How the fuck can I stop destroying my beer?

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

Are the beers similar styles? I have a brown ale recipe that always comes out astringent, like tea, which leads me suspect it's the way the ingredients are combined.

[Jaeger48]

I think it's process related because it's happened with English styles with more crystal, a hefe, and american pales.

Sorry Mylo, I was responding from my phone. The flavor stays the same over time or decreases slightly.

[cosmo]

Not sure if this makes a difference, but did you use hop bags or a fine strainer to keep all of the hop material from getting into your fermenter?

Also, what is your fermentation and conditioning schedule? Do you bottle or keg? Not sure if it has anything to do with transferring from primary too soon or crash cooling too soon.

[Cody]

What do you use to wash/clean your equipment and how do you go about this?

[MikeB]

Hey cosmo,

I was able to taste one of J-48s beers and it was very cloudy, even after 3 weeks in a carboy. One of flaws I detected from the beer was a chalky harsh/astringent mouthfeel/flavor that lingered much too long. I wonder now if it was trub and yeast (WYeast 1028) that I was tasting. The beer was also extremely estery - peach and banana were what the three of us who tasted the beer deduced as the most predominant. It was not obvious to me on Sunday when we tasted the beer what the source of these off-putting flavors were. Especially after talking with J-48. Now I think it might be yeast autolysis byproducts combined with a bacterial contamination.

I am hoping to watch J-48 brew in the near future to see if we spot something in his process.

Cheers,
Mike

[mtyquinn]

I like the recommendation to have a couple of experienced brewers taste the brew. That's might be the best way to isolate the problem.

[cosmo]

MikeB,
Your description sounds just like what I've experienced. I'm pretty sure it's not infection or water related. I believe it's polyphenols possibly from trub and hop matter that may have gotten into the fermentor. I have had some batches take months to clear and were never quite right. I was using a wire mesh strainer that was fairly coarse to strain my wort. I know a lot of pellet hop material made it through. I'm starting to use fine hop sacks and a fine mesh strainer to see if it makes a difference. Also, letting the wort settle for 40-60 minutes before siphoning off to the fermenter. I just made a pre-hopped kit with no added hop additions and it is the first in about 120 batches that did not have this off-flavor. I'll see how the other beers I have conditioning come out in the next week or two. Any extra info on J-48s process would be helpful, especially as it relates to hop and break material getting into the fermenter.

[MikeB]

I like the recommendation to have a couple of experienced brewers taste the brew. That's might be the best way to isolate the problem.

I think that's why BDawg suggested Tavish or myself to taste the beer.