Odd Taste

I have a problem with the last couple of brews I have done. They taste somewhat normal at first, then the finish with a bland cardboard taste with zero hop flavor at all. There is two things that I can come up with that are possibilities. One of the welds on my mash tun develops a small amount of rust after a couple of brews, I have kept it clean and not had a problem with it so far. The other is my false bottom collapsed doing a stout and I ended up with about a three by four inch black scorch patch on the bottom. I washed it as good I could but it didn't go away completely, please help

bland cardboard is often associated with oxidation.

how certain are you that you're not aerating the beer once its fermented?

and not to open a can of worms on the oft debated topic...but what about hot side aeration?

One of them was racked directly to keg after primary, the other went through secondary then kegged. As far as hsa goes I haven't done anything different with these two than any others I have done.

Without seeing a recipe, I would recommend switching to a cooler for a mash tun. You won't scorch your wort ever again during a mash and it works great for loads of folks, myself included.

Do you purge your kegs with CO2 before racking?

It doesn't sound like rust or scorching is your problem. Rust tastes and smells metallic and sort of dirty. Scorched beer tastes and smells burnt.

I'm with Malkore and say you have an oxidation problem, but it's hard to say where you have that problem. It could be anywhere in the process after fermentation

EdWort said:

Without seeing a recipe, I would recommend switching to a cooler for a mash tun. You won't scorch your wort ever again during a mash and it works great for loads of folks, myself included.

Do you purge your kegs with CO2 before racking?

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Ed's haus pale and orfy's hobgoblin. The hop flavor/aroma is completely non existent, they don't come through at all. The only reason that it scorched was because my false bottom collapsed and allowed grain to be pulled underneath it and plugged up and created hell. I am fond of direct heating my mashtun and am not ready to give it up. Yes I do purge my kegs but the goblin had the strange taste coming out of the fermenter. One fermented in a bucket while the other was in a carboy, same strange taste different racking techniques. Thanks for the ideas, keep them coming

OK something else just popped into my head. And this one happened right before my first bad brew. My diffusion stone dissapeared so I just dropped the hose into the bottom of the bucket/carboy and ran the wort directly out of the cfc on top of it. Without the stone it bubbles rather violently. Is there also a chance that over aerating could be the problem. I have always added medical oxygen for the entire time i was running wort into the fermenters but would not having the diffusion stone change anything? Thanks for the help so far

I don't think that it is possible to over aerate. Larger bubbles would actually impart less oxygen into the mix. I wonder if the medical oxygen has some extremely mild antiseptic in it? I have no earthly idea but it's all I can come up with.
I just dump the wort into the fermenter from about 2 feet up to aerate and I have never had a problem with fermentation. I have brewed huge beers without aerating. I guess I am suggesting not sticking the hose in and seeing if you still have the same problem.

Since the bad taste was detected right after fermentation, that means there was a problem with the fermentation. Yeast can produce off flavors during fermentation but normally, they clean up after themselvs towards the end of fermentation. Try a different yeast strain and see if that makes a difference.

they were fermented with with nottingham and safale us05. I have made another batch since and ditched the oxygen and just aerated old school and payed extra special attention to sanitation in two glass carboys now fermenting. Tasted good going in.

Just racked the batch to secondary and it has the same taste. I did everything right this time and am wondering if the hops that my brew partner has been storing are stale. Any input on what stale hopped beer tastes like? Would it not make sense for it to taste normal going into the fermenter and show the stale hop taste after all the sugars have been consumed? I need help this is so frustrating

Just eliminate one thing,,,,(like the moldy hops) and brew again. It shouldn't be this complicated. Even using city water in a rusty mash tun, no one is having this same problem. Sort it out man!

I hear you, but I've poured out threee batches of beer because of this, I'm not real anxious to do it again til I feel that I have the problem fixed.