Homebrew taste

[sictransit701]

I’ve been brewing a few years. I do all grain. I bottle or keg. I make decent beer. It just has that...homebrew taste. I’ve cloned a few beers and tried them side by side with my homebrew. You can always tell which is which. How do I make better beer without that homebrew taste?

I don’t adjust my water. I don’t mess with ph in the mash. I do single infusion mashes. I do full boils. Only primary fermentations. I use imperial yeast packs with 200 billion cells and no starter.

Should I play around with water and ph? Should I make a starter with a 200 billion cell count yeast pack and if so, how?

Thanks!

 

[sictransit701]

If I had to describe the taste...
muddled. I can never get the malty flavor I want. Between all the ipas, Hefeweizens, and brown ales I’ve brewed, I get the same unimpressive malt flavor. The hop and yeast flavors are the only differences. Does that make sense?

 

[kh54s10]

I haven't had the problem. My tap water was excellent when I was in Rhode Island. Now in Florida my results have varied so I just ordered a pH meter and a portable reverse osmosis water filter system.

Have you used store bought water? If not I would at least try that.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

It seems that preservation of malt flavors can be aided quite a bit by following Low Oxygen brewing practices. Someone will pop in and point you in the right direction but they do have a sub-thread here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/forums/lodo-discussion-and-techniques.282/

It will lead you down a rabbit hole but you can incrementally ease into their best practices and see for yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze so to speak. I think the base-line recommendations are fairly easy for my set-ups to implement.

 

[Die_Beerery]

To the OP, Literally everything you said you don't do is the reason for this flavor.

I don’t adjust my water. I don’t mess with ph in the mash. Only primary fermentations. I use imperial yeast packs with 200 billion cells and no starter.

Look at water.
Look at ph.
Get healthy fermentations.

 

[sictransit701]

I haven't had the problem. My tap water was excellent when I was in Rhode Island. Now in Florida my results have varied so I just ordered a pH meter and a portable reverse osmosis water filter system.

Have you used store bought water? If not I would at least try that.

I use tap water with campden tablets. What kind of water?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Fresh ingredients.

Fermentation temperature control.

Healthy fermentation ... Adequate pitch rate ... Adequate aeration.

Water and mash pH adjustments.

Oxidation prevention.

 

[kh54s10]

I use tap water with campden tablets. What kind of water?

Grocery store bottled water in gallon jugs. It should be well filtered and have no chlorine or chloramines. Deer Park is a popular brand.

My guess is that you municipal water is not good for brewing. Too acidic or too alkaline.

 

[sictransit701]

To the OP, Literally everything you said you don't do is the reason for this flavor.

I don’t adjust my water. I don’t mess with ph in the mash. Only primary fermentations. I use imperial yeast packs with 200 billion cells and no starter.

Look at water.
Look at ph.
Get healthy fermentations.

What’s my starting place for adjusting water and ph? Without getting overly technical. I just need a first step in that direction. Thanks so much for being helpful.

 

[GoeHaarden]

I use tap water with campden tablets. What kind of water?

I use distilled water and just build it up using BrunWater.

I don't take pH readings, and I just trust the software. There is so much speculation as to when the right time to measure pH, and usually at that point it's too late in the mash to do any further adjusting.

I started doing this about 3 years ago and it truly elevated my beers. Now the only time I taste that "homebrew" taste is when I try some of the new "craft breweries" that open every other week.

 

[kh54s10]

Fresh ingredients.

Fermentation temperature control.

Healthy fermentation ... Adequate pitch rate ... Adequate aeration.

Water and mash pH adjustments.

Oxidation prevention.

IMO, unless you have a problem with water, additions and pH corrections are something to look into to advance. If the water is good it is not a necessity. See my above reply about my municipal water.

Oxygen prevention is also something that can be to a degree. You must make steps to limit oxygen by things like not splashing the beer into your bottling bucket. But the lengths that the LODO crowd go to are unnecessary for most. Will it make the beer better? Maybe. Different? for sure. I have not taken any drastic steps in the oxygen end and usually prefer my home brew to the average commercial craft beer. So going to the extra effort of LODO is not in my immediate or even longer term future. Maybe someday, who knows?

 

[Dgallo]

Agree with everything stated by @RPh_Guy I would say the most important of all is mash ph and healthy fermentation which were given time to clean themselves up.

 

[couchsending]

Water water water water water

Mash pH is important, it’s not the only important pH measurement however.

Do you have temp control?

