4th Kit Lager - Same Cidery/Sweet Taste!

Evening ladies and gents,

Im stumped. Im 4 kits in to my brewing career. I've managed to not carbonate, carbonate, make it cloudy, make it clear and various other silly little mistakes through a good bit of trial, effort and reading!

However - I cannot for the life of me knock up a kit lager that doesnt taste extremely sweet/cidery. I have looked at all of the common causes of this taste and to say that im anal with my cleaning now would be an understatement. It simply cant be that...

This time i experimenting adding slightly less sugar to the kit to ferment, really all I would seem to have accomplished is making the brew a little less ABV according to my readings.

Im at a loss... any advice? Is it simply the method in which it is brewed? (kit+sugar, ferment, then rack?)

Regards

Sad Badbrew.

Is it the same kit?
Have you got controlled temperature?
What temp are you fermenting at?
How long are you fermenting for?
How long are you conditioning for?


Cheers

Clint

Damn that's not good, need more info though. What kit are you using? What temp are you fermenting at? What yeast are you using and what was the starting and finishing gravity?

What temperature are you fermenting at?
I suspect that you are fermenting too warm for a lager kit (even though many don't have genuine lager yeasts included with the kits),

Either that or you are conditioning/lagering at too high a temperature and not leaving it long enough

As others have said, what temp are you fermenting at, that sounds like the culprit? And some lager kits coms with ale yeast, and some come with lager yeasts which need a lower fermenting temp which could mean a high fermenting temp making things even worse.

I only brew lager mid-winter around Feb time, when the house it at its coldest.

Badbrew said:

Evening ladies and gents,

Im stumped. Im 4 kits in to my brewing career. I've managed to not carbonate, carbonate, make it cloudy, make it clear and various other silly little mistakes through a good bit of trial, effort and reading!

However - I cannot for the life of me knock up a kit lager that doesnt taste extremely sweet/cidery. I have looked at all of the common causes of this taste and to say that im anal with my cleaning now would be an understatement. It simply cant be that...

This time i experimenting adding slightly less sugar to the kit to ferment, really all I would seem to have accomplished is making the brew a little less ABV according to my readings.

Im at a loss... any advice? Is it simply the method in which it is brewed? (kit+sugar, ferment, then rack?)

Regards

Sad Badbrew.

Click to expand...

personally i think your following kit instructions and not to good at that , Kit instructions for some reason are total fiction, look for a guy called chippie tea on here and ask him for the kit brewing thread follow it and you will be making cracking beer in no time , any questions the lads will answer :thumb:

Badbrew said:

Evening ladies and gents,

Im stumped. Im 4 kits in to my brewing career. I've managed to not carbonate, carbonate, make it cloudy, make it clear and various other silly little mistakes through a good bit of trial, effort and reading!

However - I cannot for the life of me knock up a kit lager that doesnt taste extremely sweet/cidery. I have looked at all of the common causes of this taste and to say that im anal with my cleaning now would be an understatement. It simply cant be that...

This time i experimenting adding slightly less sugar to the kit to ferment, really all I would seem to have accomplished is making the brew a little less ABV according to my readings.

Im at a loss... any advice? Is it simply the method in which it is brewed? (kit+sugar, ferment, then rack?)

Regards

Sad Badbrew.

Click to expand...

In my experience with 1 can kits - they come out much better if you make them up short. In other words make it up to 4.5 or 4 gallons rather than the 5 in the instructions, and only use 500g of sugar.
I've always thought it was using too much sugar that gives kits that `homebrew twang' flavour, and brewing short as I've sugested seems to get rid of this.

Cwrw666 said:

In my experience with 1 can kits - they come out much better if you make them up short. In other words make it up to 4.5 or 4 gallons rather than the 5 in the instructions, and only use 500g of sugar.
I've always thought it was using too much sugar that gives kits that `homebrew twang' flavour, and brewing short as I've sugested seems to get rid of this.

Click to expand...

I agree.

I just did an experiment making up a 1-can kit with an all-grain mini-mash rather than sugar or spraymalt, it's not only the best kit I've made but one of the best beers I've ever made period.

I've never made up any kits with sugar after reading of issues on here, usually use spraymalt. Sugar is a last-resort when brewing kits.

darrellm said:

I agree.

I just did an experiment making up a 1-can kit with an all-grain mini-mash rather than sugar or spraymalt, it's not only the best kit I've made but one of the best beers I've ever made period.

I've never made up any kits with sugar after reading of issues on here, usually use spraymalt. Sugar is a last-resort when brewing kits.

Click to expand...

Actually I quite often chuck 500g of sugar into my all grain brews to bump up the OG a bit (500g sugar equates to about 1%ABV). The brews have no trace of `twang' at all and in fact you couldn't tell them apart from a straight AG brew.

@Badbrew
If its a 1.5kg kit and you have added 1 kg table sugar and brewed to 23 litres then it will come up a bit thin and you might find any HB twang more noticeable.
If you are drinking it early then you may not have given it chance to condition properly. Try leaving it for at least six weeks after you have finished carbonation which might make a difference. And if you have a fridge keep a few bottles in there for a few weeks and see if that helps.
If you still find it's not to your taste, then try a premium kit. Although they cost more they come with everything in the box and are certainly better than a one can kit which has only had sugar added.
In the meantime you might find this useful....
Basic beginners guide to brewing your own beer from a kit - The HomeBrew Forum

Morning all!

Firstly, thankyou for all of your replies, let me try and work through some of the queries.

On 3 occasions, I have used different kits ranging from the Brupack Kit where I would soak essentially, some teabags in water before adding water/sugar to the FV and fermenting. The kit I have used twice was from my local homebrew shop, it is a "Ultimate Brewery Classics" German Pilsner. This is a nice plastic tub of gloop that I added sugar and water too (as well as the yeast of course) and brewed.

In regards to temperature control during the fermentation, this is something I have not been monitoring however I have experimented in different rooms in the house. The instructions in the kit have all suggested classic "room temperature" levels such as 19/20 degrees. For my latest brew, I did take it to a cooler room in the house but it certainly isn't "cold".

Having taken a fair bit of advice regarding fermenting times, I have tried 1 week, 10 days, 2 weeks and somewhere in between all of them. It would be fair to say that the time it has spent in the FV has had no impact in the cidery aspect of the brew.

Conditioning - Again I have tried a few different things ranging from having absolutely no clue and conditioning for 2 weeks in the warm, to most recently committing the brew to a plastic keg, stored in a fridge for 6 weeks where I have recently primed and racked, its now carbing for a week or so before I put it back in the fridge. In sampling this brew, the cidery/sweet taste is still evidence. The conditioning time would mostly have impacted the clarity of the brew. No effect has been had on the cidery taste.

Yeasts? I honestly haven't checked, but I have used what has been provided in the kits and followed the instructions.

From what I can tell, the issues are coming pre-conditioning which means it must be something im doing prior to then. I know a lot here have mentioned the FV temp. Should I completely disregard the instructions and brew it in the cool?

What's your og and fg? Also using malt extract instead of sugar will give better results. But for the time being you need to nail the basics so house can establish what's going on.

Cheers

Clint