Harsh off flavor

[Medicman34]

First off this is my first post. I want to thank everyone for their time and consideration in looking at my question.

I'm fairly new to brewing. I've done 3 extract kits now and they've all had the same bitter harshness to them. I'm not sure what is going on. I'm fairly meticulous about sanitation, but I'm sure I could be better. I do live in a city that has horrible tap water. The first 2 batches I brewed with it. I bought a carbon filter for my most recent brew. I also treated with one campden tablet. I did a side by side comparison of the water and the filter water was great!

Recipe is a brewers best American pale ale. OG was a point or two high at 1.050. Brew day was uneventful and I had fermentation within 6 hours. (I attribute that to the starter I made) Fast forward a 14 days. Fermentation had stopped. Beer is clear. Racked it to the keg and force carbed it. Still has that harsh bitter taste. It is like it undercuts the entire body of the beer and you get nothing but hop bitterness and then harsh after taste. Please help. I'm so frustrated it's not even fun to brew any more. I don't want to give up either.

Thanks,

Aaron

 

[badlee]

There are a whole bunch of things it could be. Just off the top of my head;

1)fermenting too warm
2)having residual cleaning/sanitizing products in the Fermenter/keg/lines
3)hops. It could be as simple as the beer being too bitter for your personal taste OR if you are boiling hops(I am not familiar with brewers best),they vould be types of hops that are harsh when used as bittering additions.
4) you could have a problem with your water still.
I use 100% RO water and follow the great advice of Master AJD on the water chemistry primer thread.

Hope this has been a little help

 

[CA_Mouse]

Usually the type of harshness you are describing comes from your water source. Are you using straight tap water? If so, are you carbon filtering it? You can try buying the amount of water you need from a local store (I would suggest trying spring water first and seeing how your beer tastes).

As a new brewer, a clean water source and fermentation temperature are the most critical to making great tasting beer. If you don't have a way to control your fermentation temperature, you can get off or harsh flavors. Getting a plastic toy tub from the local big box store, putting your ferementer into it, filling it about halfway full with cold water and then swapping 1 liter bottles of frozen water every 6 to 8 hours, will help to maintain a decent temperature range.

Residual cleaning products can leave a soapy flavor that can be described as a harsh flavor that may be bitter to some. Make sure that you are cleaning all your gear thoroughly, rinsing it completely and using a sanitizer on anything that will touch your wort/beer once it has been boiled. I have always used PBW and StarSan (yes they are a bit more expensive then other products, but I've never had an issue with off flavors or contamination while using them).

 

[MVKTR2]

I'm with the other two replies, my first thought was water chemistry when reading your post. Good move on the campden tablet but I would do a new batch, perhaps a repeat of one of the first batches, using all store bought drinking water. I say drinking rather than spring as it is slightly less likely to have high minerals levels as compared to bottled spring water.

If the first 3 kits have been Brewers Best, I'd either try a different brand, or simply buy a pack of appropriate dry yeast from Lallemand or Fermentis such as Nottingham, US 05, etc. to ensure quality yeast.

Next look at fermentation temps, keep it below 70 - look up 'swamp cooler' for a quick cheap $5 aid.

Lastly my advice to all new brewers is this.
You only need a few things to make reasonably good beer:
1-sanitation, meaning clean and sanitize
2-pitch appropriate amounts of viable yeast
3-maintain/manage proper fermentation temps

DO those 3 things and they cover up a lot of mistakes. Frankly your water has to be pretty far out there with extract kits to give you real problems. Make sure you're using good healthy yeast other than what comes with the kit and GIVE IT ENOUGH TIME as suspended yeast gives a bitter harsh yeast bite.

 

[Medicman34]

Thanks guys! I'm going to try the swamp cooler and the bottled water for my next brew. I also think I might be rushing through fermentation.

 

[MVKTR2]

Yea, patience is #4 on my list of things necessary for good beer production in a home environment.

Good luck, it's not a hard hobby, but you do take your lumps. Besides if you sat down at a piano or guitar for the first time you wouldn't expect to be producing even good music until you hand hours and hours doing it. Sort of similar to mastering bbq, bread making, tamales, etc. You got to do it several times to figure out what works for you.

Anything we can do to help, let us know!

 

[Medicman34]

How do I know what my temp is. I am assuming I don't open it up while it's in the fermenter to check a temp.

 

[CA_Mouse]

You don't have one of these on your fermenter? If not, you need to get one from your local homebrew store.

