contaminated beer...what are its characters?

contaminated beer...what are its characteristics???? here is the story....I did my first all grain brew last week and so far nothing has worked well for me. My O.G. should have been 1.054 and I had a 1.044....now I just went to get another gravity reading and the beer smelled and tasted horrible. So how do you know if you have a bad batch of beer? Does it look a certain way? How does it smell??? And what about taste? Thanks for the help.. I can't believe this happened..just really frustrated right now. I had all good brews with extract and figured I could pull this off with no issues. I made sure everything that touched the wort after I chilled it was sanitized. AHHHH!! frustrating...

If you beer is only a week old dont worry. Your OG could be from your crush, ph, sparge.... too many variables. Dont expect your first all grain to be your best beer ever. By all means do not dump it. Do everything you normaly would and let it age for 6-8 weeks. Remember the flavors and smells and use it as a learning experiance. If you post exactly what you did ie. mash temp, qt/lb water, mash ph, crush, recipie... you can be helped a little more with answers.

Shawn

I went off of peoples suggestions on here and did the Bee Cave Haus Pale Ale
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 80.00 %
2.00 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 20.00 %
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 19.7 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 7.6 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 2.4 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.0 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham Ale Yeast (White Labs #WLP039)


I entered all this into beer smith and went with it. Here is what I did though from their instructions..

I Mashed In Add 12.50 qt of water and after adding my grain my mash was at 150 F

after an hour I did 2 sparge rounds of 2.5 gallons of 170 F water until I reached my boil volume of 6.5 gal. I then went to the turkey burner (after trying for 20 min on the stove top) and boiled for an hour adding in hops as scheduled...chilled the wort down to 78F with chiller in about 10-15...pitched yeast....my O.G was 1.44 where beersmith said I should have been at 1.54....so probably should have done the inital mash maybe 15-20 minutes longer from what I am reading. If this helps let me know.

I also have a question about San Star. This is what I use to sanitize. I read that it is a no -rinse sanitizer. However when there are all kinds of little bubbles left on things I am rinsing them off. Is that an issue? should I not be concerned with the bubbles or am i doing the right thing by rinsing? let me know and thanks again for the help. I am hoping to try all grain again this week with much better results!!!

and one more note...i am mainly concerned because I smelled and tasted my beer throughout the brewing process as I always do and it smelled very good and tasted great! now it smells bad and tastes worse!

Check your crush and when you dough in stir and stir and stir. Get yourself a water report to see what your water is made of. Might help to use mash 5.2 in your mash. Do not fear the foam of Starsan and definatly do not rinse (defeats the purpose of sanitizing). When you sparge do your first sparge at 180-185 that will bring your grain bed up to 165-170. Second sparge use 175-180 to maintain temp and stir very well. The taste and smell of my all grain brews are not that good untill after secondary before keging (about 3 weeks). The smell and flavor could be from the yeast also. Hopes this helps.

Shawn

When I added my sparge water I stirred it up and left it in the mash tun for another 10 minutes before draining...that was correct right??? I def need to get my sparge temp up though I see from what plumber writes.. ...thanks for that info and I will have to try to no longer fear the foam of starsan as I have!!

If you are brewing ale the beer should taste like beer (although young) at any point during secondary fermentation unless some bacteria got into the beer. Not using a sanitizer on everything that touches the beer after chilling is usually the problem if an infection has taken place. Not using a good (not out of date) proofed yeast is another reason a bacteria can get a foothold in your brew. Read all you can about sanitary practices and get some Starsan if you are not using it as I feel this is the best sanitizer made today. Use it in a spray bottle for large objects. Boiling any objects that have tight places that can not be cleaned well or sanitized will remove any doubt that it is sanitary. Do not use bleach unless rinsed well after exposure to bleach. The smallest specs of chlorine can ruin a beer.