All "my" homebrew tastes the same!

[jd350b]

Why is it that all my home brew regardless of style, tastes like...home brew!
I have been doing this for decades on and off. I used to do all extract and have been doing all grain for the last 5 years or so. I only brew about 6 or 7, 5 gallon batches a year, so by no means an expert.
What got me thinking about this, is that micro breweries do not have this common "home brew" taste.

 

[camonick]

What are you using for water?

 

[AlexKay]

Let’s troubleshoot. Are you brewing different styles? Different base malts? Different yeasts? Do you have control of fermentation temperature? Are you bottling or kegging?

 

[hotbeer]

What got me thinking about this, is that micro breweries do not have this common "home brew" taste.

What is that common home brew taste? I feel all mine that have a different recipe were different. Except for maybe the few that were badly oxidized or infected which were cardboard tasting.

 

[AlexKay]

If you’re always making the same style (especially something hard like a NEIPA) try something different. Especially try something simple and forgiving, like a SMaSH with a more highly kilned base malt, like Maris Otter or Vienna. Or a simple stout: MO, crystal, roasted barley, Fuggle, Nottingham.

If you’re always getting astringency — dry mouth, sucking on a tea bag mouthfeel — your water could be too hard and your mash pH consistently too high. Try a batch with distilled water.

If you’re fermenting in clear containers, especially hoppy beers, cover them up. Everything could be getting lightstruck and have a Corona/Heineken/skunky taste.

If you’re not boiling hard enough or long enough, you could get DMS in everything, with a creamed corn/mushroom/vegetal taste.

If you’re always using the same yeast,especially if it’s liquid yeast without a starter, try a batch with dry yeast. You could consistently be getting acetaldehyde (green apple) or diacetyl (slick butter). If you don’t have temperature control, pick something forgiving like US-05 or Nottingham. If you’re fermenting somewhere cold (but uncontrolled) try W34/70. All of these are pretty neutral and don’t tend to need a lot of babying to avoid off flavors.

If you’re always exposing your beer to a ton of air (secondary transfer, plus bottling bucket, plus splashing for good measure) you’ll dull your hops and potentially pick up a papery, cardboardy oxidation off flavor.

As I said, take us through your process and your recipes, and give us a description of what exactly the “homebrew” taste tastes like.

 

[Dland]

Oxidation of finished or partly finished beer is a common problem that produces a common flavor profile, or lack of fresh flavor.

If one is splash bottling from an open bucket, or racked to kegs without CO2 displacement, a otherwise good beer can loose a lot of quality. It might still be OK, maybe even better than what you can buy in some places.

But it is hard to emphaxize the importance of post fermentation handling to get the best tasting beer for you're efforts.

 

[jd350b]

What are you using for water?

Bottled water from grocery store (brand name - Hannaford)

 

[jd350b]

Let’s troubleshoot. Are you brewing different styles? Different base malts? Different yeasts? Do you have control of fermentation temperature? Are you bottling or kegging?

Thank you.
Yes, lagers, ales mostly. Light, copper and brown
Base malt is usually the same, Pilsner, Munich or Pale
Yeast used to be whatever came in the extract kit but now always White labs or Wyeast, liquid
I do have temp control that I normally use for lagers (SS brewing conical fermenter with the lid cooler)
For the ales, I ferment inside my house (climate controlled at ~70degF
used to bottle, now mostly keg and growler

 

[dmtaylor]

What do you use as your fermentation vessel? Have you replaced your hoses recently? What do you use to sanitize?

 

[RM-MN]

For the ales, I ferment inside my house (climate controlled at ~70degF

Without active cooling your beer temperature is likely to be 75 degrees F or higher as the yeast activity can raise the temperature of the beer. That can cause the yeast to create esters that change the flavor of your beer. Temperature control caused the biggest change in the quality of my beers.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

@jd350b , I noticed that you have a 10 year old account, but this is essentially your first post.

We're here to help. But the need step is yours.

As @AlexKay mentioned,

take us through your process and your recipes, and give us a description of what exactly the “homebrew” taste tastes like.