If you have temp control someone here should be able to provide you with a simple method to build some water from RO based on a recipe you provide. You’ll need some gypsum, CaCl and acid malt at the bare minimum. Maybe some lactic acid too, all available at your LHBS or online.

Make a beer using this advice. If it turns out better than your normal beers then start the process of learning about water and buying a PH meter (and learning how to use it). It’s not complicated, just takes a basic understanding of a few principals to get started. You can nerd out from there.

If you don’t have temp control you’ll definitely need that.

 

[Sailingeric]

Like Couchsending said. I would start cheap and easy and try it with some bottled water. If that improves you could go distilled and adjust as needed.

 

[str1p3s]

IMO the "homebrew" taste is mostly oxidation. Look into purging the keg and closed transfers, especially with hoppy beers. One brulosophy's recent podcasts has a lot of good info on reducing cold side oxidation.

Also, the "muddled" taste might be water. You might have the best water in the world, but that doesn't mean it's suitable for every style. If you build the profile for the beer you are trying to brew, it should help.

 

[brewcat]

Are you controlling fermentation temps? If the 200 billion isn't completely fresh you'll be starting with less. A starter would be a good idea.

Are these your recipes? Recipe development is another place to look.

 

[balrog]

Fresh ingredients.

Fermentation temperature control.

Healthy fermentation ... Adequate pitch rate ... Adequate aeration.

Water and mash pH adjustments.

Oxidation prevention.

This. In pretty much that order.
I always had muddled English Milds, Ambers, and I did water report (Ward Labs) which showed I had essentially NOTHING in my tap water. Adding just a bit worked wonders. And temp control. And always making a starter. So. Get a water report. Work out how to temp control fermentation. Take steps, not leaps. You'll bump your head. It'll hurt.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

To the OP, Literally everything you said you don't do is the reason for this flavor.

I don’t adjust my water. I don’t mess with ph in the mash. Only primary fermentations. I use imperial yeast packs with 200 billion cells and no starter.

Look at water.
Look at ph.
Get healthy fermentations.

All of this, for starters.
If you want to go more advanced after that, Low-Oxygen brewing (aka LODO) is a way to turn it up a couple of notches, but again, all that stuff above is the basics you need to nail down before cracking that nut.

For starters, look up Ward Labs and send a sample of your tap water in for a brewery analysis. That will give you the numbers you need to plug in to a program like BrewNWater or any of the others that help with water chemistry. There are several, and they are all flawed to some degree, but aim small, miss small, right?

The lab report will also tell you if you need to completely scrap your tap water and find an RO or distilled source. Chances are, if it tastes fine to drink, it is okay to brew with but you might need to mix it with RO or distilled. That's what I do - often 20-60% distilled with the rest tap water, depending mainly on pH variables.

It's easy, not expensive, and really necessary for understanding what is going on with your water. You can post on here and people are often willing to help you make sense of the water report you get.

 

[MuddyBrown]

Start super simple. No need to spend lots of money in this initial testing phases.

Depending on where you are, your city or town may have a recent water report available online. That will get you some rough baseline information to start with for your water.

Camden tablet for chloramine. I believe you mentioned you do this already.

Water chemistry. Adjusting the water chemistry is brewing magic. Bru'N water has a free version of the water treatment spreadsheet available that you can input your values into. There are various websites and youtube videos to assist you in putting in your initial values, and then setting up for your brew day. The things you will need are brewing salts, lactic acid, and a scale accurate enough to measure the weight of the salts.

Fermentation temperature control. Go for simple. Swamp cooler. Use a big rubbermaid container. Place your fermenter in the container, fill with water. Make sure the fermenter does not float. Cover your fermentor with an old t-shirt. Water evaporation will cool your fermenter. Optional, point a fan at the water to increase evaporation and cooling effect. And add ice packet things. Swap out every few hours.

These two simple steps are a very low cost test to see if it makes a difference in your final beer product.

On the note of oxidation. Try to avoid splashing when bottling. If using an auto siphon, add some water or beer on top of the rubber seal on the plunger part; if that part does not fully seal you will create a significant source of oxidation through a process called the "Venturi Effect". That is, a flowing liquid past a small hole, sucks in a hell of a lot of background air.

 

[lump42]

I’ve been brewing a few years. I do all grain. I bottle or keg. I make decent beer. It just has that...homebrew taste. I’ve cloned a few beers and tried them side by side with my homebrew. You can always tell which is which. How do I make better beer without that homebrew taste?

