tiredofbuyingbeer
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- Sep 5, 2016
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OK, so I cracked open the first beer I've tried from my fourth batch. This bottle carbonated for two weeks and has sat in the fridge for 4 days. I plan to let the rest sit at room temperature for a total of three weeks, and then in the fridge for at least a week.
I'm disappointed in this beer though, and a little frustrated, because it has this unpleasant taste I've noticed with other beers that I've made, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It's hard to explain the taste: maybe twangy, caramel, cardboard, or possibly even metallic. It's hard to describe, exactly. Bad, though. I noticed this taste to a highly objectionable degree in an earlier beer that I made, one I bottled back in August. It hasn't gotten any better, and I have separate reason to think that it's oxidized. (The auto-siphon gurgled like crazy.) Since the other beers I've made with this flavor probably weren't oxidized, I now think that maybe the oxidized batch also had this objectionable flavor in addition to being oxidized.
All of the beers have been extract recipes with specialty grains. They've all been IPA recipes. I've tried to get as close to a full boil as possible in a 5 gallon pot--around 4 gallons--and I've added most of the extract at the end. I think I've done a decent job with temperature control; they don't really taste fruity. According to my hydrometer, they've been decently attenuated. Each of the recipes have come out significantly darker than they're supposed to be, even though I added the majority of the extract at the end of the boil. I now question the quality of the recipes to some degree--they all involved steeping between .75 and 1 pound of some kind of crystal malt, mostly C60. They were all recipes from Northern Brewer purchased by mail some time in July or August.
The beer I'm drinking now, if it stays like this, is drinkable, but it's not very good. Maybe it will improve, but if the oxidized batch I tried earlier is any indication, I'm not optimistic (since I haven't ruled out oxidation as a problem in all three of the batches; I just have good reason to think that the one batch really was oxidized as this point). I probably wouldn't bother trying to brew beer is this is the best I can expect. I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong so that maybe I can improve or get rid of this taste. Some people will say: switch to all grain. I don't want to invest more money into this hobby to buy equipment without some measurable success, which I'm not sure I've really had at this point.
I've tried to improve every conceivable thing I could think of--oxidizing, adequately pitching hydrated yeast, temperature control, getting rid of the defective auto-siphon that came with the kit, replacing my tubing. Here are some hypotheses that I can't rule out:
1. Despite my best efforts, everything has been oxidized. I'm using plastic equipment and doing a 3 week primary/no secondary schedule.
2. Extract twang, though I've ordered from a big online supplier with quick turnaround and done late extract additions.
3. Burner set too high on the stove. Maybe that's scorching or caramelizing the extract. I'm not really sure what I could do differently with this, because I think my wort wouldn't even boil if I set it lower. Maybe I need a brew kettle with thicker walls? I don't see any scorching at the bottom of the kettle when I clean it out.
4. Copper wort chilller: I use one of those. Could that be leaching some weird taste into the beer?
I'm disappointed in this beer though, and a little frustrated, because it has this unpleasant taste I've noticed with other beers that I've made, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It's hard to explain the taste: maybe twangy, caramel, cardboard, or possibly even metallic. It's hard to describe, exactly. Bad, though. I noticed this taste to a highly objectionable degree in an earlier beer that I made, one I bottled back in August. It hasn't gotten any better, and I have separate reason to think that it's oxidized. (The auto-siphon gurgled like crazy.) Since the other beers I've made with this flavor probably weren't oxidized, I now think that maybe the oxidized batch also had this objectionable flavor in addition to being oxidized.
All of the beers have been extract recipes with specialty grains. They've all been IPA recipes. I've tried to get as close to a full boil as possible in a 5 gallon pot--around 4 gallons--and I've added most of the extract at the end. I think I've done a decent job with temperature control; they don't really taste fruity. According to my hydrometer, they've been decently attenuated. Each of the recipes have come out significantly darker than they're supposed to be, even though I added the majority of the extract at the end of the boil. I now question the quality of the recipes to some degree--they all involved steeping between .75 and 1 pound of some kind of crystal malt, mostly C60. They were all recipes from Northern Brewer purchased by mail some time in July or August.
The beer I'm drinking now, if it stays like this, is drinkable, but it's not very good. Maybe it will improve, but if the oxidized batch I tried earlier is any indication, I'm not optimistic (since I haven't ruled out oxidation as a problem in all three of the batches; I just have good reason to think that the one batch really was oxidized as this point). I probably wouldn't bother trying to brew beer is this is the best I can expect. I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong so that maybe I can improve or get rid of this taste. Some people will say: switch to all grain. I don't want to invest more money into this hobby to buy equipment without some measurable success, which I'm not sure I've really had at this point.
I've tried to improve every conceivable thing I could think of--oxidizing, adequately pitching hydrated yeast, temperature control, getting rid of the defective auto-siphon that came with the kit, replacing my tubing. Here are some hypotheses that I can't rule out:
1. Despite my best efforts, everything has been oxidized. I'm using plastic equipment and doing a 3 week primary/no secondary schedule.
2. Extract twang, though I've ordered from a big online supplier with quick turnaround and done late extract additions.
3. Burner set too high on the stove. Maybe that's scorching or caramelizing the extract. I'm not really sure what I could do differently with this, because I think my wort wouldn't even boil if I set it lower. Maybe I need a brew kettle with thicker walls? I don't see any scorching at the bottom of the kettle when I clean it out.
4. Copper wort chilller: I use one of those. Could that be leaching some weird taste into the beer?
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