My first two AG batches suck

The title says it all. I'm pretty bummed right now. I just switched over to all grain and I put together the equipment to do 10 gallon batches. For my first two 10 gallon and AG batches I chose to do Edworts Haus Ale and BM's Centennial Blond. I brewed the Haus Ale 4 weeks ago and the Centennial 3 weeks ago. I transfered both from primary to kegs a week ago. I took a final gravity reading (hit my number perfectly) and drank the samples. The weird thing to me is both tasted great before they were carbonated and chilled. I cold conditioned 5 gallons of each on gas in the kegerator for a week. I came home today to sample the fruits of my labor... and... blehck... Awful! The best I can describe it is they both taste like Lowenbrau that's been soaking in newspaper for a week. It's the same off flavor in both but the Haus Ale is a little thicker (naturally). Kind of a wet rag taste. I am currently pounding an Anchor Steam to get the taste out of my mouth.

I have brewed about 5 extract recipes and about 10 PM recipes (using a grain bag) with great success before switching to AG. These are my first lousy beers.

So here is my setup. 15 gallon Keggle, Cooler MLT, 7.5 gallon kettle HLT with a ghetto ass 3 tier setup.



I followed the directions in both recipes (single infusion mashes, batch sparged W/ a mash out on the haus ale) and hit all of my temperatures perfectly. Here is pretty much what I did.

-I heated the "mash in" water in the keggle to 4* above my mash in temp and drained it into the MLT. I let it sit for for about 10 minutes (sealed) to warm up the cooler before I doughed in... Then of course I doughed in. I hit my temps dead on on both batches.

-Mashed for 60 minutes then drained to HLT.

-I mashed out per the instructions on the Haus Ale. (no mash out on Centennial Blonde)

-I drained the sparge water from the keggle to the MLT (stirred and sealed) then poured (as gently as possible) the hot liquor from the kettle into the keggle.

-I drained the sparge into the HLT then once again poured the the hot liquor into the keggle for boiling.

-60 minute boil... hop additions... blah blah blah... (this is obviously the part I have down by now)

-Cooled Wort to 72* aerated and pitched yeast.

-Fermented both batches at 67*. Both fermented out in about 3 days.

When I first tried it I was hoping the lines in my kegerator were funky. I tried a brand new picnic tap on both the kegs but the beer tasted the same. My best guess is hot side aeration from pouring the hot liquor into the keggle(which would mean HSA is not the "boogie man" of homebrew). The thing that gets me is that the beer tasted good before I chilled and carbed it. There's no such thing as funky co2 is there.

I don't know. Talk me off the ledge here. I'm ****ing pissed off. Sorry about the long post. I'm trying to include as many details as possible... help...

 

I have no idea why your Beer tastes like Wet Newspaper. But I am willing to bet my House that someone here does. So please, back away from the ledge and have another Anchor Steam. Someone a lot more Knowledgeable (spellcheck) then me will be along shortly...

 

Bummer. I'm sort of with the "Boogie Man" crowd, but the second you said wet newspaper, I immediately thought HSA. Then looking at your photos, you have the hot wort coming out of your MLT and splashing into the kettle. I would say that this is the source of your problem. Try getting some tubing on the end of that barb fitting and then siphoning or very carefully pouring into the keggle.

 

How many pints have you drawn off? The first couple may contain a bunch of gunk. It may take another week of aging to come along.

 

Ryan;

Sorry to hear about your loss. the only issue I can see from your description is that you are splashing your wort from the MLT into the boil kettle. But, you say everything tasted epic pre-kegging.

Other than that? I dunno...kegs clean? If it was all good before you kegged then the obvious question is...what's up in the kegging process. Lines are good since you tried the new tap. How well did you clean the corny's?

 

I did put some tubing on the MLT for the for the second batch (Centennial) thinking it wouldn't hurt. I have to admit that even pouring the wort "carefully" back into the keggle, there were a fair amount of bubbles.

 

Two pints of each (the first of which i dumped). I hope your right.

 

Kegs were cleaned with PBW. Looked nice and clean before I rinsed and sanatized them.

Thank you everyone for the quick help so far.

 

1.) How well did you soak the 2 kegs with PBW and did you use hot water? How well did you scrub it and rinse it? Did you take apart the IN and OUT posts and clean them? Just 1 spec of nastiness will ruin what you put into it. If your beer tasted good in the carboy then it has to be something involved with kegging or serving.

2.) CO2: What is your source for CO2 and do you have a heppa filter on the delivery line to keg CO2 in connector? I use welding CO2 and have never had a problem but I do run a small Heppa filter inline to be sure.

3.) Did you clean the picnic tap? I use one of my kegs with PBW in it and put CO2 on it just enough to force the PBW through the picnic tap. I use a second keg with line cleaner and do the same thing and then clear hot water. Failure to do this leads to a contaninated tap. You say it was new but if you did not clean it then who knows what may have been in it before you used it. In brewing you can not take chances. This may not be the problem at all but has the potential.

