Beer Forum

I am about to quit this shit! I have 3 batches, almost in a row, that have come out with a cidery taste to them before bottling. I have done everything I can think of to keep things sanitary. NOTHING touches my beer from 30 min the end of my boil with out being sanitised and covered in Star San. All of my hoses sit in a bucket of SS while I'm brewing. My fermenters are santised twice. Once with bleach and then rinsed really well. Next I drown the thing in Star San inside and out. I rack on top of the Star San bubbles. My air lock is sanitised for 30 min in Star San before they're placed on the carbouy. I use glass so as to avoid a problem with scratches. I have replaced all of my hoses that I use and even my racking cane has been replaced. I'm about to quit this shit!! It's so damn frustrating chasing a problem that I can't get to the end of. All of this work to feed the sink 5 gallons of my hard work and time!
Has anyone ever heard of this much trouble? I don't rinse any of the SS off as per Charlie T. I might be posting a for sale ad soon if I can't figure this out. Help please before I go back to buying Miller Lite.

Uhhh.... Check to make sure you aren't using Apple Juice?!
Seriously... how pronounced is the cider flavor? Is it just you or do others taste it?
Are you brewing or transfering in a dusty or dirty area? Do you cover while cooling, how do you cool?
that is enough for now
BUB

I haven't asked anyone else to try it because it's strong enough that I know it's there.
I cool with a double IC. I have one in a cooler of ice feeding another one in the beer. It brings the beer to 75F in about 15 minor so ( 5 gallons).
As for the dusty area thing, no. The area where I brew, chill and transfer is very clean by outside standards. I litterally sweep a few hours before the brew session and hose it down when that's done. I might need to build a fucking sterile room soon.
This is going to be the year that I deciede weather or not to end my brewing career. It's really disheartening to say the least.

What kind of yeast are you using for these three batches? I've had some yeast that throw some interesting infection-like flavors at higher temperatures. Also, I've had a lot of "bad" flavors age away nicely.

If you wanted to experiment you could just let the beer sit in a carboy for a while longer and see if you see anything growing in it.

I've been using the Am Ale strain 1056 in all of them. I'm about to switch to an English ale strain for the clearity. As for the ferm temps, it's been around 67F in the room. It's finally getting cold enough here for it to stay that cool all day and night.
Instead of tossing this batch I decided to rack to a secondary and crash this bitch. I'm going to let it sit for about 4 days then let it come back to room temp to pitch a bit more yeast for bottle conditioning. I'm going to use Nottinghams dry for that. It has worked in the past while I was playing with a clarity issue.

What kind of ferment temps do you have? It sounds like a fermentation by product to me. What yeast? And on the odd chance was it the same hops?

Travis

As for the hops. Between the three batches there were no real similarity in the hop bill. As I meantioned the ferm temps were around 67F or so. I am going to try the crash and rest method and see if I might just need to age them out for a while longer. The one other thing that had me freaking out is that they all see to ferment for about 5 or more days.
BTW, the starting gravity on this one was 1.064. I brewed it the day after Thanks Giving. The gravity now is only 1.020. That's another freaky thing. I'm going to consider this a real last ditch effort to save my brewing career.

oh stop it...ur not going to quit brewing just cause ur having problems...we're all here to help u..EXCEPT FOR ME..only cuz i have NO IDEA what the fuck i'm talking about so i'm here to rant and rave mostly!! anyways....we brewed the same day for our first beer...now c'mon...that one turned out good...so u must be doing something wrong here small fry....think about what ur doing and let me know that way i dont screw my shit up like you!!!