ultraplop
Well-Known Member
I received a Mr Beer kit for Christmas and I have since been pretty psyched about brewing beer. I brewed up my first batch and it wasn't too bad. It was a Pale Ale mix that used half malt extract and half malto dextrin. It was a bit light, but still had character to it and didn't taste watered down like many commercial brews.
Unfortunately, every single batch I have made since has developed a sour taste. It is probably getting infected. Some are really sour and some are not that sour and somewhat drinkable. I was trying to figure out what was different about the first batch that made it turn out better, but after it had aged a month or so, I noticed a very slight sourness to it as well, it was just a lot more faint.
I am thinking its an infection of some kind, but I don't get ring around the bottle, and none of the bottles gush or explode (except in one odd circumstance that I will mention later). I did notice though, that sometimes, but not always there is chill haze. Since this happens to me on every batch I know there has to be something very wrong with they way I am making beer.
The Mr Beer process is a little different than the process you would go through to make a 5 gallon batch. I am going to step through it here, and maybe someone can tell me if there is something wrong with it:
I start off by mixing 1 tbsp of One Step to a gallon of water and dump it into my keg. The keg holds more than 2 gallons so In order to sanitize the whole thing, I first shake it up pretty good, and let it soak it for 5 minutes, then turn the keg over so that the solution soaks on to the other side for another 5 minutes. I also put the stirring spoon, measuring cup, can opener, etc inside the keg so that everything else gets sanitized. The last few times I have also been sanitizing the cans of malt extract as well. After the keg is soaked, I also soak my pot (you don't boil the malt extract with a Mr Beer kit so I have to make sure ithe pot is bacteria free) I dump the one step solution into a bucket to keep my utensils in and close the keg
Once everything is sanitized I take 4 cups of water and bring to a boil, add the malt extract, and stir it a little. I then take some water that was boiled for 15 minutes the previous night and refrigerated, and put one gallon of it in the keg, then I dump the extract in, then top off and fill it with cooled boiled water until it gets to the 2 gallon mark.
At this point I stir it all up with my sanitized stirring spoon to aerate it, close the keg and let it sit for 5 minutes, then I add the yeast. I would take the temp but I have done the process a couple times and when you put that much cold water in there it will always end up being 60 to 70 degrees. After I put the yeast in, I give it another good stir, close it up and store it in my closet for fermentation.
The fermentation seems normal, it will usually take a good 24 hours for a layer of krausen to appear, it will dissipate after several days, and usually by 2 weeks its mostly clear and I will bottle it.
The Mr Beer kits only come with enough one-step to make 1 gallon of solution, so I end up filling the bottles only half way with the solution because I have enough of them for 2 gallons of beer. Since its only half way filled, I just shake them alot (with the crown on but not clamped on yet). I let em sit for 10 minutes, dump the solution out and fill em up with beer. I then put just regular sugar in for priming (I have a feeling this might be a source of infection). Then clamp the caps and let em carbonate.
After one week they usually taste like crap. Well usually not that bad, but sour, and I don't like it.
I have read that using regular sugar can cause infections, but Dave Miller thinks this is rare. Even so I might try to use those carbonation pellets that Cooper's sells next time to eliminate this possibility.
Even if the sugar is infected, I have a feeling that this is not the only problem. I can sometimes detect hints of sourness and a distinct aloholic smell before bottling. However, the sourness is much stronger after a week in the bottle so it makes me think that maybe the bottles or the sugar itself is the main problem. Sometimes I second guess myself and wonder if what I taste in the beer before bottling is normal.
A couple notes: I tried using spring water one time (i did not boil it) with the same results, except for one thing that was really odd. When I put the sugar in the bottle, it would cause an instant reaction in the beer that made it gush and foam up. They did not gush after carbonation. It only happened with this particular batch and I thought it was really strange.
I also tried bleaching the crap out of my keg (and eventually replaced it) in case there was an infection living in it, but it didn't help.
Anyways, I have 2 more recipe kits to brew and I'm hoping to brew a good batch again. I do kind of want to brew 5 gallon batches, but I'm afraid that if I don't find out what is going wrong, that I will just end up ruining 5 gallons of beer instead of 2.
For my next batch, I am going to bleach the crap out of my keg (rinse it well) and then also soak it in onestep solution like normal. I am also going to buy some carbonation drops from Cooper's.
