It's beer but...

[conpewter]

I lurk here a lot but have not posted often.

I recently made my first batch and I'd like to get some opinions on why it doesn't have much taste. It doesn't taste bad, just not good. It doesn't have any mouthfeel, smells like beer but watery.

My friend introduced me to homebrewing a few months ago and I did my first batch with him around the middle of october. He's also new to brewing (inherited his equipment from his brother-in-law). I now know I made a lot of mistakes with this first one but here's what we did(according to memory, I don't have my notebook with me).

1. on my gas stove get about 2 gallons distilled water boiling
2. sanitize most everything with a bucket of bleach mixture and rinse with hot tap water
3. slowly pour in 3 lbs of light dry malt extract
4. slowly pour in and stir 2 lbs of corn sugar
5. boil for 60 minutes
6. while boiling add about 3 gallons of distilled water to the 5 gallon carboy
7. pour through a funnel 2 gallons of boiling wort into the carboy..onto my friend...onto the floor etc.
8. Look at each other dumbfounded and ponder how we will aireate this full carboy
9. Once the foam settled we had a few inches of headspace in the bottle, I went downstairs and got an air pump that we use to fill up air mattresses and we proceed to put the air hose down in the wort and blow air through it for a few minutes.
10. clean up floor
11. carefully move carboy downstairs and install airlock
12. Midnight - temp down to 78 degrees, figure it's good enough, pitch in smackpack (which was somewhat inflated) and go to bed, forgetting to put any sort of airlock on the carboy.
13. Morning, go downstairs, realize mistake and put on carboy cap with a hose running into a bottle of water.
14. after work, go downstairs, clean up all the foam and wort on the floor, replace bottle of water with bucket of water.
15. after a week it's pretty much stopped fermenting
16. after another week there is now white bubbles on top again, but they don't look right, they're big bubbles (nickel - quarter sized) and shiny, white not cream. the airlock does not smell bad though.
17. After a few days it subsides and I put the whole thing in the fridge to clear it up with some crash cooling.
18. Bottle it and leave it for a week.


So it's not fully carbed yet and I know it's still green but I'm worried I had an infection in this brew. I definitely gave it every chance to get bacteria in it with the little air hose stunt and leaving the airlock off for 6 hours or so. Also the lack of hops was a bad thing, I'm still a noob but I've been learning a lot from reading this board now. I know hops were originally used to preserve beer, so I don't think I'll have any issues with the 2nd batch I'm doing now (6 gal carboy, hops, star-san, proper air-lock/blowoff setup).

what do you all think?

 

[TheJadedDog]

Hmmmm, your procedure leaves me with many questions (which I won't really get into) and a couple ideas about why your brew tastes bad.

1) Hops are a critical component to brewing and it does not appear that you used any based on the procedure outlined above.

2) The corn sugar provides fermentables but no taste; in the future replace this ingredient with more extract. Sure it is more expensive, but the beer will taste good.

It sounds like you already have equipment and know about the need to sanitize but your process needs some refinement so here is my advice: read www.howtobrew.com and purchase an ingredient kit from either www.austinhomebrew.com or www.northernbrewer.com and follow the directions that come with the kit. I can all but guarantee a better tasting beer.

 

[conpewter]

My procedure has been drastically changed now that I've been reading this forum and my 2nd batch is going to be much better. It still was a made from scratch recipe but I used beertools.com to put it together and got some ideas on what I wanted it to have IBU wise and color wise. Did the late DME addition and calculated the IBUs by using beertools with the only the 1 lb of DME in the 3 gallon boil for 60 minutes.

Also used star-san to sanitize everything and didn't worry about the extra foam in the carboy from it (though I can see why you'd worry at first).

Did a 60 minute hop boil with cascade hops, and added more in at the 15 minute mark. might do some at the 5 minute mark too next time. I think I'll get a kit for my next brew.

I also read all the extract part of howtobrew.com a few weeks ago so I've updated a lot of what I'm doing now. Just need to get some bottles to bottle my 2nd batch with.

Do you think the white large bubbles on the brew and the lack of taste are signs of an infection or just the use of corn sugar?

 

[Yooper]

Well, I don't know if it's infected or not. Beer is pretty resilient and you might be ok. I think that bad taste is more related to the lack of hops, the use of sugar, and the high overnight temperature. If it's infected, it'll taste sour usually.

It sounds like your next batch is on track to be a good one, though!

 

[Cheesefood]

I notice that you only used 3 pounds of DME in the first batch. There's your first problem.

I'd use at least 6-7 pounds of DME total, plus maybe seeping a pound of crystal for a little extra flavor. Don't mess with corn sugar for anything other than priming at this point. Corn Sugar isn't going to add anything but alcohol and it looks like you want flavor and body.

Finally, I'd recommend at least one or two kits. It's very helpful to go with something you know will work before going out on your own.

 

[TheJadedDog]

I think the white large bubbles may be an indication of an infection (I missed that in your original post, sorry). There are some threads around here somewhere with pics of what you are describing and the general consensus was infection. The taste could be due to an infection, the corn sugar, lack of hops or all three.

 

[rdwj]

The bad news it, it's probably infected. The good news is that it wasn't going to be very good anyway. Sounds like you're on the right track for your second batch. If that doesn't turn out great, I'll second Cheesefood's suggestion. A couple of kits from a good source (Northern, Midwest, Austin) will serve you well.

