ALL my brews taste the same

My first brew was Like S?x in a bottle i loved it, But i have brewed 3 other batches and they all taste the same (S%?t).i did a cyder and it has the same smell and a bit of the same taste as my beers.is this my water supply or is it the fact i'm adding Muntons light spraymalt to my brews they have all been kits and all the dates are good so nothing is out of date. i'm planing on 4 new brews 3 of them will be from tins and 1 will be extract so i want to solve this problem. P>S i clean my gear a lot so it's not that.

I am willing to take a stab and say its your water...or dare I say extract twang. I never knew what this was till I started to do PM batches and could seriously taste that there was less twang per say with every bottle.

old yeast maybe?

3 different kits so i don't know if it's the yeast

I think the kits you are buying might have something to do with it. Granted I am very new at this, actually boiling my first extract right now, but I think buying extract and the grain separately may help. But the water may be a problem too, I bought six gallons of distilled water from the store to brew with. (hope mine turns out ok!?!?!)

Are you using bleach to sanitize?

EdWort said:

Are you using bleach to sanitize?

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I've always used bleach to do my brewing and I've noticed a taste that is always there myself. I wouldn't recognize it as bleach, but maybe. My last batch I used Starsan, and it is still in the secondary, so maybe I did myself a favor.

For the OP, the other thing I'd say is that you are using the same malt extract, so I'd expect similar tastes. If you are doing extract brew, try ordering from one of the suppliers that does their own extracts, Northern or Morebeer. It is fresher than the canned stuff.

I had some home brew at a demo a few days ago, and the guy was doing all grain brew. It was eye opening how much better it was. He brought 3 types in bottles and none of them had that 'home brew' taste that even my good batches have.

I'd clean out your equipment and take some time to really let them soak in cleaner to get out the fowl tastes, I'm not sure if this would help, but what about a "dry run"? (meaning: why not boil plain water a few times to try to boil out the stank).

Best of luck.

It always is water. Water even makes pizza taste different

I've been extract brewing for quite some time now, and have brewed everything from plain old amber ale, to hefeweizen, to porter, to stout. I brewed in my last house, and in the new house as well, and the water different, and all my brews have their own distinct flavors. With that being said, there is a somewhat familiar taste to all the beers. I have never heard of the term "extract twang" until I started coming to this forum. I have never even seen it in any of the books that I've read. But what I have read is that it is not uncommon to impart "house flavors" in your beers. If you sanitize with the same thing (i.e. bleach), or follow a specific ritual when you clean your equipment or when you're brewing, then that could part of your problem, if that's what you want to call it. I mean if the beer is good...
I am kinduf curious though, that when I get my AG setup ready to go (hopfully within the next month or so) to see how much different AG is to extract brews.

zacster said:

I've always used bleach to do my brewing and I've noticed a taste that is always there myself. I wouldn't recognize it as bleach, but maybe. My last batch I used Starsan, and it is still in the secondary, so maybe I did myself a favor.

For the OP, the other thing I'd say is that you are using the same malt extract, so I'd expect similar tastes. If you are doing extract brew, try ordering from one of the suppliers that does their own extracts, Northern or Morebeer. It is fresher than the canned stuff.

I had some home brew at a demo a few days ago, and the guy was doing all grain brew. It was eye opening how much better it was. He brought 3 types in bottles and none of them had that 'home brew' taste that even my good batches have.

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If you use bleach, proper rinsing is absolutely mandatory. Moving to Starsan is a good move.

Doing full wort boils is the next step to avoid the extract twang.

idolcarazy said:

It always is water. Water even makes pizza taste different

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I use gallon jugs of poland springs and it rocks!!!!!!!!!

might also be the DMS flavor - are you boiling w/the lid off or on? if you leave the lid on, you'll get DMS (ask me how I know...)

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

tranceamerica said:

might also be the DMS flavor - are you boiling w/the lid off or on? if you leave the lid on, you'll get DMS (ask me how I know...)

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/DMS

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Well i'm boiling the water then add the 500g spraymalt then it gets fecked into the fermenter ontop of the kit all mixed up and cold water added, temp checked pop in the yeast when temp is good on goes the lid and airlock and thats it for a week

After reading that DMS wiki article it suggests boiling the wort for a minimum 90 minutes.

All of my brews have been 60 minute boils so far. Does 90 minutes really make that big of a difference? An extra 30 minute rolling boil before the addition of the 60 minute hops?

Unless of course the beer style calls for some DMS...

don't boil LME or DME for more than like 40 mins. add them later in the boil and do partial mash. i had the same prob a while back