sanitation questions

I've made two batches of extract beer with steeping grains and neither have turned out drinkable. I think perhaps my sanitation is the culprit. Is it an issue to not let your equipment completely dry off the no rinse sanitzer before use? I have been doing a partial wort boil with store bought water. I am now going to a full wort boil set up. I hope that will tie up some loose ends on the hot side of it

What grains were you steeping and were they crushed? What temperture did you steep them at?

Give us your full recipie and method so we can help you make great beer.

Too loose two batches to bad sanitisation you must be making a real mistake.
Monks didn't really know what sanitisation was and they seemed to make good beer.

Give us some recipes. Personally, I'd stick to partial boils until you dial in what the issue is - there are lots of other variables to pay attention to once you go the full-boil route (chilling the wort without an ice bath, aeration).

What are you using for a sanitizer? What concentration? What are your procedures?

What's "undrinkable" about the beers, are there off-flavors that you can describe to us?

I use star san sanitizer, I do clean and try to sanitize everything very well, but I've been afraid to not rinse my equipment, I rinse it with tap water and I've recently realized the tap water here is well water and can seem quite dirty at times,perhaps I should have faith in the sanitizer, it just seems that not rinsing would lead to soapy flavors. I don't know what grains were steeped they were part of two seperate kits from two seperate companies. I followed the directions with to a tee with a digital thermometer. I've tried my hardest to pin point the off flavor and i just cant place it. It doesn't match all the troubleshooting flavor profiles I've read about. Unfortunately, I know no one who brews and the only brew club any where close holds meetings while I'm working. Although my beer hasn't turned out yet, I feel fairly comfortable going to a full wort boil, I already use a wort chiller and I don't think aerating could be too complicated

Fair enough. But, you need to have faith in the sanitizer - use it at the proper concentation, and not only will you not hurt your beer, a little bit of residue in the fermenter adds some nutrients that the yeast can use.

Are you using the "dirty well water" to boil? That might be your problem too. Next time, try buying water and don't rinse the sanitizer off.

single.barrel said:

I already use a wort chiller and I don't think aerating could be too complicated

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How did you clean your chiller? Was it new when you got it?

And I have to ask because I've been seeing it more and more - where is the idea of rinsing after equipment comes out of the sanitizer coming from??? For years all I've been doing is using a separate bucket with sanitizer in it, letting what I'm going to need soak, pull it out, shake it off a bit and let it drip dry... I have never "rinsed" after coming out of the sanitizer, kinda defeats the purpose of sanitation. By rinsing, you just brought bacteria back into the equation...

How long did you age the beer before you pitched it?

I agree that you shouldn't rinse after using Star San, but I also strongly suspect that this is not a sanitation issue.

How old were the "undrinkable" beers that you tasted?

Are we talking like "Nasty, made me want to puke, tasted like it had diseased festering pus in it" undrinkable, or what? What did these beers taste like?

Were these 100% malt kits with hops that you added seperately, or maybe pre-hopped extract? Did you have to add sugar to the wort?

Yes, a precise description of the taste is the only thing that will help to figure out exactly what the problem is. That, and recipes that we can look at to get an idea of what the beer "should" taste like. It could just be that the beer is still green and needs to age a bit.

I was using store bought water for the brew, I cleaned my chiller by adding it to the boil for about ten minutes. I kept trying the beer for about two months. It got alittle better but always had that same flavor . There was no festering pus flavors I honestly can't describe the flavor. maybe you could say it was a plastic flavor but that isn't very accurate. I used 100% malt kits with fugle additions and a fuggle dry hop

single.barrel said:

maybe you could say it was a plastic flavor but that isn't very accurate.

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Sounds like a yeast flavor: wild yeasts are often described as having a plastic taste.

Did you leave the last ounce or so (the yeast sediment) in the bottle?

If that's not it, you might have picked up some wild yeast. Doing a starter and getting a quick and vigorous start to your fermentation helps the yeast you want to take over before the yeasties you don't want are able to get going.

Quick chilling, quick pitching, quick start to fermentation.