Frustated with my progress

I have been brewing for over a year now and I'm still not happy with my results. My only issue left is an off taste that comes at the finish of every beer I have made so far. The closest thing I can compare it to is a heavy blandness. The rest of the beer tastes amazing, but no matter what style I do the off taste is there. I've done almost everything I can from recommendations from this site and books but to no avail. Below is a quick synopsis of my last brew day.

All Grain Arrogant Bastard Clone
Sanitized with Idophor
1000 mL starter of Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Mash tun temp at 153 F for 60 minutes
Full wort Boil
Cooled in 15 minutes with Wort Chiller
Placed in carboy with constant temp of 62 F
Left for 14 days.
S.G. 1.056
F.G. 1.010

I'm getting very frustrated and hope someone can help me out.

Do you know what your water profile is? If blandness is sort of a chalky taste, then that could be it. I am no expert though...

If it persists across all your batches, you need to look for a common denominator - most likely either your process or your water.

Water is easiest to fix - if you use tap water, get an analysis and add minerals as appropriate, or switch to bottled water (not distilled, and spring water is usually not a good idea either because it tends to be "harder").

As for process, you'd have to do a vertical tasting to identify what exactly the off-flavor is and then adjust as needed. It could be carbonation, sanitation, inaccurate thermometer calibration, or simply recipes that don't work well with your setup and need to be adjusted to include more, less or different grains or hops.

I don't believe it's the water. I've used bottled spring water since the beginning (the water here is terrible). I'm going to look into my process more. It's the same taste as when I was doing extracts, though.

How long are you letting the bottles condition before you actually begin drinking them?

The last two batches I've actually kegged. However, the batch before that I left bottled for 4 months in a dark room around 65 F. Same taste was present.

BoilerUp said:

The last two batches I've actually kegged. However, the batch before that I left bottled for 4 months in a dark room around 65 F. Same taste was present.

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Well that rules out green beer....

So the more we can eliminate, the closer we can get to the truth...

What's your sanitization regimin like? Since you keg, take us through everything from brew day to after you kick a keg. What do you use to clean and what to sanitize?

BoilerUp said:

I don't believe it's the water. I've used bottled spring water since the beginning (the water here is terrible). I'm going to look into my process more. It's the same taste as when I was doing extracts, though.

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Try using bottled purified water or drinking water instead of spring water.

Another question on your water source. Have you used the same Bottled water source for all your beers?
If not might you try another source?

I have Hard well water that I filter (charcol filter) to remove sediment and other things... No after taste on any of my beers.

I'd be willing to think it's water more than anything else if its the "Same" taste throughout all your batches.

BoilerUp said:

All Grain Arrogant Bastard Clone
...
S.G. 1.056
F.G. 1.010

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Those gravity numbers are way off. AB should be about 1.074 OG, 1.018 FG. So maybe your problem has been that you're missing target gravities on your mash and as a result are getting watery, low-body beers?

First thing that came to my mind was also the water source. Another idea: how hard are you boiling the wort? What kinds of evaporation numbers are you getting? Do you need to top off at the end of your boils? If you boil too hard, you could get some interesting reactions in there (a common problem with folks that partial boil).

Another thought: is the Iodophor possibly adding a taste? Are you rinsing it after you use it, or letting it dry in place, or adding to the vessel while it's still wet? Maybe try Starsan for your next batch and see if the taste is stemming from the sanitation regime...

Using spring water or drinking water doesn't really do you any good. You still don't know what is in it. It could be as hard or as soft as anything else out there. If you want to have some idea what water you are making your beer with, you need to use water with some sort of analysis to it (such as your tap water, with an analysis) or start with distilled or RO water.


TL

FxdGrMind said:

Another question on your water source. Have you used the same Bottled water source for all your beers?
If not might you try another source?

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I've brewed at my friends house (using his water) the beer before the clone and same result.

Try switching out your cleaning/sanitation chemicals. Instead of Idophor go for Starsan, if you use Oxyclean go for PBW or vice versa. Perhaps you are getting some sort of residue at some point in the process.

Also, if you have any other brewer friends, maybe try doing batch on their equipment.

Munsoned said:

First thing that came to my mind was also the water source. Another idea: how hard are you boiling the wort? What kinds of evaporation numbers are you getting? Do you need to top off at the end of your boils? If you boil too hard, you could get some interesting reactions in there (a common problem with folks that partial boil).

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Hard boiling is not something I thought of. I always thought you wanted a continuous rolling boil. Should I be simmering instead?

Munsoned said:

Another thought: is the Iodophor possibly adding a taste? Are you rinsing it after you use it, or letting it dry in place, or adding to the vessel while it's still wet? Maybe try Starsan for your next batch and see if the taste is stemming from the sanitation regime...

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I don't believe it's the Iodophor because the taste was the same as when I first began brewing, and I was using bleach as my sanitizer back then. I'm using the recommended concentrations on the Iodophor and lightly rinsing.

Something to add, my roommates described the taste as "cardboard-like." Not sure if that helps but I figured another description couldn't hurt.

How many batches have you done? You said you've been brewing for a year, but many people have very different brewing frequencies. If you've done only 4 or 5 batches then I'd say it's too early to get frustrated / discouraged - at least they've been drinkable!

Another thing you might want to try is getting your beers tasted by a BJCP judge. Look up the list of beer judges in your area and see if you can make friends with one. They may be able to give much better insight on the off flavor than you can detect yourself.

There you go, cardboard is oxidation.

BoilerUp said:

Something to add, my roommates described the taste as "cardboard-like." Not sure if that helps but I figured another description couldn't hurt.

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"cardboard-like" is a classic description of oxidized beer.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Blandness as you've put it could also be similar to that. Try leaving one of your beers exposed to air for a day or two and see if the "blandness" / cardboard-like gets stronger. Then review your process to see if there are any times when you're exposing it to air during fermentation. Ex, re-racking too much, or opening the fermenter frequently to check gravity, which will disperse the protective layer of CO2.

TexLaw said:

you need to use water with some sort of analysis to it (such as your tap water, with an analysis) or start with distilled or RO water.


TL

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Is RO close enough to distilled for working out water chemistry?