My first batch of beer, an amber bock extract kit from Midwest, is absolutely terrible... Borderline undrinkable.
I left it in the primary fermenter for one week, then in the secondary fermenter for two weeks. It has been in bottles for 5 weeks now. I don't have an accurate original or final gravity because my hydrometer had a leak in it (couldn't figure out why my readings were so ****ty at first) that I had not noticed until after bottling.
I was very meticulous about my sanitizing procedure and did not see any signs of infection. I did put them in my dish washer on the rinse cycle with heat after sanitizing. I had a drying agent in the diswasher (the blue liquid kind that you add to to the washer once a month or so). I never thought about it until reading somewhere that bottles shouldn't be rinsed if a drying agent is used.
Besides being flat and warm, the beer tasted pretty good prior to bottling. I then tried one beer each Friday after bottling. Each subsequent week produces a worse tasting beer than the last. I can only describe it as yeasty (I think). It has a slight fungal smell (I think, I'm not so good at pointing out tastes and smells) over top of a good, normal beer smell. I've had a couple of friends try it also without mentioning how bad it tastes beforehand, and they all had the same opinion of it.
It is well carbonated and does not gush out when opened. It has a foamy head when poured and looks like a 'normal' beer.
I don't feel as though it is the drying agent because otherwise I would assume I would taste that in my drinks poured into glasses from the dishwasher... However, I know that is one part of my process that I made a mistake in.
Any ideas? Thanks.
I left it in the primary fermenter for one week, then in the secondary fermenter for two weeks. It has been in bottles for 5 weeks now. I don't have an accurate original or final gravity because my hydrometer had a leak in it (couldn't figure out why my readings were so ****ty at first) that I had not noticed until after bottling.
I was very meticulous about my sanitizing procedure and did not see any signs of infection. I did put them in my dish washer on the rinse cycle with heat after sanitizing. I had a drying agent in the diswasher (the blue liquid kind that you add to to the washer once a month or so). I never thought about it until reading somewhere that bottles shouldn't be rinsed if a drying agent is used.
Besides being flat and warm, the beer tasted pretty good prior to bottling. I then tried one beer each Friday after bottling. Each subsequent week produces a worse tasting beer than the last. I can only describe it as yeasty (I think). It has a slight fungal smell (I think, I'm not so good at pointing out tastes and smells) over top of a good, normal beer smell. I've had a couple of friends try it also without mentioning how bad it tastes beforehand, and they all had the same opinion of it.
It is well carbonated and does not gush out when opened. It has a foamy head when poured and looks like a 'normal' beer.
I don't feel as though it is the drying agent because otherwise I would assume I would taste that in my drinks poured into glasses from the dishwasher... However, I know that is one part of my process that I made a mistake in.
Any ideas? Thanks.