Bad after taste on all brews

My buddies and I have brewed a couple of simple extract brews and we all have the same problem. All of our beers have this bitter after taste. All the brews have had three weeks of bottling and we don't know if it just takes more time in the bottle or if we screwed up. All information at all helps thanks

Devonb23 said:

My buddies and I have brewed a couple of simple extract brews and we all have the same problem. All of our beers have this bitter after taste. All the brews have had three weeks of bottling and we don't know if it just takes more time in the bottle or if we screwed up. All information at all helps thanks

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If it has an off-flavor in the after taste, it could be related to several things. One is water chemistry (especially tap water with chlorine or chloramines), one is a too-high fermentation temperature, and one is using poor quality ingredients/yeast.

Can you give us a run down on one of the brews, recipe and technique, so maybe we can pinpoint something?

One is a robust porter, basically we used the tap water in our house and the yeast in the kit that we bought. The kit was a brewers best robust porter kit and it seemed like we did the normal procedure

Devonb23 said:

One is a robust porter, basically we used the tap water in our house and the yeast in the kit that we bought. The kit was a brewers best robust porter kit and it seemed like we did the normal procedure

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Then I'd assume that the tap water has chlorine or chloramines in it, unless you treated for that.

If you chilled the wort to 70 degrees, and then added the yeast and kept the fermenter under 70 degrees the entire time, then it's most likely the water.

Has the yeast completely dropped out of solution? Yeast in solution can carry a lot of hop oil increasing bitterness. If the beer is cloudy, stick it in the fridge for 2 weeks and try another bottle.

We fermented from 72 to 74 degrees. 74 at it's highest.

I'm picking up on the word "bitterness". What kind of kit did you use? Was it completely extract with added sugars.. or was it a kit where you have grains to steep and add hops? I'm one who doesn't believe chemistry really plays an important part of extract brewing unless the water is all but unfit to drink. So, tell us about this kit.. describe the parts of the kit and what you did as a brewing process. You don't really give us much to go on to this point.

If it's a kit with added hops.. boiling too long can create a lasting bitterness.

We used a brewers best extract kit. It was all LME with added hops during a 60 min partial boil. We fermented at room temp. Our drinking water is good here in Nebraska. I don't know what kind of yeast we used but it kind of tastes like yeast, I think.