Is there anything else wrong with my process that I should change? Or maybe I should just chuck my keg out the window and stick to just buying beer in the store?
Unfortunately, every single batch I have made since has developed a sour taste. It is probably getting infected. Some are really sour and some are not that sour and somewhat drinkable. I was trying to figure out what was different about the first batch that made it turn out better, but after it had aged a month or so, I noticed a very slight sourness to it as well, it was just a lot more faint.
I am thinking its an infection of some kind, but I don't get ring around the bottle, and none of the bottles gush or explode (except in one odd circumstance that I will mention later). I did notice though, that sometimes, but not always there is chill haze. Since this happens to me on every batch I know there has to be something very wrong with they way I am making beer.
The Mr Beer process is a little different than the process you would go through to make a 5 gallon batch. I am going to step through it here, and maybe someone can tell me if there is something wrong with it:
I start off by mixing 1 tbsp of One Step to a gallon of water and dump it into my keg. The keg holds more than 2 gallons so In order to sanitize the whole thing, I first shake it up pretty good, and let it soak it for 5 minutes, then turn the keg over so that the solution soaks on to the other side for another 5 minutes. I also put the stirring spoon, measuring cup, can opener, etc inside the keg so that everything else gets sanitized. The last few times I have also been sanitizing the cans of malt extract as well. After the keg is soaked, I also soak my pot (you don't boil the malt extract with a Mr Beer kit so I have to make sure ithe pot is bacteria free) I dump the one step solution into a bucket to keep my utensils in and close the keg
Once everything is sanitized I take 4 cups of water and bring to a boil, add the malt extract, and stir it a little. I then take some water that was boiled for 15 minutes the previous night and refrigerated, and put one gallon of it in the keg, then I dump the extract in, then top off and fill it with cooled boiled water until it gets to the 2 gallon mark.
At this point I stir it all up with my sanitized stirring spoon to aerate it, close the keg and let it sit for 5 minutes, then I add the yeast. I would take the temp but I have done the process a couple times and when you put that much cold water in there it will always end up being 60 to 70 degrees. After I put the yeast in, I give it another good stir, close it up and store it in my closet for fermentation.
The fermentation seems normal, it will usually take a good 24 hours for a layer of krausen to appear, it will dissipate after several days, and usually by 2 weeks its mostly clear and I will bottle it.
The Mr Beer kits only come with enough one-step to make 1 gallon of solution, so I end up filling the bottles only half way with the solution because I have enough of them for 2 gallons of beer. Since its only half way filled, I just shake them alot (with the crown on but not clamped on yet). I let em sit for 10 minutes, dump the solution out and fill em up with beer. I then put just regular sugar in for priming (I have a feeling this might be a source of infection). Then clamp the caps and let em carbonate.
After one week they usually taste like crap. Well usually not that bad, but sour, and I don't like it.
I have read that using regular sugar can cause infections, but Dave Miller thinks this is rare. Even so I might try to use those carbonation pellets that Cooper's sells next time to eliminate this possibility.
Even if the sugar is infected, I have a feeling that this is not the only problem. I can sometimes detect hints of sourness and a distinct aloholic smell before bottling. However, the sourness is much stronger after a week in the bottle so it makes me think that maybe the bottles or the sugar itself is the main problem. Sometimes I second guess myself and wonder if what I taste in the beer before bottling is normal.
A couple notes: I tried using spring water one time (i did not boil it) with the same results, except for one thing that was really odd. When I put the sugar in the bottle, it would cause an instant reaction in the beer that made it gush and foam up. They did not gush after carbonation. It only happened with this particular batch and I thought it was really strange.
I also tried bleaching the crap out of my keg (and eventually replaced it) in case there was an infection living in it, but it didn't help.
Anyways, I have 2 more recipe kits to brew and I'm hoping to brew a good batch again. I do kind of want to brew 5 gallon batches, but I'm afraid that if I don't find out what is going wrong, that I will just end up ruining 5 gallons of beer instead of 2.
For my next batch, I am going to bleach the crap out of my keg (rinse it well) and then also soak it in onestep solution like normal. I am also going to buy some carbonation drops from Cooper's.
Is there anything else wrong with my process that I should change? Or maybe I should just chuck my keg out the window and stick to just buying beer in the store?
