Am I doing something wrong?

What's going on here? So far my track record as a brewer sucks. I brewed a

Cooper's wheat extract kit for my first brew and things went pretty well but

the product tastes like crap, even after 2mos. in bottles. My second brew

was a Northern Brewer Irish Red extract kit and the sample going into the

bottles was excellent and the one week sample was decent but now the two

week bottle I just opened taste like soap/chemicals, hard to explain. I

have plastic primary and SS 5 gal. boil pot. I use Iodophor mixed at two

capfulls into 5gal. water. I clean everything with oxyclean after use, then

before I brew I clean it with palmolive free(no dyes or perfumes), rinse really

well with steaming hot water, then I sanitize with the iodophor and just let it

air dry while brewing. Anything and everything that comes into contact with

the post boil wort is sanitized. I wash bottles the same way as everyting

else. I am careful to siphon quietly and I store the bottles in a cool dark

place. I place the primary bucket in a tub of water that usually stays around

60-65F. I primary for 16days. I have read The Complete Joy of

Homebrewing, Home Brewing for Dummies, and I have read most of the intro.

to Brewing Classic Styles as

well as spend quite a lot of time surfing these forums. What gives? Not

giving up, got the ingredients to partial mash BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde

but I want this to turn out well, any

suggestions.

I only have two suggestions....first, take out the Palmolive all together. Using regular dish soaps creates a film that you don't want there. Oxyclean is all you need. And with the Iodophor, it's a "wet" sanitizer. You want your items to be wet otherwise the Iodophor isn't doing anything.

Not sure if any of that will help, but it was my first reactions.

Get some PBW man.2 bucks will sanatize like 20 batches.With no bandaid taste

What is your water source ? What are you using to top off your extract worts? Seems strange that your taste testing at bottling time is OK, then the off-flavors appear during conditioning. Are you sanitizing/boiling your bottle caps?

It doesn't sound like an infection. Are you doing full boils or topping off. If your water has a lot of chlorine and you aren't boiling it, that could create off tastes.

For your next brew use spring water from the grocery store.

Joos said:

Get some PBW man.2 bucks will sanatize like 20 batches.With no bandaid taste

Click to expand...

Use PBW or OxyClean for cleaning only. Use Iodophor or Star San for sanitizing. I have been using OxyClean & Star San and my equipment and beer have been very happy.

I sanitize everything, soak bottle caps and siphon hoses during boil. I use bottled spring water for boil, usually around 4 gallons or so and then top up with chilled, bottled distilled water in fermentor, usually around 1.5 gallons. I am gone from home alot so it is hard to monitor fermentor temp. but I leave the bucket in a bath tub filled about 2/3 with water. A floating thermometer in the tub tells me that the ambient water temp. usually settles somewhere around 64F or so. So far I have isolated down the only thing I seem to do that should leave a soapy/chemical taste and smell is the actual soap. I rinse really well but next brew I will skip it. Just gonna let those Irish Reds sit till St. Patty's day and see how they are then. Maybe that taste will dissipate. We will see what happens. As soon as I move I'm buying a used fridge and a temp. controler so I can be sure of stable fermentation temp.