There are also a number of "all my beer tastes the same" threads in the "similar threads" section (below) that may help you with either 1) solving this problem or 2) understanding the detailed level of information we need to help you.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

@jd350b , building on what @dmtaylor said here

What do you use as your fermentation vessel? Have you replaced your hoses recently? What do you use to sanitize?

Some expert brewers (for example: this article) will annually review/replace plastic brewing equipment.

edits: wording

 

[AlexKay]

Some quick Googling comes back with this for Hannaford water: "Ingredients: Purified Water, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Bicarbonate." Depending on how much bicarb they're adding, that could be a big problem in terms of mash pH. I would definitely try a batch or two with distilled water: it may taste a little "empty" if you don't add brewing salts, but it won't give you the same sort of pH problems.

Can you give your best description of what that "home brew" taste tastes like? That will help a lot.

 

[HopSing]

I had the same experience when brewing with extract kits (e.g. Brewers Best). Kit names, beer types, and the color of the beer would change, but there was always the same underlying taste profile. The beers were not bad, but all had the "kit taste". When I decided to move to all grain, I changed multiple things at once. It was a "Hail Mary" to get rid of the kit taste. I ditched all of the vinyl hoses for silicon. Ditched the plastic auto siphon for a stainless racking arm. Switched the plastic bucket fermenter to glass carboys (eventually to a stainless pot) fermenter. Paid closer attention to yeast pitch and fermentation temps. Gave the fermentation at least a full two weeks before bottling vs. watching the airlock. Used fresher grains and hops.

The kit taste was gone and has never returned. My all grain batches are significantly different depending on grain bill, yeast, hops, etc. which is what I was expecting and hoping for.

Sounds like you need to make some changes to your process or equipment. Unless you're trying to figure out what the culprit was, I'd recommend changing multiple things at once to see if things improve.

If you want to detail your equipment / brew day / fermentation / bottling process, I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions on what to change by the forum members.

Above all, just remember Einstein's definition of insanity.

~HopSing.

 

[Chorgey]

The two things that were a game changer for me...
1. Using distilled water and brewing salts. You can use software to determine the amount of salts (i.e. Bru'n Water or Brewfather).
2. Closed transfer from Fermentation vessel to keg (How to do a closed transfer for dummies?)

 

[Bobby_M]

There are several ways to dull beers to muddled flavors.

Water: High mash pH will make most of your pale beers harshly astringent. A better way to say that is that paler beers coupled with high alkalinity water will always have a mash pH that will create some astringency. Use distilled water next time and had a few grams each of Gypsum and Calcium Chloride (and maybe 1 gram of canning salt).

Yeast Pitch: If you're using liquid yeast, make big starters. If using dry yeast, pitch two packs. Unless you use Imperial or Omega packs and that pack is only a week old, one pack is not even close to enough yeast.

Fermentation Temps: Look at the yeast strain's temp range on the pack. If it says 62-70F as the range, you should be fermenting in ambient temps of at most 60F. Fermenting at the lower end will suppress esters and fusel alcohols. Fermentation makes heat so it can run away on you without active cooling. When fermentation slows, actively warm the fermenter to about the upper end of the range and leave it there for another week.

Oxygen exposure. Make sure your fermenter isn't leaky. Don't open it to check on things, ever. If you keg, fill the keg to the brim with starsan and push it all out with CO2. When you fill, go through the beer out post and make sure CO2 is being pushed back into the fermenter to backfill.


That's pretty much the important ones that took my beers from averaging in the 20s to low 40s (out of 50) in BJCP competition.

 

[Roxhambrewshed]

Although it could be anything from improperly stored malt, water profile or ph issues.. One of my first guesses would be oxidation. I once had a problem with an auto-siphon that was injecting my beer with oxygen due to a leaking seal. As mentioned above try closed transfers.

 

[bwible]

Can you give your best description of what that "home brew" taste tastes like? That will help a lot.

How did this thread go 13 posts before somebody asked this question? And 17 posts without it being answered?

 

[AlexKay]

How did this thread go 13 posts before somebody asked this question? And 17 posts without it being answered?

Has it been answered at all? But no, someone asked for a description of the taste in reply #3.

