have i done something wrong?

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ishy666

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Hello guys and gals. At xmas i received a brewing kit. Ive made two brews now both if which are awful! I understand that it wont exactly taste like heineken or something but blimey these are bad. Not sure how to describe the taste. Like a sour, bitter yeasty taste haha. I made an I.p.a and then a lager (bulldog hammer of thor.) Followed instructions to the letter! After 5 days i put the hops teabag in. After 14 i bottled it with one level reaspoon of sugar per 500ml. After about two weeks i moved them into garage. Two weeks on (it says will only take 1 week to clear) and its extremely cloudy and tastes like i said earlier. :( any advice? Thanks in advance.
 
Had the fermentation finished? That's spot on for temperature. Did you use a hydrometer to check steady gravity? If you used an airlock, had it stopped bubbling? Sorry, lots of questions but they might help fathom out wnhat happened.
 
It had stopped bubbling. I used a hydrometer but i dont really know what im doing with it and my local homebrew shop is no help.
 
Looks like you bottled at the right time. The cloudiness could be chill-haze.

Bad form by the homebrew shop for being no help...
 
there is also the stage of maturing the beer, it can take a week, more often weeks even months.. so lay the bottles to one side for a few weeks, at the end of the day its a matter of personal taste and i prefer my beers mature not green.

if your lucky enough to have temp controlled fermenting then there are a few things you can do to clean the beer up before bottling,

hydrate the yeast for an optimum population,

ferment at a stable temp at the lower end of the range published for the yeast your using so if it says 18-22c ferment at 18-19C. higher temps can give 'stronger' flavours

when your close to your final gravity reading, raise the temp to the high end of the yeast comfort range, for 24 hours the fermentables remaining to provide flavour wont be a lot but it will enable the yeast to clean the beer a bit. a diactyl rest iirc,

crash chill the beer down to 0-4C for 24-48 hours this will encourage a lot more sediment to drop out (it can take longer than 24 hours to hit the crash chill target temp. so give it 24-48 hours after its hit target temp)

if a real lager brew with lager yeast fermenting circa 11-15C you may also want to consider lagering the beer, afaik you can do this in the bottle or in a 2ndary bulk fermentor.

thing is the kits will tell you to drink your beer x days after making to sell you the beer kit yes you can drink it, but let it mature a few weeks or months even and then you can relish it..

its worth the wait, and meanwhile you can build up a good stock of beer for the summer..
 
Some of my friends have said they can taste a sort of wine taste to it

Did this beer improve with time? It's been a while now so I am interested in how it turned out in the end.

When you say it had a 'wine taste', I am wondering if the kit was a one can kit where you add fermentables. If so, adding plain sugar is a bad plan, although some instructions suggest it for cheapness. Adding dried malt extract or 'brew enhancer' is better as it adds depth of flavour, mouth feel and avoids a cider taste which comes with sugar.
 
I made this a long time ago and the kit is a premium kit but does come with some brewing sugar. I left it for 20 plus days in FV and then nearly 3 months before drinking and it was excellent. Maybe your just not leaving it long enough or as said before it could be infected. Are you cleaning everything before using it. I'd leave the Thor for a few months and taste again it is amazing what time can do
 
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