do it more you understand the process more and the point of each step more.

I also got better at aerating the wort, rehydrating the yeast, and general temp control. Which element was really critical to making better beer? I dunno but I like working on all those details. Hopefully they really add up and I hope to keep getting better at all of them, plus I have a feeling there's stuff that isn't even on my radar yet...

chungking said:

The ironic thing is, this was the first batch I incorporated a swamp cooler to control my ferm temps. Kept the swamp water in the mid sixties. First time I rehydrated the dry yeast, used distilled and or spring water, and first time using starsan.

I can't really describe the taste. A little Homebrewish, little yeasty, metallic?, harsh? I don't know. Just not good or wanting me to come back for more.

And yes I do enjoy pale ales very much.

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Sounds like we are working on the same stuff, so I wonder what the problem is. I try to watch the temp all the time, while steeping, and then cooling the wort after boil (still takes me maybe 45 mins, would like to get it faster). I'm super anal about cleaning / sanitizing; I sanitize the counter so anything I set there hopefully stays clean, even the stirring paddle, between steps I'll basically rinse/wash/sanitize again. As people have said here; don't fear the starsan. Keep it in a bucket, keep the stuff you'll use (already clean) in that bucket, and shake it off as well as you can before using.

All my previous batches were true brew kits with canned lme. I switched to midwest because it wad highly recommended on this forum for having fresher, better kits. This kit was from Midwest. I was actually really happy cause it was probably the smoothest, best job I have ever done brewing, yet results were still meh.

Some of the canned lme batches were better then this.

Ill post the recipe next...

Link:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/big-ben-pale-ale.html

3.3 lbs gold lme
3.3 lbs amber lme
8 oz carapils
8 oz crystal
1 oz williamette
1 oz fuggles
Safale s-04 yeast

Steeped grains at 155 for 30 minutes.

Lme, williamette @ 60
Fuggles @ 5

Cooled wort to 70, pitched yeast. Og was 1.050, fg was 1.016.

4 extract brews here... each has gotten better, but all were at least good... #4 was great. High hopes for #5, our first batch with real temperature control.

Seattle has great tap water, which helps.

chungking said:

All my previous batches were true brew kits with canned lme. I switched to midwest because it wad highly recommended on this forum for having fresher, better kits. This kit was from Midwest. I was actually really happy cause it was probably the smoothest, best job I have ever done brewing, yet results were still meh.

Some of the canned lme batches were better then this.

Ill post the recipe next...

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I know this may sound strange, but have you given any of your beer to friends/relatives to critique for you? I have found that I am a perfectionist when it comes to brewing, and this means that I almost always rate my beer lower than I probably should. All my friends/family rave about beer that I think is "just OK". I recently scored 35 in a local homebrew competition that was judged by BJCP certified judges with a Russian Imperial Stout that I almost did not enter because I thought it was not good enough.

It seems that I can pick out flaws in nearly every brew I make, yet I continue to get requests for more beer.

I am not saying this to sound egotistical or anything like that. The point I am trying to make is that I am almost never completely happy with my beer. There is almost always something I feel like I could have done better. I try to keep notes on what I do and do not like, and use that info to (hopefully) make each batch better than the last one.

Try not to get too discouraged. There are a lot of variables in brewing. Water quality, sanitation, fermentation temperature, freshness of ingredients, kettle size, boil size, and a million other factors contribute to the finished quality of the beer. If you are having a hard time pinpointing what you think is "off" with your brew, give it to a few trusted friends who will give you an honest review. Let them know that it is OK to tell you that the beer sucks (if it really does suck) and ask them what was good and what was bad.

Sometimes a fresh opinion will go a long way to figuring out where the process is breaking down.

Not long before it happened, but only by accident/beginner's luck. When I can make awesome batches on a regular basis, I will let you know.

My first great tasting batch was when I controlled my ferment temps adequately and also matched the style of beer to the water i was using. It was my first batch without tinned extract. It was freshly bagged extract from Wind-River Brewing. It wasn't my first batch or probably even 10th. But after that, things got a lot better. Keep trying and clean before you sanitize everything!

My first beer i made had the same OG and FG as you. I realized i didnt like it because it was too sweet, too high final gravity on that style of beer with noble hops tastes funny to me, i think its the way the sweet mixes with the hops or something?

I was never satisfied until I went AG and basically built a micro brewery in the garage, but no matter how you get there, it's still about fresh ingredients, sanitation, and temperature control.

I guess what I am looking for is something I can really compare too, ie does it taste like other commercial styles. In this case, its clear it doesn't taste like any commercial pale ale I've ever had, nor any commercial beer for that matter. I am critical of my beers, but from what I read on here, people say they make high quality wonderful tasting beers from extract that win prizes and goes head to head with commercial beers.

I'm not looking for perfection. Heck, is be happy if it'd taste like bud light, at least I'd have something to compare it to. This thing I just made tastes like nothing I've had before...

The three big things that let me start making awesome beers were fermentation temperature control (via swamp cooler), making a yeast starter, and buying a faucet water filter. At least try the first two and see if that makes a difference.