 

[ncbrewer]

I once had an infection that was really hard to get rid of. It made all the beer taste pretty much the same. Totally drinkable, but all the same. Eventually, I replaced all the plastic, including the fermenter bucket. Since you've had this problem for decades, infection probably isn't the cause, but I'll throw it out as a possibility.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

There are several ways to dull beers to muddled flavors.

So, pretty much what's in chapter 1 of How to Brew, 4e (oxidation is covered in a later chapter).

 

[lightningbug]

Why is it that all my home brew regardless of style, tastes like...home brew!
I have been doing this for decades on and off. I used to do all extract and have been doing all grain for the last 5 years or so. I only brew about 6 or 7, 5 gallon batches a year, so by no means an expert.
What got me thinking about this, is that micro breweries do not have this common "home brew" taste.

It’s the water. With all the stuff I tweak and play around with in brewing, aside from the grain bill absolutely nothing changes the results as much as the water profile. Invest $50 in a pH meter, $50 in a water test (ward lab), and $10 in assorted mineral and acid additives… lactic acid, calcium chloride, gypsum, epsom salt. That $110 will go way further than anything else you can spend right now.

 

[Miraculix]

A friend of mine said that all my beers taste like home brew back in the days. Hard to figure out what that means.... Well, it was oxidation. Not strong enough to taste cardboard but strong enough to make a difference that could not easily be pointed at, but it was there. Somewhere between muddled tastes and slight almond lies the home brew flavour. Once that was gone, my beer tasted not like home brew anymore. Home brew tastes like oxidation. Unless it doesn't

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

It’s the water. With all the stuff I tweak and play around with in brewing, aside from the grain bill absolutely nothing changes the results as much as the water profile.

[...]
$110
[...]

Assuming a solid recipe, distilled / RO water, good estimation software, some aciduated malt, calcium chloride, gypsum - the only additional costs that I see would be the water. So maybe an additional $10 for a 'test' batch?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Somewhere between muddled tastes and slight almond lies the home brew flavour. Once that was gone, my beer tasted not like home brew anymore. Home brew tastes like oxidation. Unless it doesn't

Over time, I've learned to "always be tasting" and "always be observing".

Beer tastes great at packaging time but not in the glass? Check the equipment / processes used to package the beer.

Extra light liquid malt extract is pale amber at the start of the boil ( )? Might have a shipping / storage problem.

Always be tasting. Always be observing.

 

[lightningbug]

Assuming a solid recipe, distilled / RO water, good estimation software, some aciduated malt, calcium chloride, gypsum - the only additional costs that I see would be the water. So maybe an additional $10 for a 'test' batch?

I dont use RO water so I’m not sure about its mineral content and pH. If it’s truly zeros across the board and pH 7 then yeah, that would probably work.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

RO water, by definition, has a defined/assumed water mineral content; people often verify this (see "always be observing", above) with a TDS meter.

With RO/distilled water, pH of the water isn't important (vs pH of the wort during the mash).

 

[lightningbug]

RO water, by definition, has a defined/assumed water mineral content; people often verify this (see "always be observing", above) with a TDS meter.

With RO/distilled water, pH of the water isn't important (vs pH of the wort during the mash).

Maybe I’m in a Mondaze and missing something obvious, but how would you know the pH of the mash without a pH meter and how would you estimate it without knowing the initial pH of the water?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Water Chemistry - How to Build Your Water - Bertus Brewery (from the year twenty twelve).

 

[lightningbug]

Water Chemistry - How to Build Your Water - Bertus Brewery (from the year twenty twelve).

Doesn’t answer my question. It just says to add 2-3% acid malt to lower the pH. What if you already have acidic water and dont realize it? What if your pH is higher than the author’s pH? What about the difference for beers with highly roasted dark malts versus light, clean recipes?

How could you account for all this without a pH meter OR a water test

 

[hotbeer]

@Lightning bug -- It seems that you just have to take it with faith that RO water is all perfectly the same and that your RO system works properly.

 

[lightningbug]

the pH of the water will be easily manipulated…

Manipulated… from what pH exactly?

I feel like I’m speaking another language or something. I know about mineral adjustments and water calculators, I don’t need book recommendations or helpful links. My question is simple. How can you adjust the acidity if your water if you dont know the input pH, or if you dont have a pH meter to plunge into your mash and take a reading? If you’re just assuming your RO water is pH 7 I’m pretty sure you’re incorrect. I was under the impression that the RO process lowered pH to sub<7 almost always.

