Home brew tang gone !

[Popspicker]

I have just sampled my third attempt at an extract brew and it tastes fantastic.
All three were very similar recipes, but after the first two were pretty ropey, the only thing I changed, was ditching the brew belt, making sure the temp was between 18-22deg and I didn't bottle, until it had been in the FV for two weeks.
I hope this may help another fellow novice like myself, to get his first clean, great tasting brew. :

 

[aneray]

Nice one, I'm glad you got it sorted.

We have all made dodgy brews but it must have been so disheartening having your first two turn out so bad after all the effort you put in. I see secondhand brew belts being sold on Ebay all the time and I often think what a waste of time they are unless you use some sort of thermostat to control the temperature. I have always used an electric blanket set on number one and wrapped loosly around my fermenter. Not had any problems yet.

 

[Mark1964]

brewbelts ferment too high on their own your alot better not using one :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

yeah seem like you would of thought they would design em to be set at around 18 or 20c as this is the standard temp and they can get easily up to 26c which ain't good , companies out there come on sort it out !!

well done popspicker :party:

 

[PaulCa]

I too have learnt this lesson and two others regaridng the home brew "tang".

1. Cool the wort to 18C before pitching. Keep it as cool as possible before "lift off" and the krausen forms. Keep it below 20C for at least the first 3 days until the krausen starts to fall. Then temp control is less of a worry. Actually if your extract brew stops at 1.020, warming it up and giving a slight nudge or two often helps it complete slowly during the second week.

2. Don't use sugar, cane or corn. Both encourage intense ferments and that encourages high temps with the heat generated by the ferment itself. They also add a boozy alcoholic tang. Use dried malt extract instead of sugar everytime.

3. Make sure you rinse the bleach/chlorine based sanitizer well. Not doing so will cause a medicinal taste to the beer.

I have one brew that has all three of these off flavours. I'm struggling to get through it. Although in fairness, with each week it improves. However it's like 8 weeks in bottles now and it still has off flavours.

I have a basic blonde ale that went ape s**t in the 1 gallon demi johns, blew off 200ml of foam into a jug and hit 26C, well above ambient. It had a foul tang to it, which is only just starting to ebb away now it's 4-5 weeks in bottles.

 

[The Goatreich]

Good tips, cheers. I've been a sufferer of the THT with most of my brews so far. I think my next big venture will be a fermenting fridge so I can properly control temperature.