 

Responses in green above

 

Ok... I'm starting to think there my be some merit to the CO2 idea (or maybe the Anchor Steam is getting to me). I had to take a break from brewing for a little while because I was moving. I had some of my stuff in storage for a few weeks while I was in transition. The only two kegs that I had charged with this tank of co2 previously, were two batches that I had in storage. They both tasted "funny" but I wrote it off to the fact that the storage unit probably reached high 80's or low 90's for a couple of days (both beers were keged and post fermentation). Both were darker brews so they were palatable. Thinking back I think that "funny" taste is pretty similar to what I am tasting now just not as prominent. It was about 2 months ago so it might just be in my head. Can unfiltered CO2 really impart flavors on a beer?

 

I know we've had our differences, but I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your first couple of batches turning out bad. 20 gallons of beer... damn.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm fairly confident I screwed up my first AG as well (Centennial Blonde). Not only did I get pretty poor efficiency, but I think I pitched the yeast too warm, splashed the wort around too much while draining the MLT, and I waited too long to put the fermenter in a water bath. I'll know pretty soon, I'm going to bottle this Wednesday.

I'm also going to guess HSA is what caused your beer to taste like newspaper. I've never kegged, so I wouldn't know how the beer could be exposed to oxygen in the kegs...

Hopefully they'll still turn out drinkable for you.

 

^No worries. The thing that kills me is I really felt like I executed everything perfectly with the exception of some possible HSA (which I wasn't worried about at the time).

 

I don't use a hose when draining my MLT into my 7 gallon ferment buckets, which is what I use to carry them over to my boil kettle.... where I just dump in the wort. I have never experienced HSA over the 4 batches I have done this with, just good beer. What I'm really trying to say is I doubt its HSA, but mainly because I don't really believe in it.

I'll agree with everyone else in that its probably a serving issue since it tasted good while racking.

Neal

 

I don't think it's HSA. I have brewed quite a few batches without thinking to put a hose between my MLT and my kettle, and they all turned out fine. Besides, everything I have come to understand about HSA leads me to believe it's just not a major concern on the homebrewing scale. I would be much quicker to blame the CO2 tank. When was the last time you cleaned your gas lines?

 

Quick question. Do you buy your grains curshed, or uncrushed? If crushed, how long do you weight to brew after receiving supplies. Storing crushed grains can cause to grains to oxidize.

 

There are the red flags I see in your answers:

Always clean the posts, you have been very lucky in the past as that is the most easy place to harbor bacteria. I would wager that if you clean these posts and use Starsan in your kegs the problem will be eliminated. Shake well.

Your LHBS should have the small heppa filters that are round plastic with barbs for 1/4 tubing that go inline and stop any bacteria in the line from the CO2 to keg. A lot of brewers get away with this and do not use them. I still think the post cleaning is the problem but why chance it.

When brewing the golden rule is when in doubt clean it and sanitize it. Anything that comes into contact with the beer after the boil must be sanitized. Follow this rule and you will not infect your beer. It's your choice.

 

The grains were crushed but they were pretty fresh (2-3 weeks) and stored in a cool dry place.

 

Thanks again for all the help guys. Keep the advice coming. Anybody with any new ideas?

I plan to taste the kegged and uncarbed second halves of both of these batches when I get home from work today. I'm hoping the co2 is the issue and I think that would be a good indication. I did seat the lids with the same co2 tank though... Hopefully it wasn't enough contact to spoil the batches... Wish me luck!

 

Other than cleaning out the post on the kegs, I would recommend cleaning out the air line and checking for any smells from it. Hopefully I don't need to say don't go sniffing the CO2 itself. If it does turn out to be the C02 gas would be the first I have heard of it, but anything is possible.
Hopefully the taste will mellow out in time and the beer will be drinkable.

 

im thinkin the kegs are dirty or you should let it carb at room temp

 

When I got my kegs I took apart everything and cleaned them as good as I could. Several months later I got two more kegs and started the cleaning process on them. When I pulled the posts on them the little poppets fell out. I didn't think they came out. Anyway I put them back together and when the next "old" keg was empty I pulled the poppets out of them with needlenose pliers. I almost puked when I saw the black hairy crap growing around behind it where I couldn't see. I had 2 bad batches and I think I know why now. That crap was groing in there for years before I got the kegs.

 

Wait a second... One beer is 5 weeks old and the other is 4 weeks old. You're wondering why they taste bad? You're easily drinking them 2-3 weeks too soon. Green carbonated beer tastes like a$$.

 

This is the first thought I had as well. All of my beers are at least 8 weeks old before I drink them, even the lighter ones.

 

I have drank some of mine after 4-5 weeks and although they are greenish they don't taste like newspaper. The Centinnial Blonde is of light gravity and advertised as being ready in 4 weeks or less.