Failed first try and suggestions for second try

[valadas]

Hi everyone.

So I have been making wine for a few years and this year I have started making a couple of fruit wines and mead.

While I was at the home brewing store, I picked up a beer kit to give it a try. I bought the Coopers Canadian Blonde kit. I have now finished and bottled it, but it tastes bad. I think the problem is that I used tap water. I respected the ambiant temperature and sanitized everything properly. Fermentation took about double the time as stated in the instructions and the taste is bad.

I did not have any issues with using tap water win wine, but my guess is that it can't be done with beer. Is my assumption correct?

As a second question, I took the Coopers Canadian Blonde kit just like that, but for my second try, I would like to have some advice. I personally like almost any beer except maybe the stouts, porters and ambers. But my best friend likes beers with almost no taste, like Molson Dry, Budweiser, etc.

Any simple kit you recommend that tastes like those commercial beers or has not too much taste?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Soooo, what does it taste like? Can you describe it? Is you water city water or well water?

 

[chuckcomm]

What does it taste like?

Couple of things...

With extract I doubt the tap water would hurt the beer. I used it on a few beers before going to all grain. Now I use spring water from the local grocery store.

If I do use tap water in a pinch I add a crushed campden tablet to each gallon.

How long did it ferment and did you take a final gravity reading before bottling?

How long was it in the bottles before you tried one? They need at least two weeks and usually more to develop the flavor the recipe intended.

If the beer is really young it wont taste near as good as it will once aged a bit.

As for what to brew that has not much taste......I dont know....its not something I have ever thought about doing...

 

[btbnl]

If you're getting medicinal flavors, it's probably chlorophenols from the interaction between the yeast and chloramine in your tap water. Fortunately there's an easy solution: add a campden tablet to the boil.

American lagers are actually some of the hardest beers to homebrew; lagers generally require a more controlled fermentation, and mainstream US light lagers have so little taste there's no place for any off-flavors to hide. BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde might be a way to stay with ale fermentation but get a lager-crowd pleaser.

 

[valadas]

Thanks for your replies.

Ok regarding the taste, it is hard to describe, but "medicinal flavors" seam to cover it, it does not taste like any other type of beer I have tried, not even close. My water is city water and I am sure it has chlorine, I can even taste it just in the water. I think that was my problem. Or maybe it got light struck. I did not have enough room in my garage to make it there, so I put the carboy on the kitchen table with a black shirt covering it. Maybe it was not enough to prevent the light from getting in...

As for the brew details, I started at SG 1.048 in a bucket, I then transferred it to the carboy at day 6 and SG was 1.040 it then took up to day 37 to reach 1.012 when I decided to add the carbonation sugar and bottle it. I tasted it 7 days after and it was bad, I then tasted it again after 16 days and it is still as bad.

I just checked and my kit was actually "Coopers Canadian Lager" and not "Canadian Blonde", my mistake. Now, in the kit instructions, it does not say at which temperature the room should be and reading a bit on lagers, I see it should be much lower... Maybe that is the problem too???

So if I can't get a room with that low a temperature and I want something simple with just the extract since I am a beginner I should go for a Blonde Ale?

 

[specharka]

Thanks for your replies.

Ok regarding the taste, it is hard to describe, but "medicinal flavors" seam to cover it, it does not taste like any other type of beer I have tried, not even close. My water is city water and I am sure it has chlorine, I can even taste it just in the water. I think that was my problem. Or maybe it got light struck. I did not have enough room in my garage to make it there, so I put the carboy on the kitchen table with a black shirt covering it. Maybe it was not enough to prevent the light from getting in...

As for the brew details, I started at SG 1.048 in a bucket, I then transferred it to the carboy at day 6 and SG was 1.040 it then took up to day 37 to reach 1.012 when I decided to add the carbonation sugar and bottle it. I tasted it 7 days after and it was bad, I then tasted it again after 16 days and it is still as bad.

I just checked and my kit was actually "Coopers Canadian Lager" and not "Canadian Blonde", my mistake. Now, in the kit instructions, it does not say at which temperature the room should be and reading a bit on lagers, I see it should be much lower... Maybe that is the problem too???

So if I can't get a room with that low a temperature and I want something simple with just the extract since I am a beginner I should go for a Blonde Ale?

There's your answer...chlorophenols are the culprit. As previously stated, half a Campden tablet in your boil water will correct the issue.

Although you might experience different off flavors for trying to ferment a lager at room temperature, they would be of the ester variety (think banana, clove, marzipan, etc), not medicinal at all. Fusel alcohols, noted by a "hot" boozy kick, are also associated with high fermentation temperatures.

 

[flars]

Using one Campden tablet, for 20 gallons of water, will take care of the chlorophenols produced by the chlorine or chloramines in your water.

You could also be tasting fusel alcohols produced by high fermentation temperatures. The Coopers instructions I can find online give a very wide range of fermentation temperatures. Best results might be gotten by keeping the fermenting beer between 18°C to 21°C. A good pitching temperature would be 16°C to 18°C.