awful beer - please help me diagnose

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50quidsoundboy

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My first kit brew came out great. My second one is probably going down the drain if it doesn't improve over the next week. My next brew will be AG so I'd like to diagnose what went wrong before I start...I think it's down to water treatment but I'd like your opinions!

Symptoms:

Hydrometer sample from FV after three days tasted strongly of swimming pools.
Since racking, it taste less of swimming pools and more medicinal/spirit-like. Still unpleasant.
Also tastes too sweet - wondering if fermentation stalled. I used BKE instead of sugar. Gravity went from 1044 and stopped at 1014.

My guesses as to what went wrong:

I was impatient and pitched the yeast (S04) at 27C. Could this cause all the above?
The kit came free with my barrels. Perhaps it's a duffer?
My water (North London) may be full of chlorine?
I maybe overdid the sanitiser in the FV?

Anyone got any comments? The contrast between this and my lovely first brew is ridiculous. For the first one, I treated my water with CRS and gypsum but I don't really know what I'm doing in this area, although my water definitely has lots of temporary hardness. I've ordered Campden tablets, will this make any chlorine problems go away?

Thanks

Jon
 
Did you by any chance use a campden tablet to treat your water? If not you need to as this will get rid of the chlorine and chloramines in the water . Both of these can react with the hops oils to form TCP but I don't know how relevent to kits this is.

1014 is about right perhaps a tad high for a kit but since you used a kit enhancer with more unfermentables then probably right. You need to keep fermentation down to 18-21c. Fermentation is exothermic and sometimes especially in summer pitching at a high temp means that it doesn't get to drop down sufficiently and can cause off flavours (but not chlorine ).


Some people brew using bottled spring water that may be an idea. That way you will be able to see if it is your water or sterilizing procedure which is the problem.

Hope that helps. :thumb:
 
Swimming pools... :shock:

That is chlorine, either from incomplete rinsing of a chlorine donor sanitiser/steriliser (like WVP) or, as you suggest, over cholrinated tap water.

Pay close attention to rinsing, chlorine donors should be rinsed thoroughly with cold water. I find that three good rinses, sterilise your arms before you pour away the solution, add a gallon or so of cold water, wash down the sides repeat X 2, does the job just fine.

Next up your water, if you suspect it is regularly that chlorine-y, then you'll need to use camden tablets to get it out. I think the going rate is a half a tab for 5 gallons?

You didn't say what it was that you brewed?
 
thanks.

calumscott said:
You didn't say what it was that you brewed?

the good one: St Peters IPA (two can). Dry hopped it with Chinook cones. lovely, can't stop drinking it.

the bad one: Brewmaker Export Bitter (one can). used BKE and replaced yeast. horrid, suspect may be actually poisonous.
 
If you are getting strong medicinal (TCP) like flavours/aromas then you should also consider an infection.
 
Aleman said:
If you are getting strong medicinal (TCP) like flavours/aromas then you should also consider an infection.

this is where i get confused: beer tastes of chlorine. chlorine kills bugs. beer also tastes medicinal. medicinal taste caused by bugs. are there any simple tests i can do that will provide supporting evidence either way?
 
50quidsoundboy said:
thanks.

calumscott said:
You didn't say what it was that you brewed?

the good one: St Peters IPA (two can). Dry hopped it with Chinook cones. lovely, can't stop drinking it.

Oooh, that sounds interesting! I've done the RRA straight and it's superb and I just happen to have probably enough Chinook for another dry-hop in the freezer... :hmm:

50quidsoundboy said:
the bad one: Brewmaker Export Bitter (one can). used BKE and replaced yeast. horrid, suspect may be actually poisonous.

:lol: I doubt it'll kill you but its always dissapointing when you get something that's a bit nasty. My Burton Bridge porter is just pretty manky and a real dissapointment.

Just take it for what it is - part of the learning process, that will make your future beers better.
 
calumscott said:
Just take it for what it is - part of the learning process, that will make your future beers better.

yeah, i'm not too bothered about the wasted beer kit (although tipping 40 pints down the drain is a bit gutting), as long as I can learn something so I don't ruin my AG brew later this month.
 
graysalchemy said:
Did you by any chance use a campden tablet to treat your water? If not you need to as this will get rid of the chlorine and chloramines in the water . Both of these can react with the hops oils to form TCP but I don't know how relevent to kits this is.

interesting...i didn't use any water treatment. i did add a bit of hop tea (made with Fuggles)...I can't seem to do kits without messing with them. I obviously just want to do AG.

graysalchemy said:
You need to keep fermentation down to 18-21c. Fermentation is exothermic and sometimes especially in summer pitching at a high temp means that it doesn't get to drop down sufficiently and can cause off flavours (but not chlorine ).

yep, i'm really annoyed that i didn't wait for it to cool properly, then at least i could rule out temperature as the source of my problem.

graysalchemy said:
Some people brew using bottled spring water that may be an idea. That way you will be able to see if it is your water or sterilizing procedure which is the problem.

i suppose i should try this, but for some reason i really want to be able to make good beer using my tap water.
 
I had this happen to me once when I ran out of VWP so I used Milton No Rinse Sterilising Tablets. I found out later that the "No Rinse" bit may be OK for a baby bottle, but NOT a beer bottle. 23 litres of beer that tastes medicinal when it should have tasted of beer! I managed to pass off a few bottles as an alcoholic root beer though :lol:
 

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