How do I get rid of the homebrew taste?

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Wort from my partial on the thread I posted is smelling and tasting ok, nice Cooperish aroma coming off the fermentation (kicked in nicely overnight and pluggin away at 18 ambient)
 
jamie72 said:
I am new to brewing and I am wondering how do I make a beer without that tell tale taste of a home brew??
Is it the carb drops, is it because I use the tins and not AG??
If anyone on the gold coast has the patients I'd love to learn all I can.

Cheers Jamie
Hi Jamie, you should try the Fresh Wort Kits that some of the site sponsors sell.
You pay for the freshness...but for around $50 you can produce 20L of great homebrew (no signs of kit twang).
As mentioned multiple times in your thread, temp control is also a major factor.
 
chewy said:
Anybody had any luck with brew enhancers from coopers?

They are heaps better than sugar. Have a look at your LHBS you can get convertor packs, like a decent grade brew enhancer often includes hops etc.
 
I have used to Copper Tun (Brewcraft) ones, and found them pretty good. Would probably be cheaper to make them yourself with DME, dex, etc...but quick and easy to use, and as QldKev said, much better than sugar.
 
Jamie came over to my place on Sunday and we made 14L of a 1.069 (65 IBUs) Citra and Simcoe IPA in the 19L pot.

I was talking too much and the infusion mash was a little colder than I wanted - but got higher than expected efficiency (I set it at 70% for no-sparge BIAB), so all good. It'll probably finish at or below 1.012.

Citra and Simcoe IPA (American IPA)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.066 (°P): 16.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.015 (°P): 3.8
Alcohol (ABV): 6.71 %
Colour (SRM): 9.4 (EBC): 18.6
Bitterness (IBU): 64.6 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)

87.72% Pale Ale Malt
6.27% Dextrose
5.01% Caramunich III
1% Acidulated Malt

1.4 g/L Citra (14% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
1.4 g/L Simcoe (13.5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
1.1 g/L Citra (13.5% Alpha) @ 2 Days (Dry Hop)
1.1 g/L Simcoe (13.5% Alpha) @ 2 Days (Dry Hop)


55C:10, 61C:10, 64C:45. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 19°C with Safale US-05


Recipe Generated with BrewMate
 
HUGE thanks to Nick for inviting me into his house and sharing his knowledge.
I learnt a lot, and have already forgotten a lot, BUT, I will never brew another can
after tasting REAL home brew. But how do I stop my little finger poking out everytime
I raise a glass to drink?? lol..
How good are those pork fat chips and beer stick's ay Nick??
 
black_labb said:
I've read that old malt often causes a metallic taste, I'd try and use tins from a brew shop as opposed to the supermarket as it is probably fresher (possibly sitting in storage for a long time where brew shops would be likely to get regular shipments).

I was working casually at a brew shop and I did a few brews for samples based on kits. They always had a bit of grain and hops in them and would often use more malt than dextrose or maltodextrin. We never had samples with "homebrew taste" when doing things this way. We didn't always use the kit yeast but when we did it was fine (just make sure there is enough yeast, a 7g sachet is not enough despite being what is included in many kits)
This was a big one for me, and a handful of kits (partial mash or steeping from memory) were very good beers. If you grab a can off the shelf, always grab the one with the furtheres used-by-date or go to a LHBS that turns over a bit.

I think that new brewers tend to read so much - and there is awesome info out there if you can sift through it - and either over-complicate their beers, or forget the critical basics (not clean and sanitised, putting yeast into hot water, forgetting to carbonate a bottle, not sanitising taps when you take a sample?). You need to get your processes sorted out, whether you do K&K, partial mash/boil or full mash/boil. It would be tragic if somebody just downloaded a heap of fresh information into their brain - think of the possibilities of this beer! - only to have an infection for e.g., or be disappointed due to not getting the basics right.

The "all grain" part of it is just the production of wort. After this, it's all the same regardless of your approach, and you can still stuff it up just as badly if you haven't sorted your processes and had one or two failures to understand the impact of not having those processes sorted. At least with BIAB you can dump $30 on a pot, start with a full-ish boil extract for a few, then BIAB to hell and back.

So... does Nick really look like a cat?
 
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