In need of perfection (or even a bit closer to it!)

[S.R.S]

Agree with @bucketnative that you need to give us more information.

BTW, I've had others' extract brews which have been excellent, so there's nothing endemic in extract that HAS to be bad. Instead, I suspect that the tendency of extract brews to have "that flavor" is more related to brewers' inexperience or errors, and not extract per se.

Here are several things you might work to improve (if you are not already doing them):

1. How's your water? My son used to brew extracts; when he switched to using RO (reverse osmosis) water, his beers took a leap forward. Your local water may or may not be a culprit here. For instance, is the water chlorinated and are you doing anything to offset that, if so?

2. Do you control fermentation temperature? Most brewers would probably tell you fermentation temp control was a huge leap forward for them. That is, with most ales you want temps during fermentation in the 60s. Yeast is exothermic, meaning it produces heat while it ferments the beer, and that can raise the temp of the beer 5 to 10 degrees above ambient temp. You can't go by what your room temp is, in other words.

There are ways around this. You can use a ferm chamber (typically a refrigerator or chest freezer), even a swamp cooler to keep temps down. As most yeast rises in temps it starts to throw off off-flavors you don't want in your beer. There are a few exceptions to this (farmhouse or saisons, for instance), but mostly you want to control your fermentation temps.

There also is a style of yeast called Kveik ("Kwike") that isn't that sensitive to fermentation temps, producing good beer even up into the 90s. It's a liquid yeast, not the powdered yeast you're likely using.

3. How do you bottle? The enemy of beer after fermentation is oxidation, and this is especially the case with IPAs; the oxidation attacks hop aroma and flavor, muting it in a relatively short period of time. Are you doing anything that can limit oxidation?

4. Is your equipment CLEAN and sanitized? Unlikely at this early point in your brewing career that you'd have an infection, but it's possible.

*********

I'm a big believer in continuous quality improvement. That is, every time you brew, try to do something better. Over time, you'll approach that perfection you seek, never reaching it, but getting near.

Along those lines, I'd suggest brewing the same kit or style 2 or 3 times, trying to dial it in. If you change the kit or recipe every time, how can you tell if the problems are due to recipe or something else? You can't. I'd focus, if I were you, on dialing in a recipe, and only then branching out to other styles or recipes. The trick is to think about where you want to be in brewing six months from now.

I know that's hard. Lots to learn about in brewing, all this weird vocabulary (strike water, sparge, tun, pitch, mash, etc. etc.), and while it's not rocket science, it's not simplistic, either. It takes time to learn.

Of all the things brewers struggle to learn, the biggest one is....patience.

It seems to me the culprit could well be water.
I am still not clear what bottled water is best and the difference;
Distilled
Mineral
Spring?

The other issue could be high fermentation temps but I have always followed guidelines.
If brewing at 22c and the stick on thermometer and insulated probe on vessel reads same, how accurate is this in terms of actual liquid temp and not ambient?

 

[S.R.S]

Sorry, I didn't give you anything "action-able" in my previous reply.

Are you buying your kits from a local home brew store or online? If local, consider bringing along a sample bottle (if permitted by local laws) and ask them for advice.

Is there a local homebrewing community (clubs, online groups, ...) that would have a good understanding of your water quality?

At the risk of repeating what others have said... I will suggest two changes.

1. Ferment no higher than 20c.

2. Use distilled water or RO (reverse osmosis) water. Spring water that is low in dissolved minerals will so work.

when you refer to no higher than 20c, are you referring to ambient or liquid temperature?
thanks

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

when you refer to no higher than 20c, are you referring to ambient or liquid temperature?

Liquid (or wort) temperature.

 

[mongoose33]

It seems to me the culprit could well be water.
I am still not clear what bottled water is best and the difference;
Distilled
Mineral
Spring?

Distilled is what you want, because you know what's in there. With mineral or spring water, they'll have some dissolved solids in there but you don't know what. With Distilled you can build up your water to whatever you want. For the most part, though, if you're using an extract kit, distilled will be a good place to start. A lot of the issue with water comes during the mash as they're extracting sugars from the grains; that's already been done for you, so the key is to use water in your process that brings in nothing you don't want, like chlorine.

The other issue could be high fermentation temps but I have always followed guidelines.
If brewing at 22c and the stick on thermometer and insulated probe on vessel reads same, how accurate is this in terms of actual liquid temp and not ambient?

If you have a good way of isolating a temp probe from ambient conditions, then it's likely accurate. I still wouldn't be doing an ale at 22C, I'd be more down at about 18C.

One more thing about kits: whomever put that kit together had to make some decisions, compromises, whatever. That's especially the case with pre-hopped extract, they've decided IBUs and flavors and such. You may or may not like the decisions they've made. More likely you'll react something like "Well, it's OK, but it's nothing special." You might be thinking you're doing something wrong such that the beer turned out the way it did, but no--it just is what it is.

My local homebrew store owner puts together extract kits and sells them. They're much better generally because he's good at it, he's using fresh ingredients, and he's not using pre-hopped extract, he's including actual hop packets. So there's nothing in a kit that has to be bad, provided the kit assembler knows what he/she is doing.

As you move forward, you'll want more control over what you produce. That's a huge part of the joy of brewing for most people, i.e., they make what they like. Once you get the process down, you can start making alterations to recipes and processes, and you'll find you get closer and closer to what you want.

 

[dwhite60]

First, I'd not be using tap water. If you're on a city system you can be sure it's got chlorine / chloramines in it. This will leave bad flavors in your beer. Took me a while to figure this out.

Since you're doing a Young's kit I'll assume you are in England, Australia, New Zealand. Kits seem a lot more common in these countries and get very good reviews for the most part. One thing seems common with what is called "the homebrew twang", time seems to be the best cure for it.

Simple experiment, if you can find a two can kit, like a Woodforde's Wherry or similar you can make one batch with each can. In one use RO water, in the other use your tap water but keep the temp lower and see which one helps the most. I bet water.

All the Best,
D. White