I didn't want to crowd the forum with another "what's wrong with my beer" post, but I guess I'm already half way there. My problem is that i'm not that good an pinpointing flavors, everyone tastes different. Should I instead focus on what areas of my tongue are being hit the most?
I've brewed 2 batches of extract from a homebrew kit that i received for Christmas. A smooth nut brown ale and a Summit Avenue (Summit EPA clone). The first was the Nut Brown. I have 10 bottles left, 5 are in the fridge. They have been in the bottle for 6-8 weeks. I tasted a bottle each week to get an idea of how the beer conditions in the bottle. The first 2-3 weeks, the beer was a mix of plastic and a strong alcohol taste. Not sure the strong alcohol taste makes sense... maybe chemically? It's a lower ABV beer, maybe 4%. I followed the instructions to a tee, and I use one-step to sanitize. Bottles were soaked in oxiclean over night, then sanitized in the dishwasher with no soap. Tap water was used for this first round. The bottle on the 3-4th week gave me hope. The first half of the beer tasted great (from a glass), there was still a light aftertaste. As the beer warmed and the glass got lower, the taste was strong. Tonight I had a bottle, and second to try and nail down the flavor (7-8th week)... they were terrible. My tastes were a little clouded with a really hoppy beer first (similar to Bells Hopslam)... but my thought is that this would actually cleanse my pallet to get a true taste of the beer sans hops flavor. I asked my wife and her friend to taste and tell me what they noticed (not real beer drinkers), one said sour... the other said sort of plastic.
This Michigan state game is making me loose focus.
Anyway, the mouthfeel of the beer itself is smooth and kind of creamy... but that aftertaste lingers for a good 5 minutes. I can't tell if it's astringey, bitter, sour or plastic.
My second batch is in the bottle for 2 weeks this sunday, still way to early to diagnose. This time i used store bought filtered water (2.5 gal jugs). I tasted a bottle last night, again just to see how/where the beer ages. Utterly disgusting, had to dump it. The same flavors as the Nut Brown but 10 fold. I'm really looking forward to this beer as Summit EPA is a favorite summer beer of mine. Will be a little disheartening. I have a 3rd batch in the secondary... fingers crossed. The 3rd batch, when I racked, I took the top off and took a whiff as I like to smell the hops/beer... use my sensories, my nostrils flared up and burned. Rotten eggs almost, but it was gone in 5 minutes. Was that the CO2 let out by the yeast?
Little background info.
Batch 1 was left in primary 3.5 weeks and bottled.
Batch 1 was racked after 1 week, secondary 2 weeks.
OG/FG hit the mark on both, well OG on #2 was a point higher. But FG hit the mark. First batch was fermented just below 60, second was just above 60 (lower end of both yeast's temp range). A wort chiller is used to drop temp. And I aerate by pouring from 1 bucket to another a couple times.
So that is where I am at. Trying to figure out what I have going on so I can start to pick apart my process and shoot for a better beer. It's frustrating to hear some people say even the beer right before bottled on their first batch tastes great... when mines nasty!
What else?
