That "home brew taste"

[Spooner68]

I'm a returning home brewer and am a bit cloudy on a few things. I hope I can get some answers over the next few months.

First off, I recently made a batch of Milestone Olde Home Wrecker (an excellent kit) which ended up 4.6%, clear as a bell, lightly carbonated but with a slight malty aftertaste. My previous batches tasted similar so I wondered if all homebrew kit beers have that same flavour? A mate brought some over the other day and his had the same flavour. Are there any kits that don't taste like home brew or is it me doing something wrong?

 

[calumscott]

It can be difficult to produce kit beers that taste unlike "homebrew" but with practise it can be done.

The most important things are:

Never sugar! Use spraymalt at least but better still liquid extract if your kit requires extra fermentibles.
Stay cool! Better to take longer to brew with chilled out yeast than have heat crazed maniacs make your beer in two days flat.
Patience is THE virtue! The instructions on kits are invariably wrong. Beer takes longer, end of story. Let the yeast brew it out, then give them a chance to clean up after themselves, they do and it makes a real difference.
There's no such thing as a "late addition hop" in a kit! The subtle aromas of hops are likely to be lost during the concentration process of the hopped extract in the kit. Dry hop or use hop teas to put the fresh hop zing back into the beer.

Do that lot and you WILL produce awesome beer from kits. Try it with a Muntons Gold Midas Touch - make it up as per instructions and ferment for a week, keep the temp under 20C. When the week is up add about 30g of East Kent Golding hops (either just chuck them in or make up a weighted muslin bag) and give it another two weeks - yes, three whole weeks for the yeast to do their work - then rack to your bottling bucket, batch prime and bottle. Give that at least a month and a half in the bottle and you will have something, I promise, that will blow your socks off.

 

[morethanworts]

Graysalchemy reckons oxidated, less than fresh extract, is the cause of THT (that homebrew twang, as he called it). I've done over 20 brews from either extract plus hops&grains or pre hopped kits, but the vast majority still had THT to some extent or another. I'm going to check production dates on all future extract, at least to rule it out. If it were poor methods on my part, I would expect the off tastes to have varied more, but it's nearly always the same, regardless of kit or ingredients.

 

[rpt]

My kits have all had a bit of a twang but it has diminished over time. My latest was an extract kit that needs boiling. This was a lager made with spraymalt and was lagered for 2 weeks. Despite still being young it is fantastic with no twang. I don't know if it's the dried malt, the lagering or the yeast but it was worth the effort.

 

[alanywiseman.]

I am suffering the dreaded twang. It is much worse in lighter beers than darker ones as they are more delicate. Where most say it gets better I seem to find that time makes it worse.

I am now statying to think it is oxidation

 

[brookenstein]

My first brew had the Tang, second brew onwards hasn't, only thing I've changed is adding a few Campden tablets to the water at the beginning, anyone else use these in theirs?

 

[lukehgriffiths]

That answers one of my questions... Can you use Camden tabs in a kit (didn't know if they needed boiling)
The tang occurs due to the extract. Apparently spray dried extract and steeped grains (leading to having to brew something darker; no ipa afraid) can take it away. The boiled dried extract mixes better and the steeped grain freshness the flavour.

 

[bobsbeer]

Campden tabs don't need boiling. I use them in wine to stun wild yeast and help to prevent oxidation. I also use them in my liquor to get rid of the chlorine from the tap water. In wine I use them at a rate of 1 per 5lt but whether that concentration is needed to prevent oxidation i don't know. To get rid of chlorine I use 1/2 tab per 30lt.

 

[morethanworts]

I'm considering doing an extract brew entirely from Dried Malt Extract instead of Liquid. It's one thing that I've never tried in over 20 brews, and it will eliminate the possibility of the liquid extract being oxidated (through poor storage or not as fresh as desirable) or darkened, as LME does over time, even within Best Before Date. I'm not sure if there will be any real downsides to using the dry stuff. Either that, or checking the production date of the LME.

My best results (no twang) were from LME with fresh grains and hops, though some still had the twang.

 

[jonnymorris]

I'm not sure if there will be any real downsides to using the dry stuff.

