Why does my extract brew suck?

Ive been brewing for around 8 months now and my brews havent been the best. The first batch was infected, so i switched to star san and fixed the sour problem. The rest of my brews, some better than others, have all been just ok, or just plain suck, dont taste infected, just like not very good beer.
I use a yeast starter, and just recently started using a stir plate. Do a 60 min boil and just add the hops and lme when the kit says to. I boil 2.5 gallons of bottled spring water, and put the other 2.5 in the freezer to help get the temp down when im finished with the boil. My pitching temps are always good. My house is set at 67 so i figure that my ferm temps are ok.

When i sanitize my carboy and my kegs there is always an excessive amount of foam left from the star san, could this be a problem?
Also i primary 4 weeks then keg, set the keg to 30 psi for 3 or 4 days, then back it off to 10, once its carbed i start to drink it. Am i drinking it too soon? I dont strain the wort or use a hop bag, could this be a problem?

Any ideas for me, let me know if you need more info.

Thanks for any help!

For a long time I couldn't understand why my beer wasn't up to par.
I finally discovered it was my water. I got a water filter and also use brewing salts to adjust my Chloride/Sulfate ratio.
Have you looked at your cities water report?
Use this to find out if your water is good for brewing.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/

Possibly too high of fermentation temps.. ambient of your house is 67, but generally the actually temp of the beer is 5-10 degrees higher than ambient. Fermentation produces heat. I know that when I built a fermentation chamber (mother of fermentation chamber) and kept the ambient temp at 60 degrees my beers turned from okay/bad to fan-f!@#in-tastic.

You say your pitching temps are "good;" what is your definition of "good?" The next thing I started doing after the ferm. chamber is to lower the wort to about 60-65 (the temp of fermentation chamber) before pitching the yeast. This improved my beer even further, IMO.

The only other thing I can say about your process has to do with kegging. This area I'm not familiar with, but it generally takes at least three weeks in the bottle to properly age a standard ale and get it carbed up before drinking. Now, I understand kegging is quicker for carbing, but maybe you are drinking it too young, and getting a "green" taste to it. That is just a guess; again, I'm not familiar with kegging.

That's all my opinion.

Good luck, and keep going... you'll get it.

Brasco20 said:

Ive been brewing for around 8 months now and my brews havent been the best. The first batch was infected, so i switched to star san and fixed the sour problem. The rest of my brews, some better than others, have all been just ok, or just plain suck, dont taste infected, just like not very good beer.
I use a yeast starter, and just recently started using a stir plate. Do a 60 min boil and just add the hops and lme when the kit says to. I boil 2.5 gallons of bottled spring water, and put the other 2.5 in the freezer to help get the temp down when im finished with the boil. My pitching temps are always good. My house is set at 67 so i figure that my ferm temps are ok.

When i sanitize my carboy and my kegs there is always an excessive amount of foam left from the star san, could this be a problem?
Also i primary 4 weeks then keg, set the keg to 30 psi for 3 or 4 days, then back it off to 10, once its carbed i start to drink it. Am i drinking it too soon? I dont strain the wort or use a hop bag, could this be a problem?

Any ideas for me, let me know if you need more info.

Thanks for any help!

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First I would stop doing a starter (for now) lots of fairly new brewers have problems at this stage.... So... take it out of the process, like I said for now. The yeast your using, dry or liquid is probably good enough as is straight out of the package to make great beer and it might be a process problem on your end.

