I need flavor help

I need help from you guys / gals to tell me what flavor I am tasting in my beers. In all of my beers ( Fat Tire Clone, AHS Chocolate Stout, AHS American Ale extract kits) I can taste this harsh flavor that is not hop related. To me the best way I can describe it is that it taste flat even though it is fully carbonated.I will list my procedures below, please let me know if you see anything wrong.

1. All equipment clean with soapy water and rinsed very well, then sanitized with Star San.
1.5 Soak speciality grains in 155 degree water for 30 minutes.
2. Put one or 2 lbs extract in 4 gal water and bring to boil
3. Add bittering hops.
4.With 15 minutes left in the boil I add in the remainder of the extract and the aroma hops and wort chiller(it has been cleaned).
5. Bring temp down with wort chiller.
6. Use auto siphon to drain wort into carboy or bucket.
7. Add yeast starter.
8. Place into ice chest cooler and add ice to keep temps in around 65 degrees for the fermentation period.
8. Clean bottles and sanitize with Star San and bottle beer.

Please give me your opinions.

I know the feeling this happend to me a few years back. If your hoses are old replace them, some will keep hoses along time and thats cool with me, but at the $$$ that hoses cost I replace them every couple of months or 4 or 5 brew sessions. If you have any valves that can be taken apart, or anything that can be taken apart do so and soak in warm powder brew wash overnight.

You dont add ice to your brew right just to the ice chest to bring temp down?

How are you preparing your starter are you boiling your container or just cleaning and sanitizing? You may want to try a brew and use a smack pack like 1056 or something, or a dry yeast see if the flavor is still there. I always get quick starts with no starter and see if that flavor is still there.

You may want to skip the soapy water and use powder brew wash to clean with.

Do you know what your temp is during primary fermentation, and which yeast are you using? What kind of water are you using?

I had the same problem a while back and breaking everything down, clean with PBW and Managing my primary ferment temp cured the problem. I feel your pain but it looks like it will just be a process of elimination on your end.
Good Luck!

Here is some more information.

1. Hoses - all new clear hose from Lowes - less than 2 monthes old.
2. Water - from the tap although I am using bottled on the batch I have going now.
3. Starter - boiled some extract on the stove and let it cool. I use a 1 liter bottle with air lock that has been sanitized with Star San. I usually have the starter at high Krausen when I pitch.
4. Ice - added to the cooler, not the wort.
I have no valves anywhere in the process
5. Yeast - So far have used dry Nottinghan, US 05 and Munton Gold for the last 3 batches
6. Temps - cooler water kept as close to 65 degrees as I can. This is pretty easy with my cooler.

I may have got off on the wrong kick here, you say it taste carbonated but flat....so nothing nasty like contamination could it be your beer has no body?
Is it the consistancy of water? How about mouthfeel, sometimes the extract kits lack some body? Sometimes the extract kits lack flavor...I mean sometimes, not to anger any extract brewers, but I have in the past helped someone get started with a extract in a can kit and the beer lacked body, we had to add extra malt next time and that helped.....

Do you know what your Original gravites were , what temp do you pitch your yeast?

After how many weeks in the bottle do you first crack them and notice this flavor?

After reading Palmers book on off flavors could the following 2 be the problem

1.Astrigent - the Stout I did I got called away from the steeping time and had to leave the grains for about an hour in the water at 155-158.
2. Alcohol - The first beer I did add 1 lb of cane sugar and 1/2 lb light brown sugar. From what I read this could be cutting down the "body" of the beer.

SG - I did not get one on the Fat tire clone from Midwest but the Stout was SG-1058 FG 1016.

The Fat Tire clone had 6 lbs extract and 1 lb grains
The Stout had 7 lb extract and about 2 lbs grain and malto dextrin

Yeast was pitched at about 80 and then the carboy placed in a cooler of 65ish degree water

I noticed the taste at bottling and I have checked a bottle every week, last bottle was last week (3 weeks in the bottle and first time the beer was carbed) To be sure, I chilled a bottle today and this flavor seems to be more mellow and not as harsh today (4 weeks in the bottle).

From another stand point, it has been approx 4 years since I have had homebrew, could it just be that the beer is green and just needs to age some more?

Some of my beers taste pretty bad until they're about 2 months old. I'd say 95% of beers out there will taste twice as good at 3 months as they do at 1 month.

Bobby_M said:

Some of my beers taste pretty bad until they're about 2 months old. I'd say 95% of beers out there will taste twice as good at 3 months as they do at 1 month.

Click to expand...

+1,000

Heck even after 4 to 6 weeks, you can find a marked improvement in your beers, a lot of off flavors tend to recede and/or dissappear with time.

I wrote a long post on bottle conditioning awhile back...take a read, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=558191&postcount=101

Yeasties are incredible good at cleaning up their houses if we give them enough time.

Guys,

thanks for the input. To rest my mind I will go with the beer still being young and give it another month of aging before trying any more. I will report back with another report at that time.