I don’t adjust my water. I don’t mess with ph in the mash. I do single infusion mashes. I do full boils. Only primary fermentations. I use imperial yeast packs with 200 billion cells and no starter.

Should I play around with water and ph? Should I make a starter with a 200 billion cell count yeast pack and if so, how?

Thanks!

I agree with others it. It's either oxidation or water. To start with, brew a small batch with store bought spring water, not distilled. If the taste goes away send your water in for testing, and make adjustments from the test. Either adding salts if its soft, or if its hard dilute with store bought DI or buy a RO system.

If the problem persists, it may be oxidation. Since it's showing up in your bottled conditioned beers as well, I would expect this to be less likely. As long as you're gently transfering the bottling bucket, he yeast in the secondary fermentation would scavenge oxygen. Be sure to full purge your kegs before racking. Also look into closed transfers. Kegs can be fully purged of oxygen by filling them with starsan and pushing the starsan out with CO2.

Alternative to the swamp cooler/towel method, place the fermentor in the keg tote or large cooler of water and drop in frozen water bottles. I've used it to conduct traditional lager fermentation temps by swapping 4 20oz bottles 3 times a day. Ale temps take twice a day for the first couple days then I just let it ride.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Start super simple. No need to spend lots of money in this initial testing phases.

Depending on where you are, your city or town may have a recent water report available online. That will get you some rough baseline information to start with for your water.

A fair place to start, but many municipal water reports will not give you much information on the mineral content of your water, which is what you really need. I know mine was useless for brewing purposes - it was all about the amount of flouride, heavy metal, coliforms, and organic compounds (fertilizers and such) in the water. Nothing about pH, buffering, bicarbonate, calcium, sodium, sulfates, and chlorides - the info you really need.

Who knows - maybe yours will. But the Ward Labs test is less than $30 IIRC.

 

[mattdee1]

My first 10 or so batches were brewed with unadjusted tap water. Stouts and brown ales were fine but the more pale beers - blondes especially - were disappointing. They had harsh grainy/husky flavors that were really bothering me. I never had the tap water analyzed but my leading theory has always been that my tap water's alkalinity was too high for the pale beers. In practice, this would cause my mash pH on the pale beers to be outside of the ideal zone, on the high side.

So, I tried using 100% RO water bought from the store, building up water profiles using Bru N Water.

There was an immediately noticeable improvement on my lighter beers, no question. Now, I refuse to brew with tap water, for any style. For all the time it takes to brew a batch of beer, I think it's worth spending the extra half hour and few bucks to go to the store and buy some good water.

I also bought a pH meter around that time and it was a cool educational experience using it at first, but now I rarely bother because after you see Bru N Water's predictions be correct about 20 times in a row, you start to gain confidence that things are going to land where you're aiming.

Water water water water water
If you have temp control someone here should be able to provide you with a simple method to build some water from RO based on a recipe you provide. You’ll need some gypsum, CaCl and acid malt at the bare minimum. Maybe some lactic acid too, all available at your LHBS or online.

Make a beer using this advice. If it turns out better than your normal beers then start the process of learning about water and buying a PH meter (and learning how to use it). It’s not complicated, just takes a basic understanding of a few principals to get started. You can nerd out from there.

If you don’t have temp control you’ll definitely need that.

^^ this is a great recommendation. No need to spend a bunch of time and effort to read and understand water chemistry... just pick a recipe, get somebody to help you with gypsum/cacl/acid additions, and see if your results improve. If they do, then you can delve into it more.

 

[histo320]

To the OP, I used to have the same problem. At first it was an issue with oxidation where I was opening the fermenter and not being overly careful when bottling.

Next came water chemistry which is actually extremely easy of you begin with Distilled Water and build it to the profile of the beer you are brewing. It seems a bit daunting at first but with all of the online tools it's really easy.

Next for me was kegging. Definitely more consistent beer over the entire batch. However I did make a minor mistake where I forgot to purge the keg which led to oxidation and a total loss of aroma and a very lacking beer.

Brewing is a learning process and I would always suggest to try something new every few beers in attempt to improve your process.

 

[jmcquesten]

Water, temperature control, and oxidation control are all good suggestions. Making yeast starters can also greatly improve your beer. Proper pitch rate helps a lot.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Let me provide an overview of my suggestions. There are literally books written about these topics, so the more you want to delve into leaning, the more information you'll find, and the better beer you'll be able to brew.

Fresh ingredients.
Use malt as close to being milled as reasonably possible.
Avoid old malt extract, especially liquid.
Keep hops cold and reduce air exposure.

