New to home brewing

earthbound · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:06 pm

Alright, I've decided it's time I should start brewing myself. I look at the number of stubbies around my place each week and it's getting a bit beyond a joke, I'm using way more energy than I need to and it's really starting to play on my mind because it's so wasteful.

I've done a couple of brews in the past that were very average, I've done a fair bit of distilling and that's easy, but my beer brewing is very limited. But I have a bit of a problem, I know people who have been seriously into their home brewing and I've tried many different home brews from different people with varying degrees of skill and knowledge but there's one factor that has always been there. There's always been a funny yeasty "home brew" sort of taste. Now most of the time I just drink up and comment on how lovely it is, and by the time you've had 2 or 3 you don't notice the flavour so much. But, there's no way you could pass it off as a good commercially available beer. In fact I don't think I have ever had a home brewed beer that hasn't had a certain "taste" to it, and thats from many different people brewing many different beers.

So a question for you guys with all the brewing experience and knowledge, is it possible to brew a beer at home thats as good as a commercial beer, without "that" taste? And what is the reason behind "that" home brew taste? And how do you stop it?

Big_Dave · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:44 pm

Really depends on what you regard as a good commercial Beer?

In my opinion its most commercial beer that tastes bad, This mainly applies to the Mega Brewers like CUB and Fosters - nearly everything they produce taste like :swear:

Some exceptions are Coopers, Little Creatures and Matilda Bay.

It may take time but eventually you will turn to the Home Brew side. :devil:

First and biggest tip - throw away the kettle and buy a good Stainless Steel 10L Pot.

Second tip - only buy Coopers Home Brew Tins - They are the Masters of Malt Extract.

Third tip - Brew to Temp, if you cant guarantee low brewing temps for Lagers then brew Ales.

I'll post up a "How I do it Thread" tonight with pictures

Axl · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:48 pm

I have the opposite problem, after years of H/brewing I can't drink commercial beer without finding that it tastes funny

Funny tastes in homebrewing can be caused by lots of differnt things, using cane sugar rather than dextrose or malt, bacterial infections in the brew due to improper cleaning/sanitising, the temp that it is brewed at, wheter the yeast has been disturbed when pouring, ( I tend to pour the whole bottle gently into a beer jug, leaving the yeasty bits at the bottom of the bottle)
or it could be that after years of drinking commercial beers, your taste buds are up to shit

hope this helps
cheers
Axl

Axl · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:50 pm

and when you buy your ingredients, make sure the tins aren't out of date.

Himzo · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:04 pm

Hi EB,
What Axl said..

Also try talking to these people: http://www.homebru.com.au/

they can help you out with kits, grains, hops, and anything else. not affiliated, just know that friends in Perth have had good advice etc from them.

As for producing "commercial quality" beer, I try not to , :spew:

Himzo.

earthbound · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:14 pm

I only drink good beers, can't drink the mass produced crap beers any more. Standard is Little creatures, also drink coopers, any other micro breweries around Perth like Matilda bay, Blue tongue, Feral, Gauge roads etc... Also like Stella, James Squires, etc... I could go on and on...

So when I say commercial, I'm not talking any Carlton or Swan or Fosters or anything like that.... Like at the moment I know a lot of people drinking things like Tooheys extra dry... :spew:

Perhaps one of the main things is the malt, I think most of the people I've known have probably used sugar.

hahahahaha.... That link is to the brew show I've been to many times... I bought lots of demijohns from him when I was brewing mead, also buy my turbo yeast for distilling and lots of other stuff... Great shop and a nice bloke, and not far from me....

Food&Fish · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:39 pm

Taste whats taste a few years ago i used to brew an occasional 50 litre keg [one every 2 weeks ] for a seasoned drinker one weekend after a big night he came around Monday wanting one Early had to have one so all i had was a keg of harn light ice i got from the tip it was well out of date like 2 years i only brought it home for the keg so i run 10 litres of and topped it up with 10 litres of guinness i had made shook it up and chilled it result best beer you have ever made he wanted that all the time

Steve S · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:25 pm

Details of
”that” keg's airlock -

A rubber bung 35-41mm + hole hammered into the keg’s cap after pulling out the internals.

dufflight · **Posted:** Fri Jun 11, 2010 9:27 am

Your source water can affect the taste of the beer. I'm going to have another go now that I have an RO filter.

Jaymie · **Posted:** Fri Jun 11, 2010 9:30 am

our brew shop gives away filtered water for brewing

chillidude · **Posted:** Fri Jun 11, 2010 10:52 am

Yep;

- water source; I always find Perth tapwater leaves a taste
- temperature brewed at; once fermenting, ale yeasts shouldn't go above about 18ºC, lager yeasts shouldn't go above about 12ºC. Otherwise they start producing esters as part of the fermentation, which results in that sort of taste.
- use good quality products. As with Dave, I only go Coopers.
- as Axl says, make sure every thing is very clean before you start
- and Axl again, cane sugar is definitely a no-no - also produces those flavours.

Himzo · **Posted:** Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:25 pm

With regards to water,

If your just doing kit beers, then just taste the water before using it. If it tastes OK (no off flavours or smells) then it's fine for fermenting.

RO water is not too good for fermenting as the yeast requires some of the salts in the water to keep it healthy during the fermentation process, at least 50ppm of calcium.

When I was doing kits I just used Adelaide tap water that had been through an activated charcoal filter to get rid of the chlorine.

H.

chillidude · **Posted:** Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:36 pm

Yep, good points Himzo - I use Perth water, once it has run through a charcoal ceramic filter.

mantis · **Joined:** Mon Sep 13, 2010 2:07 pm **Posts:** 24

I use rainwater from our tanks but add CaCl and MgSO4. I also brew from scratch, ie all grain.
Made a 40L batch of pale ale today.

chillidude · **Posted:** Mon Nov 15, 2010 3:16 pm

mantis wrote:

I use rainwater from our tanks but add CaCl and MgSO4. I also brew from scratch, ie all grain.
Made a 40L batch of pale ale today.

Very cool - never done it from scratch yet !

Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home