What is the brand of LME?? Age of the LME??? I am personally not a big fan of LME myself. Briess DME is a KILLER product and for most of my customers the DME has made consistantly better beers than the LME. IMHO! (not trying to start a LME vs. DME war here)

From Boil to glass, how long are you waiting?? 4 weeks in primary is about the best thing you can do for your beer. good job to you for waiting! But it does seem like you may be drinking it GREEN. 4 weeks in primary yes, then let it rest for another 2-3 week in the keg before you gas it with 30 PSI might help.
DO they ever seem to get any better the longer they sit??
I do agree water is a problem with a lot of brewers. If in doubt, part it out! Buy your water from the store, or start with distilled and salt it properly.
Are these tried and true recipes?
Cheers
Jay

The dme i use for my starter is carlson briess, and the lme is northern brewers and i use it within a month of having it, i usually get my kits from them. The water i am using is bottled spring water from walmart. Between the ice bath for my boil and the cooled top off water im always at room temp when i pitch. So for fermenting at cooler temps, do i need to get a fridge with a controllable thermostat, and ferment in that?

Thanks alot for the help guys!

if your using bottled spring water I doubt that is your problem. As mentioned above maybe skip a starter on your next batch and let it age a bit longer. I'd try small changes and figure it out by process of ellimanation

Not saying that water is the problem for sure, but you have to take into account that extract was produced from water with an unknown ion profile plus you are using spring water. I'm assuming you're not aware of it's ion profile.
These two items could be compounding your problem.
My advise is to use distilled water, or use your tap water, and filter it.
If you have chloramines in your tap water treat with campden tablets. If it contains chlorine, simply fill your kettle and let it sit out overnight to let the chlorine evaporate.

For my next batch ill try using distilled water and skipping the starter and see where that gets me. Where could i be going wrong with the starter? I boil 650ml with half cup of dme, cool in an ice bath, then pitch.

Brasco20 said:

Ive been brewing for around 8 months now and my brews havent been the best. The first batch was infected, so i switched to star san and fixed the sour problem. The rest of my brews, some better than others, have all been just ok, or just plain suck, dont taste infected, just like not very good beer.
I use a yeast starter, and just recently started using a stir plate. Do a 60 min boil and just add the hops and lme when the kit says to. I boil 2.5 gallons of bottled spring water, and put the other 2.5 in the freezer to help get the temp down when im finished with the boil. My pitching temps are always good. My house is set at 67 so i figure that my ferm temps are ok.

When i sanitize my carboy and my kegs there is always an excessive amount of foam left from the star san, could this be a problem?
Also i primary 4 weeks then keg, set the keg to 30 psi for 3 or 4 days, then back it off to 10, once its carbed i start to drink it. Am i drinking it too soon? I dont strain the wort or use a hop bag, could this be a problem?

Any ideas for me, let me know if you need more info.

Thanks for any help!

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What kind of kits are you making? Are they a Can of LME and 2 lbs of sugar or DME? Or are they Partials using some grains and LME and DME?

Its really hard to understand what you don't like about your beer. Everyones taste is different.

I've only been brewing since September. I started using the Coopers kits. My first one was a Coopers can and a kg of sugar per instructions. That one tasted like ass and I eventually threw it out after 2 months.

I started reading and began doing Partials using the Coopers kits and steeping grains with a touch of DME to hit the proper SG. They were allot better, but still had that certain taste you get with LME or DME. Its always there unless you go with darker beers and then it appears to be less noticable.

I started reading again. Everything I could find. Bought books etc. I now do all grains and the Extract taste of course is gone and now I'm enjoying my beer much more.

I still do Extract kits to keep my pipeline full but focus on the All Grains. I still do a coopers lager frequently with some steeping grains and very little DME for SG.

If you want to stay with extracts, I would look at some of the Partials that distributer has. They have quite a few if you are not already doing that.

what is the defenition of "dont taste so good or just plain suck"? I mean, is it too thin? aftertastes? smells?

Andy_LV said:

what is the defenition of "dont taste so good or just plain suck"? I mean, is it too thin? aftertastes? smells?

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I second this question

It doesn't sound like there are any major issues. Some things to make sure of...

Have you broken your kegs down and completely cleaned all the parts, including the inside of the pickup tube?

Make sure your pitching your yeast into your wort @ +/-65 degrees. (my wife would like room temp to be 80!)