 

[Medicman34]

Yeah I do, but I was reading that they're not accurate and don't test the temp of the beer as much as they do the ambient temperature

 

[CA_Mouse]

It is much better then opening your fermenter to test for temperature. Getting a thermowell for your fermenter would be a better option.

 

[Mx750ktm]

Thanks guys! I'm going to try the swamp cooler and the bottled water for my next brew. I also think I might be rushing through fermentation.

I am going to agree with the majority here and say I think your dealing with a water issue. I recently had the same problem upon moving to a new city and trying to use tap water, or run through a filter. That being said you mentioned buying water bottles, I just wanted to suggest if you can find a water station where you can fill 5 gallons at a time its much more cost effective. Near me walmart has a Primo water fill station and it only costs me about 4 dollars for 10 gallons of water. I've sent in 3 water tests and every time the results have come back pretty consistent so I feel confident using them. Send me a PM and I can send you the results of the water chemistry if you can find a primo water station near you. I think you will tackle this issue with a few water adjustments.

 

[deafcone]

I always use bottled spring water from store to brew. SanitTion is usually the biggest reason for off flavors. What are you using to sanitize? I always use iodophor. I fill a Carboy with water, add iodophor, let it sit for a few minuets, then siphon it off into another Carboy or plastic bin and use it to sanitize other stuff, even bottles and caps. Worked great. Just let it air dry.

 

[CA_Mouse]

I am going to agree with the majority here and say I think your dealing with a water issue. I recently had the same problem upon moving to a new city and trying to use tap water, or run through a filter. That being said you mentioned buying water bottles, I just wanted to suggest if you can find a water station where you can fill 5 gallons at a time its much more cost effective. Near me walmart has a Primo water fill station and it only costs me about 4 dollars for 10 gallons of water. I've sent in 3 water tests and every time the results have come back pretty consistent so I feel confident using them. Send me a PM and I can send you the results of the water chemistry if you can find a primo water station near you. I think you will tackle this issue with a few water adjustments.

These water stations are using the municipal water system that your house uses. They are generally poorly maintained and are one of two types of systems. Either just carbon filtered water, easily done at home using one of these units or they are a Reverse Osmosis System that strips everything from the water. After seeing how water wasteful RO Systems are (using 3 to 4 gallons of waste water for every gallon of RO Water produced) this didn't sit with me since I'm in a state in the midst of a severe drought.

 

[jimmywalker55]

I had this same exact problem when I started, didn't matter if it was extract or all grain. Upon finding my city's water report, I found that the sulfates in our water were extremely high, 460 ppm or mg/L, don't remember which. I've read that sulfates react with hops and can give the harsh bitterness you're speaking of. I switched to RO water and use a few mineral additions now, and I haven't had the harsh bitterness since! I also have a 3 stage carbon filter, but from what I've read, distillation and reverse osmosis are the only way to strip sulfates from water. hope this helps!

 

[Medicman34]

Hopefully you guys can see this. It is my water report from my city. Not a great deal of info I don't think. Keep in mind I do have a carbon filter that I use. Any suggestions here?

 

[Mx750ktm]

These water stations are using the municipal water system that your house uses. They are generally poorly maintained and are one of two types of systems. Either just carbon filtered water, easily done at home using one of these units or they are a Reverse Osmosis System that strips everything from the water. After seeing how water wasteful RO Systems are (using 3 to 4 gallons of waste water for every gallon of RO Water produced) this didn't sit with me since I'm in a state in the midst of a severe drought.

The water unit near my house is a reverse osmosis system. Also I have a Reverse Osmosis system installed in my house as well for drinking. But to collect 8-10 gallons of it would take me probably a week haha. Ive had consisted results with the machine for now. I'm not saying its the best case scenario but its a start.

 

[doug293cz]

Hopefully you guys can see this. It is my water report from my city. Not a great deal of info I don't think. Keep in mind I do have a carbon filter that I use. Any suggestions here?

That water is extremely hard with very high alkalinity. It also has very high sulfate and sodium. A carbon filter will not fix your water problems. If I had that water, I would brew with RO, or at least bottled water.

Brew on

 

[Medicman34]

I brewed with bottled spring yesterday. We'll see if there's a difference. Thanks guys!

 

[MVKTR2]

keep us posted ...

 

[brewbama]

Try buying your water for one brew and see if that fixes it.