 

[lightningbug]

No I'm pretty sure you are wrong. As soon as you open a jug of distilled it starts absorbing CO2 and creates carbonic acid dropping the pH which is 7 as manufactured before opened. I have measured with a pH meter. Obviously you have not read any of the literature or you would have a better basic understanding.

Good day...

And home RO as well? It’s all pH 7? Always? You input pH 6 water or pH 8 water and it returns it to 7 every time for every system? Damn that’s amazing. But out of curiosity could you cite the book and section where I can confirm it? That would just be choice, thanks.

 

[Miraculix]

Manipulated… from what pH exactly?

I feel like I’m speaking another language or something. I know about mineral adjustments and water calculators, I don’t need book recommendations or helpful links. My question is simple. How can you adjust the acidity if your water if you dont know the input pH, or if you dont have a pH meter to plunge into your mash and take a reading? If you’re just assuming your RO water is pH 7 I’m pretty sure you’re incorrect. I was under the impression that the RO process lowered pH to sub<7.

Because the pH of the water affects the pH of the mash in an insignificant way. The mash comes with it's own acids that will change the water's pH rapidly. what's more important than the pH of the water itself is the ability of the water to buffer the acids coming from the mash and this buffer is the alkalinity of the water. The aim is to neutralise this alkalinity so that it cannot neutralise the acids from the mash. Proper reverse osmosis water has no alkalinity, so the acid additions are only there to compensate for the lack of acid provided by pale mashes. If you have very dark mashes, you might even need to add alkalinity because there's too much acid coming from the roast. Long story short, water pH does not matter, water alkalinity matters a lot.

 

[camonick]

And home RO as well? It’s all pH 7? Always? You input pH 6 water or pH 8 water and it returns it to 7 every time for every system? Damn that’s amazing. But out of curiosity could you cite the book and section where I can confirm it? That would just be choice, thanks.

From the Bru’n Water “Water Knowledge” page. Section 2.1– pH
“The pH of the raw water used in brewing has only modest impact on the brewing process. The primary interest to brewing is the pH of the wort during mashing. Factors such as water alkalinity and mash grist composition have greater effect on mashing pH than the starting pH of the raw water.”

Starting water pH is relatively insignificant.

 

[lightningbug]

From the Bru’n Water “Water Knowledge” page. Section 2.1– pH
“The pH of the raw water used in brewing has only modest impact on the brewing process. The primary interest to brewing is the pH of the wort during mashing. Factors such as water alkalinity and mash grist composition have greater effect on mashing pH than the starting pH of the raw water.”
Starting water pH is relatively insignificant.

How do you read or estimate the mash pH without the initial water pH or a pH meter? My initial question.

 

[Miraculix]

How do you read or estimate the mash pH without the initial water pH or a pH meter? My initial question.

You know approximately how much acid is coming from which malt or grain, how much brewing salts shift the pH into any direction, how much alkalinity is there, mix it all up and that is basically it. That's what the calculators do.

 

[lightningbug]

You know approximately how much acid is coming from which malt or grain, how much brewing salts shift the pH into any direction, how much alkalinity is there, mix it all up and that is basically it. That's what the calculators do.

So are you saying the pH of the water is totally irrelevant as if it doesnt exist and all that matters is how much your recipe shifts the pH? If that were the case then wouldn’t we be talking about our mash pH as “ X change in pH” and not the “5.2-5.6” that we see everywhere, including in our software?

 

[camonick]

So are you saying the pH of the water is totally irrelevant as if it doesnt exist and all that matters is how much your recipe shifts the pH?

Yes, that is what about 4-5 people have said now.

 

[lightningbug]

Yes, that is what about 4-5 people have said now.

You have a problem with reading comprehension. Nobody has actually answered the question as to how you “adjust” a number you dont know to get mash pH. You in particular posted a book quote that said “the initial water pH doesn’t matter, the mash pH does” and for some reason you take that mean “you don’t even need to know your initial water pH, it doesnt exist” as opposed to “it doesnt matter as long as you adjust it to the correct pH for the mash”.