Need help, 6 (7) bad batches in a row (Long)

cheezydemon said:

Coming in late, but I noticed in your original post Jnj that you use water from the hose. Garden hoses are not safe to drink out of and definitely deposit crap in your water that is not only toxic, it probably tastes bad!

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JnJ said:

Hmmm... Several batches with same hose turned out great. I grewup as a kid playing out side and drinking from a hose...... What reference are you basing this on?

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Nyxator said:

Yeah, I used to live in San Antonio, and I can say we had some really nice water (comes from a naturally filtered aquifer). I doubt very much if there are any dangerous contaminants in it, but I would probably pull the water from the tap inside the house.

I moved to Phoenix, and man what a difference! Our water here is rediculously hard. I miss SA water...

EDIT: I just noticed you're not in SA. Hehe, I think I got you mixed up with rohanski, who's darn close.

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rohanski said:

Great! Got your confidence back? I've gone all out and did three more. They are finally smelling like they did before the scourge.

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JnJ said:

Sorry for not updating earlier. Ok, so the last batch I spoke of turned out infected. I was really bummed and pretty much stopped posting about it. I did figure out that I used an old airlock and I believe that might have been the problem. Also, like may others, I drop my IC in the wort for the last 15 min of the boil to sanitize it. But, the hoses attached to the IC actually hang over the side of the pot, over the wort. Now, I believe the steam from the wort is enough to sanitize this, but for the next batch I decided to sanitize this portion of the IC. So I started the next batch even before I knew for sure that last batch was bad. This time I used all new plastic, bottled water, baked and bleached the carboy and also sanitized the IC as mentioned above. This batch was transferred to the keg on about 6 Dec. At that time it seemed to taste alright but I wasn’t sure. The FG was 1.010, perfect. Then on 10 Dec I sampled it and noticed an off flavor. I was very disappointed but hoped it was just green (it had been quite a while since I had tasted a good green homebrew). Well yesterday I decided to taste it again. It is not infected!!!!!! Man am I happy!! I have all the ingredients for my next batch (Hefe) so I will be brewing that in a week or so. This good batch is my own recipe in search of a House Ale. I wanted something not overly hoppy and low ABV so I can enjoy a few even on work nights. It turned out ok, but not quite balanced. It is a little to malty, so I plan to add more flavor and aroma hops.
Conclusion; I still don’t think it is my water, but I will use bottled water for a couple more batches before I try the tap water again. As far as sanitation, I think I’ll stick with bleach for a while.

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