Broken brewer :(

[contrarian]

Some good points above but in addition to them, what temperature are you fermenting at? If your fermenter is at ambient temp and wrapped in a blanket it might be getting a bit warm which could produce some undesirable flavours. Controlling fermentation temperature made a massive difference to my beer.

The other point is what are you tasting the beer from? I've tasted beer that I thought was sour but after giving the hydrometer a good clean it has turned out that was the culprit rather than the beer. I must have got distracted and not rinsed it after a previous sample.

If you are worried about the water you could try a fresh wort kit without watering down but is say that's fairly unlikely.

 

[jimmy_jangles]

plenty of advice already on here, so my two cents is to keep on keeping on! Nothing worse than the feeling you get if a brew goes wrong, i previously got really down about it , so plenty of sympathy coming from this direction hehe Really looking forward to hearing that your back in the successful brewers circle!

CHEERS! :chug:

 

[Ditchnbeer]

I think bconnery has given the best advice - get your beer to a homebrew club, a BJCP certified person or an experienced brewer. They can pick infections real quick, fermentation faults, and other issues with creating the beer, give you feedback which will def help you. It may be the way to go especially if you've lost yr way in telling if the beer is good.

And most importantly, if you ever find the cause, post it here.

 

[danestead]

"Slight sour taste that you can't remember if it's normal or not": Slight sour taste sounds a lot like a wheat beer to me. There's usually a bit of tartness there.

That was my first thought on the slightly sour taste.

Are you using temp. control on your ferments?

Are you mixing your sanitiser/s at the correct ratio? Stuff like starsan when mixed too strong loses its 'no rinse' ability.

 

[Colo]

Controlling fermentation temperature made a massive difference to my beer.

Short answer is no I dont use temp control, however at the time of all the issues happening I was keeping an eye out on Gumtree etc for a cheap freezer/fridge but this was put on the back burner for obvious reasons.

I might start looking again