 

[jds]

I'd also suggest that using distilled water may leave your beer tasting a bit flat. If you don't want to use your tap water (I do, from a garden hose, no less), you might want to try bottled spring water instead of distilled.

 

[conpewter]

Thanks all, I have switched to using my tap water but running it through a brita filter first instead of using distilled. Also right that it probably was not destined to be too good in the first place, my friend had made a similar brew and our non-beer drinking friends liked it. We'll see if it becomes drinkable with more carbonation.

I'll look into a kit or at least finding some well-tested recipes. Put Apfelwein in my 3rd carboy a week ago so looking forward to that in a month or two as well.

I have all tubing and such soaking in a bucket of star-san right now, I don't want to get anything infected from that first batch. (not doing a secondary for my 2nd batch, just going straight to bottles)

 

[Radarbrew]

Well, I would agree with all except a maybe on the infected. If it was active enough and pushing C02, you might be OK. Get a couple of those kits in a can from the HBS, and make them. Follow the instructions, and clean EVERYTHING. You will be surprised at the ease and the end product. The taste will be better and probably give you the incentive to try different ways to brew. Plus, the no taste issue I think was not enough malt and no hops. It also provides a "fuller" beer. I accidently did just the opposite a while back, a lot of high acid hops and not enough malt and wound up with "hop tea". Pretty bad stuff, but it was a learning tool. Whatever the case keep trying...

 

[DeathBrewer]

couple more points:

"9. Once the foam settled we had a few inches of headspace in the bottle, I went downstairs and got an air pump that we use to fill up air mattresses and we proceed to put the air hose down in the wort and blow air through it for a few minutes."

this and leaving the airlock off COULD leave you with an infected beer. just shake the carboy a few times if you don't have an aeration pump. that being said, i still think it's unlikely you have an infection.

did you say you opened the bottles after a week? that's green as hell, leave them AT LEAST 3 weeks...6 weeks would be better

 

[BlindLemonLars]

7. pour through a funnel 2 gallons of boiling wort into the carboy..onto my friend...onto the floor etc.

In addition to the other good advice offered here, PLEASE don't pour boiling wort into a carboy again! It is really easily to crack them from thermal shock. Should this happen, the best case scenario is a lot of broken glass and wort on your floor. The worst case is severing an artery! (And getting a lot of glass, wort and blood on your floor!)

Cool your pot in a sinkful of ice water, until it is a more manageable temperature.

 

[TexLaw]

I'd also suggest that using distilled water may leave your beer tasting a bit flat. If you don't want to use your tap water (I do, from a garden hose, no less), you might want to try bottled spring water instead of distilled.

Distilled water is fine for extract beers, since the extracts have the necessary minerals.


TL

 

[jds]

Distilled water is fine for extract beers, since the extracts have the necessary minerals.


TL

You know, it's funny. My head knows that mineral content is mainly necessary for balancing mash pH and that all the minerals from the original mash that was used to make the extracts are still present.

However, when I first started brewing (early 90's, with a long hiatus until recently), I could swear that I could taste the difference. Maybe it was because my technique was improving at the same time I switched from distilled to tap water.

Now, back ontopic we go!

 

[cheezydemon]

Let me get this right, you poured into a carboy, foaming it all up with.......maybe AIR????? and then decided to aerate with a frigging mattress pump??

OK OK, I will calm down, but dear GOD you all were a couple of newbies.

I think your question has been answered. Add hops, lose the mattress pump.

 

[conpewter]

Hey hey be nice now, I've seen a lot of threads of "what crazy $hit did you do on your first batch"

I've corrected all the things you all have mentioned and did a much better job on the 2nd batch. Used an ice bath to get the wort down before putting it in the (6 gal) carboy with the top off water and shook it up well to aerate, used dry yeast that was rehydrated instead of messing with liquid yeast when making a simple beer. Had more malt, filtered tap water, hops.

Also I know the beer is green after only a week but just wanted to bring up my concern, I hope it will become drinkable in 3 weeks but we'll see. I hesitate to call anything beer that doesn't have hops in it now that I've read so much here

 

[Joker]

When I read the initial post I was looking at my calendar thinking its way to early to start an April Fools pranks........................isn't it?

 

[TexLaw]

Yeah, that mattress pump wasn't a good idea, especially since you didn't mention sanitizing it. Chalk it up to a rookie mistake, and move on.

I've never used a pump to aereate. I don't siphon from the kettle to the fermenter, and I shake up the carboy pretty well for a good five minutes, and that works just fine for what I brew (I've never brewed anything over 1.070 OG).

If it weren't for mistakes we make, it wouldn't be true homebrewing. If you haven't already, check out the "Bad Brewing Techniques" on the General Techniques forum to see some real gems. Not to rub salt in the wound, but you ought to add to it, as well.


TL

 

[cheezydemon]

Absolutely all in good natured fun! I just remember being so afraid of contamination I would have been horrified to put a mattress pump in my beer lol.
And for the record: I have brewed beers with IG exceeding 1.10, and all the aeration I needed was pouring the wort into the carboy without syphoning.

 

[Neomich]

You can't really blame the poster for leaving out hops and using a lot of sugar. Sounds more like a BMC clone was attempted!

It's good to see you striving to improve your process though. Keep at it.