Why does my beer taste like cider?

OK so Ive brewed about a dozen mini mashes so Im not a total noob, but might as well be! I have a problem with my beer turning out with a cidery taste. Example, Ive tried a New Castle clone mini mash, a "Double Engine" from Belgium, and a summer ale. Its strange trying to describe a taste on a thread, but its essentially sweeter than it should be and has a bitter finish like a cider. I know this is typically associated with either a sanitation issue or bottling too soon. Or Ive even been told that if I bottle with DME rather than priming sugar, this would fix it. Ive gone OVER the top with sanitation and waited 4 weeks to bottle. This LAST batch of the Belgian was awful and I was the most careful. So what am I missing? Do I still just have a hole in my sanitation process?

how long have you let it sit in the bottle also did you individually prime the bottles or prime the whole batch then bottle it? For my beers with sanitation if it was my fault it would have a bad off taste not a sweet off taste. Hoepfully the experts on here can answer because I would like to know also. Also put your recipe on here of how it was made becasue there going to ask to try and pinpoint the problem.

Check this out
How to Brew - By John Palmer - Common Off-Flavors

Could be yeast by products, use of sugar, too warm of a ferment, or [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]aceto bacteria.

Scroll down to Cidery.
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Good call, I should probably start at the top!

2.5lbs Belgian 2row Pils
4oz Belgian Aromatic
4oz Belgian Biscuit
4oz German Vienna

steeped in bag for 90 minutes
Sparged grains and boiled with :

6.5lbs M&F extra light DME
1/2 lb of Belgian Candy sugar
2 ounces Cascade

90 minute boil

added Irish Moss and 1/2 ounce of Goldings for final 15 minutes

After done, placed kettle in ice bath, dropped to 75 in about 15 minutes. Pitched Belgian Abby Yeast.

Left in Primary for 10 days. Bubbles slowed, (one a minutes. Ish)racked beer and left for 10 additional days. Final gravity stopped. Bottled using 1/2 cup (i think) of DME and added to the entire contents to the carboy. Racked into the bottling bucket, bottled using the "good" caps with the oxygen absorbers.

Oh and I use Pro Brewers Wash AND Star San. All of this AFTER washing the bottles and everything else in my dishwasher with no soap.

Oh and I know, EXTREMELY sweet just by the recipe alone. But the cidery has happened on an assortment of types and flavors of brews.

What were your original and final gravities? Were you getting the expected attenuation from your yeast? If not, that's probably the sweetness part, and I'd start with looking at your aeration prior to pitching.

Can you define attenuation? And also, I wrote down the gravities and my little girl spilled grape juice all over my recipe sheet, so I had to throw it away.

The only issue I see with the recipe is the Cascade hops.

Anyway, my money is on old LME. I would put a lot of money on this in fact. I don't think you really mean cidery taste. When describing beer, cidery tends to be more alcoholic and hot tasting. It does not refer to sweet and apple cider-like flavor.

Extract "twang" comes across as a simultaneously astringent and syrupy sweet flavor. It gives an uncomfortably heavy or thick taste to the beer.

Its more expensive but try one recipe with DME replacing LME and see if that fixes your problem. I'll bet it does.

This twang is what ultimately led me to all grain brewing.

nate0075 said:

Can you define attenuation? And also, I wrote down the gravities and my little girl spilled grape juice all over my recipe sheet, so I had to throw it away.

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Attenuation is the apparent degree of sugars that have been consumed by the yeast during fermentation. To calculate your attenuation it's SG-FG/SG

So in the case of my most recent Double American Pale Ale my sg was 1.074 and my final gravity was 1.009 so 74-9=65 65/74= 87.8% attenuation.

dontman said:

The only issue I see with the recipe is the Cascade hops.

Anyway, my money is on old LME. I would put a lot of money on this in fact. I don't think you really mean cidery taste. When describing beer, cidery tends to be more alcoholic and hot tasting. It does not refer to sweet and apple cider-like flavor.

Extract "twang" comes across as a simultaneously astringent and syrupy sweet flavor. It gives an uncomfortably heavy or thick taste to the beer.

Its more expensive but try one recipe with DME replacing LME and see if that fixes your problem. I'll bet it does.

This twang is what ultimately led me to all grain brewing.

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+1 to that thought
1/2lb of candi sugar should not give any significant cidery flavors.

LOL I know, I had some Cascade left overs I wanted to use up that were the same called for AU.

I wanted to let you know I was using a DME, I've heard that about Liquid and I try to avoid it.

Yea I thought that about the candy sugar, I know normally it just raises the Alcohol level.

nate0075 said:

Yea I thought that about the candy sugar, I know normally it just raises the Alcohol level.

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It does and it does not, if added on top of the existing grain bill then yes it will raid the alcohol level, usually you use sugar in place of a percentage of the grain bill to lighten the body while maintaining the same alcohol level. Sucros (table sugar) is normally 100% fermentable but sometimes the impurities and or the yeast by products produce that cidery flavor. However it could just be that extract "tang". That's what got me to go all grain too.

nate0075 said:

LOL I know, I had some Cascade left overs I wanted to use up that were the same called for AU.

I wanted to let you know I was using a DME, I've heard that about Liquid and I try to avoid it.

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You don't need to avoid liquid malt extract. DME is made from liquid malt extract. What you need to avoid is old LME or LME in cans or old LME in cans.

Are you squeezing the grain bag when you are finished steeping?

If yes please stop. You are releasing a lot of tannins from the grain which will give you an astringency that people will blame on the malt extract.

Forrest

Austinhomebrew said:

You don't need to avoid liquid malt extract. DME is made from liquid malt extract. What you need to avoid is old LME or LME in cans or old LME in cans.

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I believe that - I got that twangy taste from canned extract, now I only use fresh bulk LME from the LHBS and have not had that taste since.

Austinhomebrew said:

You don't need to avoid liquid malt extract. DME is made from liquid malt extract. What you need to avoid is old LME or LME in cans or old LME in cans.

Are you squeezing the grain bag when you are finished steeping?

If yes please stop. You are releasing a lot of tannins from the grain which will give you an astringency that people will blame on the malt extract.

Forrest

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I dont normally squeeze the bag (maybe an unintentional pressing with the spoon), but I DO poor hot water over the grain bag when its done. Should I stop doing that?