Brew a simple beer without alot of adjuncts or heavy hopping to really seach for off flavors.

Put your fermentor in a swamp cooler and moniter the temps, keeping them in the 65-70 degree range.

Make sure your fermentor (if glass or better bottle) isn't exposed to light.

Bottle a 12 of your next batch and compare it to the rest after a month.

Good luck,
Bull

The kits im doing are northern brewer, some are dme, lme, both lme and dme, or a combination with steeping grains. The beer i have kegged is a moose drool clone called caribou slobber. The smell to me is malty but not a good malty, just doesnt smell good, hard for me to pin point it. The mouth feel is good, the flavor is decent with a funny aftertaste. i read all of the descriptions of infections and off flavors and none of them seem to match.

I have read that putting things(your water)in the freezer might not be a great idea because of bacteria that could be lingering. I suppose if you leave the water in the sealed jugs and sprayed them down with Starsan prior to pouring them in to your primary as make up water you should be ok.

Dont give up!

Before i poor the water i wipe the mouth/rim of the jug with a paper towel soaked in star san.

Dont worry, im never giving up!

Could the star san being mixed with tap water be a problem?

That should be fine. Glad to hear you wont give up.

Some day(soon i hope) I will be moving WY(thermopolis). I am glad to know that there will be Brewther in the neighborhood.

Your starter gravity should also be @ 1.040 and be worked for aprox. 24 hours.

For the next, I would just rehydrate some Nottinghan or US-05.

Forgot to ask, but what styles are you trying to brew?
Some styles are just plain trickier than others.
Generally the higher the gravity, a higher yeast pitching rate is needed, and a longer maturation time.
Do you aerate real well before pitching?
Pitching rate, and aeration are often overlooked and important variables.
There are many factors that go into making great beer, and a lot of impressions are given that it's easy to do. Well it's not! Unless you understand all the variables that go into making great beer. It's one thing to make a drinkable beer. It's another to make a fantastic beer.
Unless I brew something that I would actually order at a bar more than once, or buy a second sixer of, I consider it a failed attempt.
I suspect that you are wanting to produce fantastic tasting beer. Well that's just going to take trial and error. But don't give up.
I'm just starting to make beer I'm proud of after 9 months and a dozen batches.

CA to WY. Ready for some elk huntin? Wish there were some home brewers around here that i knew. The guys at my local home brew shop dont know ****!

All ales, some ipa's, some lighter beers, and a few darker, too many to list. For aeration i only swirl the carboy,and the dumping of the wort through the funnel into the carboy. Ive used 1056 american, 1332 northwest, nb neobritannia, and a ton others.

Brasco20 said:

For my next batch ill try using distilled water and skipping the starter and see where that gets me. Where could i be going wrong with the starter? I boil 650ml with half cup of dme, cool in an ice bath, then pitch.

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I was in your shoes about a year and a half ago. I did percieve a difference changing from liquid to dry extract, I will mostly stay away from liquid now. Also the advice of using all distilled water is a great idea too, I had success with that as far as making the beer taste cleaner. Also keep it simple with yeast, sounds like you have the idea down for making a starter, but keep it simple until you can nail down the problem. Also a big thing is getting your fermenting temps cooler, even try getting a large storage tub fill it will water and that will offset some temp changes, you can even put water bottles full of ice and cycle them back and forth to the freezer as they melt. You have a basement, in Montana? I imagine its pretty cold there now, maybe try the basement out for your fermenting?

Is it anything like this?https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/dried-malt-extract-can-you-taste-209337/

I have been brewing for about as long as you have and can relate. It is disappointing when a beer doesn't turn out like you imagined it. When that happens, I just leave it to age longer and so far have found they really do improve over time. I brewed the caribou slobber (AG), mine too was a let down when it was green, but over time it did improve. I still never fell in love with it though, so my second attempt is in the fermenter right now (since Nov. 23). My fermentation temps may have got a little high on the first batch and I'm curious to see how this one turns out. I am also open minded to the fact that I just might not like this beer, so I ordered up the honey brown.
I too am trying to narrow the factors by process of elimination.
Good luck.

