What am I doing wrong, no holds barred!

[dorklord]

Just a note, I don't know if anyone else mentioned this, but you mentioned using bleach to sanitize things. First off, bleach requires some time to work, so things need to be soaked in it, and secondly, if you don't completely rinse if off, bleach can leave some nasty flavors. So, if you fill your fermenter with bleach solution, then dump it out, you may be getting off flavors from that.

If you do rinse, well, you want to do it with sanitized water, as your tap water could have some bacteria in it.

All of that adds up to being a lot more work than using a no-rinse sanitizer.

 

[Rivenin]

another thing as well, looks like you only did 2 extract batches... i'd do a few more, as my first few brews were drinkable, but nothing i'd really pass out to friends, as time went on and i dialed down the processes it has gotten tons better.
another thing as well, those recipies may have never been to your taste, two different breweries could do 2 diferent pale ales, but you don't like this one vs one you do like, etc, just takes alot of time and patience

 

[Mermaid]

"Industrial" plastic spray bottle + 1 gallon of distilled water + small bottle of star san = santization problems solved.

I swear by the stuff, it's saved my sorry ass on every single batch I've done.

I'll also join in on the auto-siphon chorus, it's cheap and awesome (and way better than sucking on the tube)

Well water is probably okay as long as it's not too hard, or has extra goodies like a lot of iron. You might want to have it tested, just to eliminate it as a possibility. I brew with bottled water because I'm on a city water system that adds chloramines to the water.

As far as recipes are concerned, (and I still consider myself a relative newbie) I like to keep things simple with my grain bill and instead experiment with different yeast or hops. I'm very passionate about Belgian brews, have read "Brew Like a Monk" a couple times, and find that the "keep it simple" concept has worked well for me.

You can probably get some nice results with a partial mash (or just steeped grains) + extract recipe, and if you want to brew Belgian styles that can be very easy to achieve as long as you get your sanitization in check. There are a lot of really wonderful Belgian yeast strains available and part of what I enjoy most about homebrewing is experimentation.