Fermentation temperature control.
Any number of things from a simple water bath to a glycol jacket are helpful for keeping the fermenting beer in the right range to minimize off-flavors. A "temperature controller" thermostat is needed for the more advanced options, such as an inkbird 308.

Healthy fermentation.
Making a starter is relatively easy. Use a pitch rate calculator like the one from Brewer's Friend https://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
Basically you make a mini batch of beer using dry malt extract at 100g/L, somewhere around 0.5 to 2 liters. A stir plate is very helpful to continually aerate, which improves cell growth.
Personally I make "vitality starters" which is 500mL, spun on a stir plate for only 4 hours before pitching.
There is also pre-made starter wort you can buy if you feel so inclined.
There are certainly a variety of other processes people use as well.

Proper wort aeration when pitching can be accomplished by a variety of methods from simply shaking the carboy to oxygen from an oxygen tank delivered directly.
I use a drill-powered stir tool and a tubing attachment that sprays the wort when I transfer it to my carboy.

Water and mash pH adjustments.
In my opinion, the path of least resistance and highest quality is to use reverse osmosis (RO) purified water from a local store, and add salts and acid/base from scratch. You need calcium chloride, calcium sulfate (gypsum), lactic acid liquid, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).
A calculator is needed to determine the approximate amount of acid or base needed to get your mash pH into the ideal range (5.2-5.6). I like BrunWater (free version), but there certainly are other options.
Determine your preferred calcium, sulfate, and chloride levels for the particular style, and then determine the amount of acid or base needed to adjust mash pH.
There is also a low-tech option for starting with RO water. Read more here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/a-brewing-water-chemistry-primer.198460/

Oxidation prevention.
In my opinion this is the second most important aspect of brewing after sanitation, and failure in this regard is likely the cause of the "homebrew" taste. Remove as many points of potential oxygen exposure as possible after the start of fermentation.
See here for a post where I was helping someone who bottles.

Cheers

 

[El Nino]

Temperature control has to be one of the most important things, do you have anything like that in place?

I've not had a bad batch of beer yet, but when I first started, I already invested in a temp controller and chest freezer. Almost everyone I know who says they made not-so-great beer all had one thing in common, they stuck it in the closet and paid no mind to fermentation temps. I do everything as simple and not technical as possible, but I'm a stickler when it comes to pitching / fermentation temps.

Keep the yeast happy and you'll get some great beers. I always preferred my clone recipes over the actual thing.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Agree on using RO/distilled and adding salts. For the most part, you just need gypsum, calcium chloride, and lactic acid 88% (though I've also been using epsom salt and table salt on occasion). I use the Brewer's Friend advanced water calculator and liking the results I'm getting.

 

[sictransit701]

Still lost on all of this. I have read Gordon Strong’s books. He uses RO water and adds phosphoric acid before the mash to bring the pH to 5.5. During the mash he adds 1 tsp. of calcium chloride. That’s it. It seems very different from what the brewing water software will tell you. His podcast with BeerSmith sounds good I like his reasoning behind it and it’s simple. Has anyone tried this?

 

[sictransit701]

What is my next step?
Should I keep the same water I’ve been using and try adjusting the ph of the mash? And not worry about salts and flavor profiles?

 

[histo320]

What is my next step?
Should I keep the same water I’ve been using and try adjusting the ph of the mash? And not worry about salts and flavor profiles?

I would start with building your own water from RO. Beetsmith 3 has a tool where it tells you how much of additives (gypsum, calcium chloride, baking soda etc.). There are several water profiles (Hoppy Pale, Sweet Pale, Stout, and many more) to match the style you are making.

For Mash PH, I would suggest using Bru n Water to get a Mash PH estimate as an accurate PH reader can be expensive. Also, as long as you have enough malt I believe your Mash PH won't be an issue.

Once I started the above process, the quality of my beers improved greatly and wasn't too expensive.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

What is my next step?

Pick a single source of advice on brewing water adjustments and start brewing.

If you pick one of the brewing spreadsheets, you should be able to find people here willing to help you "dial it in".

If you pick "Brewing Better Beer" (Strong) or "Homebrew: Beyond the Basics" (Karnowski) or BeerAndWineJournal.com (Colby), you should be able to make water adjustments without needing a spreadsheet.

Personally, after working with software all day, the last thing I want to do is "dial in" a spreadsheet. My approach is "in the spirit" of what Strong, Karnowski, and Colby talk about.