Beer Forum

Guys,

I have only brewed a few extract brews and I can always taste a hint of metal in the final product.

I use only distilled water and Star San and practice good sanitation. I only brew Ales and the fermentation temps are around 71 degrees Fahrenheit. I do not keg and use corn sugar for carbonation. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Robbie

Here's a few of ideas:

What do you boil in? Specifically, what kind of pot do you use as a brew kettle? Enamel? Aluminum? Stainless?
When you are cleaning up, how do you clean it? Heavy duty scrubby pad? Do you scrub it till it shines?

How are you chilling after the boil?

How are you racking the wort after it is chilled?

As I see, there are many possibilies to what you could taste as a metallic taste in you brew. Check out page 258 in How To Brew; also I would check the source of your LME if this is what you use. Old stale extract could contibute metalic flavors.

Any other information you could provide would give more to go with.

Hope this helps,
Alan

I hear reports of this from time to time from folks that like to keep their aluminum boil kettles nice and shiny. If you scrub the oxide layer off and then brew before it gets a chance to reform, you will get a distinct metalic taste. As long as you don't disturb the oxide layer (it's actually much harder than the aluminum metal), aluminum pots are great to brew in. Don't know if this applies in your case, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Wayne

Thanks Boog,
That's where I was going, but didn't want to be a douche...
Alan

Alan and Wayne,

Thanks again for the help and suggestions you guys are great.
I have a 5 gallon stainless Kettle the basic brewpot. I just clean the brewpot with soap and water. Then let some star San sit in the kettle for a few minutes.
Currently I'm chilling the wort with an ice bath. I was able to get the temps down to 70 degrees in about 25 minutes the last time I brewed.
I just pour the wort into the plastic fermenting bucket and shaking for several minutes. I clean the plastic buckets with mild soapy water and Star San as well.
I mostly use DME from a local brew shop that has high turn around so I'm pretty sure the ingredients is as fresh as I can get locally.

Thanks guys,
Robbie

How's the water you use? Sounds like it may be very hard. That was always something I tried to over come at my old house was the extremely hard water causing that metal flavor in finished products. Now that I moved to a twon with soft water, that taste is gone from al me beers.