homebrew taste question

If you brew 5 beers in a row all of different brewing styles and every beer had the same taste in it, would it be safe to say that its the water that your brewing with? Especially when you know that your well water isn't the greatest in the world. I can't describe the taste, its not like anything I've ever tasted before, and im not good at describing crap anyways. All I know is that its a dull taste that keeps showing up beer after beer. I have one brew in the fermenter now that I brewed with store bought spring water, so in a few weeks i'll know for sure if my well water sucks. thanks for any info

Water can be a problem that shows up in batch after batch. Look for any other common similarity between batches also.

Sounds like a water issue to me. I had the same issue for the longest time. I brewed for about a year...switched to all grain after 4-5 extract batches because I thought it was the extract giving me the odd taste. Then after about a year of brewing all grain, I realized it was still showing up in everything but the dark beers. I changed my water to store bought and it did the trick.

It could be the water. It could be fermentation temperatures. It could be oxidation. It could be underpitching yeast. Could be a bug of some sort. Could be failure to rinse after using chlorine to sanitize. Could be stale extracts from a LHBS that has slow turnover.

There's a lot of stuff it could be--at least using spring water helps you eliminate one variable!

If you suspect that it is water, use distilled water and add agents to it to get a solid profile.

If the taste remains, check that off the list and look at your sanitation techniques.

SumnerH said:

It could be the water. It could be fermentation temperatures. It could be oxidation. It could be underpitching yeast. Could be a bug of some sort. Could be failure to rinse after using chlorine to sanitize. Could be stale extracts from a LHBS that has slow turnover.

There's a lot of stuff it could be--at least using spring water helps you eliminate one variable!

Click to expand...

Fermentation temps stay between 67-70
Can't seem to think of any ways that I'm oxidizing the beer
all the beers were 2.75 gallon batches, but i used the whole yeast packages so I don't think i under pitched
Bug maybe? I don't know, but I sanitize with starsan and I believe that I overkill that
Never use chlorine.

Hopefully it is my water and none of the above, I feel like my practices are good with all of that

Shinglejohn said:

If you suspect that it is water, use distilled water and add agents to it to get a solid profile.

Click to expand...

Or pick up some 2.5 gallon jugs of spring water at the grocery store and use that.