I think these three things helped me the most when I started brewing,

1. Using distilled water, malt extract already has a mineral profile due to the fact that it was mashed.

2. Using and oxygen stone, seemed to get a stronger more vigorous fermentation.

3. Fermentation chamber to control temp.

Brasco20 said:

CA to WY. Ready for some elk huntin? Wish there were some home brewers around here that i knew. The guys at my local home brew shop dont know ****!

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Can't wait to get me an elk. Don't worry, the advice I get at my HBS is as follows..."Why dont you try this kit? or "I'm not sure what yeast you should use, I,m sure anyone will do the trick."

When I'm looking for advice this site is where I go.

If you are pitching the starter the same day you make it you are defeating the purpose of a starter. You aren't giving the yeast any time to reproduce. You are probably cutting back on your lag time though which is good. Anyway, I've used spring water a bunch of times and have always had good luck. At 4 weeks the beer could be a bit young but if it still isn't good after a week in the keg I doubt that's the problem.

My first thought is fermentation temps. I made 3 batches around the end of September, 3 weeks in a row. Our family room was around 67F and the first 2 batches shot up to about 78F. Those batches have all kinds of fruity estery off flavors, aftertastes and aromas. They're still drinkable and my wife likes them, but they weren't what I would call successes. I just got a temp controller and am going to build a chamber out in the garage and keep it at about 60F for most ales. You also definitely need to let the beer age more than one week in the keg. I just started kegging, but I still think it needs 2-3 weeks for the flavors to mellow out and the yeast to settle out.

agroff383 said:

You have a basement, in Montana? I imagine its pretty cold there now, maybe try the basement out for your fermenting?

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One of the changes I made that seriously improved my beer was moving the fermentor from my 67-69 degree upstairs and into my 60-62 degree basement. I think it's a very important 5 degrees.

I leave my starters for 24 hours before pitching into a batch. I'll have to check the temp in my basement, but i dont think its much lower than my main floor, small basement and my boiler puts out quite a bit of heat. Im going to brew tonight and keep things simple, while using distilled water. If that doesnt do it next ill look into fermentation temps. You guys have any tips for building a fermentation fridge?

Thanks for all the replies!

I usually do 3 weeks or more in primary then keg. Usually it takes another 2-3 weeks in the keg before I think the beer is starting to taste pretty good. I normally don't let it sit at room temp during that time though. I'm impatient.

Everything sounds good, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't think there is anything wrong with doing a starter. It's not hard and if you think you are doing it right, then you probably are.

I would also recommend fermenting closer to 62 if possible, but your temps aren't too high. Any issues at your temps are going to be pretty mild.

Ill try letting it sit in the keg a few more weeks and see what happens.

After thinking it over, I've come to the conclusion that it may be the water..




..I mean, I'm not sure any beer would turn out good when brewed with...

butte water..

*cue Beavis and Butthead giggling*

HAHA Actually my best brew to date was brewed with butte water. When i was 19 or 20 i was an iron worker apprentice and was broke. I was filling bottles with butte tap. It gave me a bacterial infection and i had the ****s for 2 months. Tying bar in the sun all day and ****ting every ten min. Man that sucked!

The walkin cooler at my family's restaurant is set at 36 degrees. Could i ferment my ales this cold?

No, but you could lager at that temp.

Brasco20 said:

The walkin cooler at my family's restaurant is set at 36 degrees. Could i ferment my ales this cold?

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I'm sure the health department would love to discover this.

Really? Is that not legal?

The health department thinks fermentation is a bad thing. And in a cooler containing FOOD, it can be a sign of bad sanitation practices.

Does the Family restaurant have a liquor making license? If not, you cannot brew beer in that cooler legally.

Not a license for making. Just selling