Why does my extract brew suck?

Brasco20 said:

Not a license for making. Just selling

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BIG difference.

Maybe make your starter further in advance. Put it in the fridge after a couple days then decant off the clearer liquid before pitching the rest or eliminate the starter like other people suggested. Just throwing in the whole starter without decanting alters the recipe. Not much but it is different.

The only other thing I would try is boiling the top off water before you cool it. Some people have success when they don't boil the water but it is another chance for infection.

Another possible issue: Are you boiling every time with the lid on the pot?

I used to work in a bakery. Bakeries are inspected by the dept of agriculture. When we decided to start selling sandwiches, we had to get inspected by the health dept. Before we scheduled our inspection, we got this guy who used to work for the health dept to give us a fake inspection so we would know what we needed to fix.

Well, when he found a five gallon bucket in the employee bathroom that had a big airlock sticking out of it, he was astounded. Luckily, this guy was a brewer himself, but he tried to give us a big scare and said, "Even though I don't work for the health dept anymore, I'm going to have to report this, and you [me] are probably going to have to pay a hefty fine."

He was joking. I was sweating.

Don't ferment in a location that requires a license for that kind of thing.

every time ive used LME ive noticed a twangy taste. i started using DME and it solved MY problem. try a batch with just DME for an experiment

I've been brewing for about the same amount of time as you and I get my kits from NB and they've turned out very good. The main differences I notice are that I use tap water, I don't make a starter, I primary for 2-3 weeks then secondary (to free up the primary) for a couple weeks.

Ive been thinking about everything that i do and ive come to the conclusion that its my keg cleaning practices. Most of my uncarbed beer tastes good, then after its been in the keg for a few days i get bad results. I have a cider bottled right now and it tastes pretty good, not the best, but no off flavors. The best beer i have brewed was bottled, but it was so much work i went to kegging. I bottled ak47 from nb tonight, so we'll see how it turns out.

Here's how i clean my keg and line. I start by spraying out the residue from the previous beer. Then fill the keg about 3/4 full with water and add a scoop of oxyclean and shake the **** out of the keg, then run a couple gallons of this through the line. Then i rinse the oxyclean out and fill 3/4 with star san and run all of it through the line until empty, then rack and hook up.

I think i need to get a bit more in depth with the cleaning. I bought a keg brush and am going to order a brush for the pick up tube. Any suggestions on how i can better my keg and line cleaning practices?

Also the same beer that i had great results with in the bottle, i kegged once and the whole thing tasted like yeast. Everyone said to let it cold crash, so i did , and the entire keg still tasted like yeast, any ideas there?

just a thought, but I hope your rinsing the living hell out of the keg. I too use oxy clean and just cleaned my first keg with it a couple days ago. I probably rinsed the keg out 6 times before I couldn't feel the residual oxy feel any more, and than I rinsed it out some more just to be sure

I believe im rinsing enough.

I'll toss in my 2 coins worth: Go to a regulated fermentation chamber with the temp probe taped to the fermenter and covered with some insulation, such as thin foam. The next best arrangement would be a fermenter immersed in water. Your fermenter has a hard time dissipating enough heat in air to keep temps from going too high.

Fermentis 05 is capable of making some darned good beers. Re-hydrate it according to instructions at the Fermentis web site, never using distilled water for re-hydrating.

If your water is hard and you use oxyclean you may have a residual film that is hard to get out. I have really hard water and soaked a glass carboy for a week with oxyclean and had a film on it I couldn't get off. It wouldn't even come off with a brush. I used Lemmishine(sp) which is what my wife has to use with the dish washing detergent to get rid of hard water spots. I just put a little in with about a half gallon of water and swirled it and it took the film right off. Just thought I would offer that in case you think your problem is related to cleaning.

Thanks, I do have hard water.