I don't think the stupid homebrew taste is related to krausen skimming, I leave my beer alone during fermentation and I don't get any homebrew taste. I think the wisest policy is to keep the FV airtight throughout fermentation and keep air away from it, you are only introducing airborne bacteria.
I think stupid homebrew tastes come mainly from extract, particularly extract that is not fresh. But other factors are untreated water that contain chlorine, and poor fermentation.
The answers are, I believe, to:
- use fresh extract, dry extract is less susceptible to going stale due to the very low water content, and/or to use grain in place of some of the extract with a mini-mash.
- use water that has had chlorine removed with a campden tablet, or bottled water, or boiled water, and
- to ferment within the correct temperature range, with good sanitation, keeping air contact to a minimum.
Another possibility is to use additional hops. I suspect American IPAs may well have come about as a result of American homebrewers upping hopping levels in order to mask off/homebrew/extract flavours. Lots of hop flavour masks a lot of evils. The more neutral a beer is, the harder it is to cover up any flaws.