Almost given up on homebrew :(

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timcunnell

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Hey guys. I am really glad I found this forum! Looks like a great place to hang out with a very knowledgeable bunch of chaps, and I hope I can learn a lot from you guys in the weeks/months/years to come.
I am from Suffolk in England - a fine brewing county! My favourite beers include Adnams Broadside, Greene King IPA and Woodfordes Wherry.
I got into home brewing because I LOVE beer! (not in a "I've got a problem" way!!) and I have joined this forum mainly because I am spending £££ and failing to produce anything drinkable!! So I am hoping you guys can help.
I am a scientific person and usually very thorough with anything that I do. I have read quite a lot about homebrewing, and watched a LOT of YouTube stuff. But despite my best efforts I have been tearfully pouring batch after batch down the sink! I have all but given up on home brewing. But now in hope of salvation, I turn to you - my fellow brewers of superior knowledge, and hope that you may impart your wisdom!
I have started out brewing your standard Wherry and Muntons kits and had some okay-ish results but nothing great. I reckon I probably made the usual mistakes with a batch being under-fermented and another couple under-conditioned. Another batch went bad after a week or so.
But unperturbed, I pressed onwards and upwards to extract kits - and actually managed a genuinely good one! But my last three brews - a devastating 120 pints, have yielded the grand total of 0 drinkable pints of beer. Not good! And it has been a total mystery as to where I am going wrong.
I have been sanitising EVERYTHING obessively. My FV and all equipment used (including the yeast packet and scissors used to open it) have been sanitised. I've even managed to avoid interferring with my wort while it is fermenting - only using a well-sanitised flask for gravity readings. In fact, my last few batches have been in pretty good shape when I transfer them to my pressure barrel. Again, I have really been careful about sanitising my King Keg, including the tap and the lid etc. And when I have taken samples after a week things have seemed to be going to well. But inevitably, before the beer becomes conditioned it goes bad and the batch is wasted.
I just can't figure it out!!
Reading through the "noobie errors" thread I have to own up to sucking the syphon hose! So I guess at the moment that is the number 1 suspect.
In a bid to have one more go at a successful brew I have just ordered a Muntons American IPA kit which looks really nice. And I have ordered a Youngs Auto-syphon from Amazon, so hopefully this time I won't mess things up!! In the meantime if anyone has any top tips on avoiding things going bad in the 2nd ferment stage I really am all ears (or eyes, I guess!?).
Anyway - thanks guys and happy brewing :)
 
Wow, that seems pretty unlucky. Either you have exceptionally high standards/expectations for your brews or, as you say, you are doing something drastically wrong. I am no expert but have done 30 odd brews over the last year or so and have none 'fail' on me, ie undrinkable !
Beer is pretty hard to kill and by the sounds of it you are meticulous with your prep and general hygiene standards, much more than I am if I'm honest !
I too syphon my beer by sucking and it's a subject much discussed on here. It would appear some people carry more bacteria than others in their mouths and on their lips so maybe that could be the cause. Try your new syphon gadget and see how it goes or maybe try it on a sacrificial one can cheap kit, or maybe just stop kissing the ladies before you syphon your beer....

Welcome to the forum, you will find much help and info here.
 
I'd say three in a row means something's fundamentally wrong, not necessarily with your technique which seems sound but maybe your kit's has got some nasties that ordinary sanitising won't shift (some moulds, wild yeasts). It's drastic but replacing plastic items might help, fvs, paddles, siphons, anything you use that's plastic. I reckon you could do it for about £20 quid which you may see as worthwhile to 'reset the clock'. Though obviously more if the keg is the issue. As Redron says, many Brewers here have followed similar routines to you and never had an issue.

Some other thoughts: where do you keep fvs while fermenting? If it's in a room with damp or something that could be the cause (I'm guessing here mind, mainly examples to get you thinking about where the problem might be).

Don't give up!
 
And when I have taken samples after a week things have seemed to be going to well. But inevitably, before the beer becomes conditioned it goes bad and the batch is wasted.

So you've made good beer and it's gone bad whilst conditioning / stored. Sounds like there is some sort of sanitasion issue with your barrel.

I've had exactly the same thing, although not 3 times in a row thankfully. I proved it was the barrel by half bottling and half kegging a brew: still drinking the bottled stuff now but the kegged beer (initially fine and very drinkable) went off after 3 weeks or so, TCP smell and horrid taste. I was ruthless with sanitisation on the keg, can only think there was a problem with the float or tap, so gonna replace them as they are quite hard to sanitise.

Try bottling, or at least half-bottling a brew. And I suck to syphon, including the one above which was half good.
 
Impossible for anyone to give you any real advice without a few more details.

In what way was it "bad"? I've never had anything undrinkable, but we all have different standards and tastes. Having said that, as you've listed Greene King IPA as one of your favourite beers, you can't be too picky :lol:
 
I wonder how patient you are being especially with the Wherry I like it to have a minimum of 6 weeks from yeast pitch to drinking. Wherry is usually pretty free from "kit twang" a sort of caramelly sweetness that will go a bit with time. I personally don't really like the Munton's kits I still feel there is an unacceptable kit twang. My favourite kits are the Brupaks ones

The most interesting thing you have mentioned is the TCP flavour. Tri Chloro Phenol, I have only had it once in all my years of brewing in a batch of a very light rice lager from the old Morgan's system. If memory serves it can come from your water and a yeast strain that don't agree with each other. Indeed the batch I had it problems with was a lager yeast rather than an ale yeast and I have never used it again. Perhaps it might be worth trying a different yeast with your kit next time.

