Beer tastes of soap

I'm not sure if its the water or sanitiser I've used any ideas.
I have filtered the water and washed out both demijohn carboy and mini kegs any ideas ?

Is it possible you used soap in your process and did not rinse it well enough?

I believe that it's possible to have the right combination of flavors equate to a soap-like taste? What's your recipe?

What sanitizer did you use?

If you used filtered water then it's unlikely that the taste is coming from the water.

More info needed.

What sort of beer is it? Some people get a soapy taste from heavily hopped beers. Certain hops, like Citra, get mentioned most often.

What variety of hops did you use? I had a commercial beer recently and is was soapy as all get-go. Definitely the hops.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html



Soapy
Soapy flavors can caused by not washing your glass very well, but they can also be produced by the fermentation conditions. If you leave the beer in the primary fermentor for a relatively long period of time after primary fermentation is over ("long" depends on the style and other fermentation factors), soapy flavors can result from the breakdown of fatty acids in the trub. Soap is, by definition, the salt of a fatty acid; so you are literally tasting soap.

It may be the "extract twang" bitterness showing up.

Was your recipe mostly Liquid or Dry malt extract?

It was a dme with fuggles hops .5oz for 1 gallon so I think I've not rinsed well enough but it may be the hops

Spikemead said:

It was a dme with fuggles hops .5oz for 1 gallon so I think I've not rinsed well enough but it may be the hops

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Fuggles don't taste at all soapy- they taste "dirty". I guess "earthy" is a good description. If it's soapy, its either a yeast issue (as mentioned above, from the breakdown of the fatty acids in the yeast) or from using soap somewhere in the process (like cleaning).

Then I guess I'm not cleaning out well enough cheers all

I am a newb too. But I'll tell you one of my first brews tasted like it had a bleach/cleaner type taste to it. In fact, I was on this site at the time asking the same question. Got the same type of responses (you guys are just so consistent), and 2-3 weeks later the taste was gone. It is truly amazing how beers "fix themselves" given time and patience.

I recently made an English Mild, the hops were fuggles, 2.25 oz at 15 minutes, the only hop addition (hopburst). I taste a faint, but noticible, soapy flavor. I thought it was oxidation at first. But I strongly suspect the fuggles. The hops definitely were not very fresh, so that may be a factor.

The commercial beer I had definitely had something from the hallertauer family and was super soapy. It was a challenge to drink.

when I was growing up, I had my mouth washed out with dish soap A LOT. my wife thinks I'm OCD with the rinsing. but one style that consistently tastes like soap to me is Hefeweizen. it might me the examples I've tried, but it'll sure put a guy off trying a pale wheat. never had a problem with Dunkelweizen, Wits, Lambics, or Weizenbocks though.