Only that it's the stickiest stuff known to man. Beware the clumps! It is rumoured to keep longer than LME though which is, I guess, your point. You should notice a big improvement over kits.

 

[morethanworts]

You should notice a big improvement over kits.

I've already done extract brews (LME) with fresh hops etc (though it's been a few years), but some still had the dreaded twang. You're right though, the best was far better than any pre-hopped kit I've done.

 

[Dave1970]

I've did 4 kits before going AG. 1 of them (Dasher & Dancer)had THT all the way, 2 (Brewferm Grand Cru and Brewer's Choice IPA) lost it eventually but we're talking after 12-18 months. The only one that really had no homebrew tang at all was a Woodfordes Admiral's Reserve.

These are all premium kits, the only one with any sugar added was the Brewferm, and I made proper Candi Sugar for that. All were fermented cool and for much longer than the instructions. There's no obvious reason why the Woodfordes should be better than the others, particularly the Dasher & Dancer as they're both straight 2 can kits. This has me thinking that the age of the extract is the cause of THT, this would also explain why it's not present in any of my AG brews as the wort is freshly made in AG brewing.

 

[Spooner68]

Thanks for that guys, all very interesting and in many ways confusing.

The Olde Home Wrecker brewed quite quickly, my brew cupboard s at a steady 23-24 C, but was as per the instructions at 6 days. Secondary was a week and I waited a fortnight before sampling. The taste is good but there's a definite THT.

Just sampled the first bottle of Brewferm Triple. It's slightly cloudy but the taste is fantastic, very much like Leffe but a lot stronger. It took 10 days to ferment, a week in secondary and three weeks so far maturing (I couldn't wait). This is the first kit I've used with any sugar the others were all malt and its the first without the Tang. I hope it clears and I will be very reluctant to share it.

So how does it work with the Camden tablets? When and how do you use them?

Also the slow fermenting is tricky as he only place I have to do the brewing is at a steady temperature.

How important is it to rack it off into a secondary bucket before bottling? If you do this would you do te secondary sugar then or when you finally bottle it?

 

[Dave1970]

Be patient with the Brewferm kit, they really benefit from a long maturation.

The campden is added to the water you're going to use for the kit, it works pretty quickly to remove the chlorine taste from tap water that can end up giving your finished beer a TCP like tang. Just get the required volume of water to make up the kit and add half a crushed Campden tablet a couple of hours before use.

Not everyone racks to secondary, others swear by it. You don't add the priming sugar until bottling/kegging time, otherwise the CO2 produced won't be trapped to carbonate your beer

 

[Spooner68]

"Not everyone racks to secondary, others swear by it. You don't add the priming sugar until bottling/kegging time, otherwise the CO2 produced won't be trapped to carbonate your beer"

The Brewferm instructions recommend both racking to a second bucket and adding the priming sugar at that point. I thought it odd and syphoned direct to the kettle and added one 3g coopers priming sugar cube. What do you make of them? They are certainly easy to use but I'm not sure they give enough carbonation. Then again it could be me

 

[Dave1970]

"Not everyone racks to secondary, others swear by it. You don't add the priming sugar until bottling/kegging time, otherwise the CO2 produced won't be trapped to carbonate your beer"

The Brewferm instructions recommend both racking to a second bucket and adding the priming sugar at that point. I thought it odd and syphoned direct to the kettle and added one 3g coopers priming sugar cube. What do you make of them? They are certainly easy to use but I'm not sure they give enough carbonation. Then again it could be me

That's a batch priming in a bottling bucket they're talking about...whether you've chosen to rack the beer off or not you can, just before bottling, dissolve your sugar for the whole batch in boiling water, boil for a short while to dissolve and sterilise then put the resulting syrup into an FV. Your beer then gets siphoned on top which mixes it all up and you bottle from this bucket. Most likely you'd use an FV for this purpose that has a 'Little Bottler' attached rather than a standard tap.

I've used the Coopers drops and they work well for an ale, in a 500ml bottle they give about the right level of carbonation. For a lager level of carbonation you want one in about a 330ml bottle. Although they work they're basically an expensive way of doing it, batch priming as described above, is cheaper, easier and you can adjust the amount of sugar to suit your exact needs.