Edit sorry the TCP aroma wasn't from the OP but it's probably worth leaving this up (A)

I suck my syphon, am relaxed but careful about sterilisation (often using household cheap bleach, well rinsed of course)

I hope that helps you
 
Evening Tim, if you're producing good beer but it's going off while conditioning maybe try bottling a couple of brews and conditioning in the bottle. You can pick up 40 PET bottles for £13 on Ebay, if the bottles turn out fine then you know to look at your keg and maybe replacing it. With the siphon, I use a sterile BIC pen lid to start it off and then once I see it coming I take the pen lid off the tap and away you go and the siphon tap has never touched your mouth. Good luck, don't give up and welcome to the forum.
 
On the syphon thing, I use a short piece of sterile tube which I stick into the syphon tube. I suck this, and when the beer is flowing through, I nip the syphon tube near the end where my stubby tube is to stop the flow, pull out my 'mouth tube' and then let a small amount of beer pour through - just an egg cup full or less, and then I enter the syphon tube down into my keg or bottling bucket. This way, no trace of my mouth gets onto the tube or into the keg.

Mouths are chock full of bacteria - billions of them in every drop of spit. Probably not great to get into a keg.

This is only one of a dozen ways - maybe more - that bacteria and moulds can get into beer. A crack in a barrel, or a dirty tap, or un-sterilised hands could be just as likely the cause.

Hope you can sort it out. I had a series of bad batches back in teh 1980s and I packed in for twenty five or thirty years. I thought I had an infection problem, now I am not so sure. I used to use a heat belt and had no thermometer and I now think I was fermenting and conditioning at far too high a temperature.
 
Personally I'm a bit dubious about sucking the syphon causing infection but that's based on lab work rather than brewing. I agree with the other guys and think there's something lurking in your keg.

A few tips I thought I'd chuck in though, wear gloves! Loads of videos show people without. They aren't much cleaner but you can then your skin but you can spray them with cheap (40% abv) vodka to sterilise. Starsan would likely work too but I know alcohol definitely does.

Secondly if you're very, very paranoid when rehydrating your yeast (that's when they are most vulnerable) stick your gas hob or a camping stove on full whack and do it next to that. The heat causes an up draft and stops nasties landing in your yeast.

Obviously don't do that with vodka soaked hands as that's just silly...
 
In your OP you've stated you have undrinkable beer but you have failed to state why. Basically, what does it taste and smell like? There are a number of different reasons why it might have become undrinkable.
 
It sounds like your pretty hot on sanitisation, I would try bottling your next couple of brews and if they are good, like others on here I suspect your keg has caught a nasty infection of some kind
 
I also suck on the end of the syphon tube, let a small amount of beer flow through and down the sink (aarrrggghhh!!), pinch it and dunk the end of the tube into no-rinse sanitiser. Seems to work for me so far.
 
I, too, had bad batches in the early days. Hard to be sure why, but thankfully I've not had to chuck one away for ages. Here are a couple of things that may have helped:

1) Star San. Can't recommend this stuff highly enough. Not only does it massively speed up the brewing process but you can stick practically anything into it - spoons, yeast packets, your hands - and it's pretty much instantly sanitized, with no need to rinse.

2) Avoid brewing during the warmer months. Not sure whether it's the higher temperatures themselves, or the increased prevalence of bugs and things in the air, or just a coincidence, but most of my dodgy brews were made during the summer. I now do as much brewing as I can when it's cooler and take a break during July/August. I keep my fermenters in the spare room, which stays nice and cool, and never use heaters, airing cupboards or anything like that.

I'd agree with others on here, though, that it sounds like your keg might be an issue. Definitely worth bottling a batch or two and seeing if it makes a difference. Try some different kits, too: Coopers seem pretty much indestructible, and the Brewferm ones have never failed me.

P.S. Never had an infection from sucking the syphon, although I mostly use an autosyphon.
 
Regarding syphoning, I dump the tubing plus a small 'suck pipe' into some starsan solution in a spare FV. I jug pour some starsan through the tubing so the inside of the tube gets sterilised.

I use the santised suck pipe stuck into the end of the tube to suck some beer into the tube, then quickly wip out the suck tube and push the syphon tube end into the keg. No need to nip and sterilise the syphon tube end as its all sanitised already and my lips never touched the syphon tube end. Never had an infected brew.

As others have mentioned, Starsan is great and very convenient to use, you can mix a batch up and use/reuse lots of times, occasionally measuring the ph is still 3 or less (so is still effective). Then dump and mix a fresh batch.
 
This does remind me of BruinTuns, poor bloke spend 100s and ended up with 160 pints of what he described like soured poison.

The beer which you describe undrinkable, (like myqul says you havent said exactly why) you seem to think its okay prior to transfer? do you have a few FVs you could try as in try a different one? and I know people have various solutions to get around you could try a siphon without your mouth

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6wnVFsGdv0[/ame]

I admit I don't do this as I have an autosiphon but have used in with a smaller siphon on small demijohns.. it takes some practice to get the knack of it though but it does work.
 
There are some people on this forum who seem totally paranoid about sanitation, and some who don't sanitize anything at all but still end up with good beer every time. I fall into this last camp, nearly, I just splash a bit of boiling water about to sanitize things a bit, and I don't seem to have trouble. Sure there are bacteria everywhere, in your mouth, on your hands, floating around in the air even - but they aren't necessarily the types of bugs that make beer go off. Worst offenders in my opinion are those connected with flies, and those found in drinking water - everyone knows the water system is full of leaky pipes, everyone knows drinking water pipes are laid under the road right next to sewerage pipes, but then they just turn their taps on and assume the stuff coming out is good wholesome clean water.
Maybe the reason I don't have problems with beer going bad is because I boil all my water!
 
I must say I also fall into this latter category. I spray starsan about and boil most of my water and so far (and I'm tempting fate here) not had an infection. I also bottle all of my beers which might have something to do with it?
 

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