I can honestly say I've never had any that didn't come out at least pretty darn good.
As for exceptional, after maybe four or five batches I started trying my own recipe. First was an IPA. Pretty darn good. It was a big hit with everyone.
The next was a coffee beer that I made. Actually more of a what have I got in stock Rye beer ( extract brewing ) that I decided to add coffee to at the last minute.
It came out so bitter that I really didn't want to drink it. I would have a glass from time to time and it got better. I added some more DME and after a couple more months it was awesome.
Too bad I don't know where I put my notes from making that batch. It sucked for so long that I didn't to make it again. By the time I figured out that it was great, I couldn't find the notes.
I'll try an all grain version again some time. See if I can come close to that again.

My second batch, a belgian grand cru, was my first truly great homebrew. Of the 15 batches I have made, most were good to great. Only 2 batches were failures, both of which were my fault. A vanilla stout that I added too much vanilla to and a holiday spice ale that I did not aerate enough both went down the drain. Overall, my brewing adventure has been a success.

chungking said:

I guess what I am looking for is something I can really compare too, ie does it taste like other commercial styles. In this case, its clear it doesn't taste like any commercial pale ale I've ever had, nor any commercial beer for that matter. I am critical of my beers, but from what I read on here, people say they make high quality wonderful tasting beers from extract that win prizes and goes head to head with commercial beers.

I'm not looking for perfection. Heck, is be happy if it'd taste like bud light, at least I'd have something to compare it to. This thing I just made tastes like nothing I've had before...

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Make a clone. Find a simple recipe and then compare your clone to the real deal. I did that with blue moon and I immediately understood the differences and where they did things differently. I also realized that commercial beer is not really a flavor I want to emulate. My clone was superior to me and I didn't even care for it. My wife is even asking me to make another batch since I gave away the last two beers a few weeks ago.

I will try a clone the next time I order. Any suggestions? Something easy that would hard to screw up, that has a clearly defined flavor profile?

So all you guys that say your beer was good, was it easily perceived as being homebrewed? Like could you give it to someone and them think it was a commercial beer? I guess I don't like the "homebrewish taste"....

It could also be extract twang, although I don't know what exactly that tastes like, but a lot of my beers have "this taste"...

My first solo brew day got me a 2nd place ribbon and 4 of my first 6 brew got ribbons..a 1st, two 2nds, and a 3rd! May be beginners luck idk....of the other 2 I dumped 1 that got oxidized b/c I forgot to burp after hooking co2 up and the other was my favorite beer to date and got emptied before I had a chance to bottle any for competition :/

chungking said:

It could also be extract twang, although I don't know what exactly that tastes like, but a lot of my beers have "this taste"...

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I do all grain, but have read many times here you want to boil a small portion of the extract for the 60 minutes and save most of it for the last few minutes or even flameout. Boiling the extract accentuates the twang. Maybe a more experienced extract brewer can chime in.

I hate to be "that guy" but I never really impressed myself with my brews until I went all grain. Good luck!

It seems that you could be expecting a lager taste from an ale kit. Early in my brewing I made some great beers from kits and some absolutely wonderful lagers after going all-grain. I said all that to say this, I once made a Two-Hearted Ale clone and I just could not stand the taste, smell, or anything about that beer except the color maybe. As much as I tried to make myself like it I couldn't. I'm sure someone loves it, no disrespect intended. Well, I told my dad I was going to pour it out and he wanted it. He called one day after trying it, said it was awesome.
The kits I've tried never seemed to be an exact replica of commercial anyway. My all-grain batches have been better than anything I've had from commercial.
I bet a commercial brewery would have a hard time making a beer from kit taste like their original. Not knocking kits, I still use them and have two in my line-up. I just don't expect them to be like the all-grain oktoberfest recipe I've used and peronally love it.

It was mentioned briefly in a few posts, but your water is probably the most important part of your beer. When using extract the minerals from the water used to make the extract are highly concentrated. When you use tap water, you are effectively adding more minerals to your water. Assuming the extract manufacturer already had the water dialed in for the style of extract bring made you could be throwing off the balance, giving a you a "minerally" taste.

I recently started brewing again after a long hiatus , and before I started I read an article from BYO called 10 steps to better extract brewing or something like that. One of the steps was to use distilled/RO water for the above mentioned reason.

Here's the link, I followed this advice and never made a batch I didn't like. One more piece of advice, watch you carbonation levels, over carbing can smother the flavor of your beer.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/10-tips-better-extract-brewing-100861/

I used distilled water and spring water, about half and half. Spring for boil, distilled to top off.

And I love ales, I drink them way more then lagers...

Check out Austin homebrew for clones, they've got whatever you want.

Dcbw, I have the same problem. What kind of filter did you use? Does it filter chlorine/chloramine? Or do you add campden tablets?

My first two batches were extract kits from midwest, and they both had an off taste to them (medicinal/metallic). My third batch I went A/G BIAB and the first bottle I had from this batch tasted great! I am not sure if it was the A/G that made it good, the fact that I made a starter and pitch appropriate amount of yeast, or that I used campden tabs to get rid of the chloromines in my water. Either way from now on I will be doing A/G, pitching correct yeast amounts, and using campden tabs.

This could be completely in my head but the biggest difference is something I like better about my own brews, lack of kind of haze or what I suspect might be chemicals or preservatives in distributed cans/drafts.

Not taste but effect, generally I have found drinking nice booze, whether it's wine, spirits beer or whatever, better quality has less of the nasty haze and less chance of a hangover. Good booze/beer feels better at the time and better the next day. I trust the stuff I make!

Anyone else find this to be the case?