Yucky after 5 days

My wife is brewing lager in Beer Machine - beer may have been over oxygenated on second day of brewing since it had to be transferred back and forth.

After 5 days instructions say to put in fridge for another 5 days then drink.

People on this forum said it should ferment about 14 days before fridge. While others said "drink it young" since it may be oxidized. So about 10 days then or more like 14?

Last night we tasted a bit after 5 days. It did not taste yeasty, it did not taste sweet. It did taste a bit like cardboard but mostly like chlorinated pool water -- Yech!!

I guess we will just keep it fermenting longer. Its PSI is about 15 and it seems to have a 1/2 inch head in the clear barrel its in.

Thanks for help

If you start 'tasting' at 5 days it will be gone way before its ready.

a lager will take some time

did you use your tap water for the brewing water? IS your water treated with Chlorine/chloramines? If so, you're beer is going to have a medicine/hospital flavor to it.

It sounds like you should do some reading on this site, maybe check out John Palmers How to Brew website, and start over with a new batch.

My first experience with making beer was also with the Beer Machine. I used it twice, but never did get a drinkable beer out of it.

I think that the issues with bad taste might be using bleach to sanitize (leaves a real medicine-y taste, or band-aid like) and using water with chlorine in it. Since it's no boil, the hops are already in there so you won't get a hoppy flavor.

Still, if you closely follow the instructions (except for the bleach to sanitize), maybe you'll have better luck than I did. The instructions for the Beer machine are quite a bit different than for boiling extracts, so I'm not sure that many people are well versed in the "how tos" of it. One of the keys will be to let it ferment until it's done- how ever many days it takes. It ferments are long as it does- there is no way to say "x days". When it's done fermenting, then it can be placed in the fridge.