Fresh wort - request

[Cozzyb]

Looking for someone local to Barnsley to help me out with something. Wanting someone to make/give me some freshly brewed wort, can be 5litre in a one gallon jug. Just wanting to brew someone else’s wort and see if my brewing issues are from brewing or fermenting/dispensing.
Will pay for the wort/time/delivery. So if anyone is local and can help, message me please.

[guypettigrew]

What are the 'brewing issues' you're trying to sort out?

Guy

[Cozzyb]

Long established issues just can’t quite seem to fix, I’ve tried kits, all grain, extract, recipe kits etc. Everyone just doesn’t taste right, hoppy beers are just bitter with no flavour. Just always something off about them.

I’ve read everything you can read, I clean everything, sanitise with starsan, tried bottled water, fermented in temp controlled fridge. I’ve only ever had a couple of genuinely drinkable beers out of probably 30+ batches, mostly small batches of 5l. Tbh if I didn’t enjoy the hobbie so much I’d have stopped by now as I can’t seem to make anything good enough to drink.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

If there is a particular flaw in your process that's ruining everything, there are only a few possible candidates.

If you have the same problem with canned extract as your own mashes, this will rule out everything hotside except maybe chloramines.

Temp control is tricky in small batches. But you should have gotten lucky with seasonality if you are running hot.

If I had to guess at your problem, I would suggest it's either oxidation or packaging with too much sediment.

[Cozzyb]

Oxidation is a possibility it’s potentially the only thing I haven’t ‘fixed’. But based on what I see some homebrewers do on YouTube they should be having way bigger issues then I do. I have a batch on now so I’ll be super careful when I bottle and see how that goes. I’m trying bottling again as that seemed to have less issues then what I’ve been using recently.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

At our club we see experienced Brewers come unstuck with oxidation. If you are not careful when you are packaging you will pick up a lot of o2. Bottle conditioning at home brew scale is very effective at mopping up oxygen. If you are kegging however you will have to purge the keg with CO2 first. Many kegging novices screw thus up. You need to fill the keg with water or starsan solution first, and push it out with CO2, otherwise you are just diluting the oxygen present in the keg, not purging it. That needs a lot more CO2 to dilute down to low enough levels.

[MTW]

Does it taste fine before bottling?

All my good AG brews have tasted good by the time I'm bottling/kegging. (The very best ones are almost lucky to make it into the bottles!) Likewise, the less good ones were less good.

If the off taste is already there, does it get worse or better in the bottles?

A visit to a homebrew gathering would be a good bet and there are plenty around. Some off tastes are easier to identify than others, though.

[Cozzyb]

Tbh now you mention it I think when I’ve tried them most smell/seem alright pre packaging. I’ve been packaging into a tap a draft so doesn’t have the benefits of moping up oxygen as you said above. I think I’ll try bottling this batch and being very careful with my bottling and see how it goes.

[Wonkydonkey]

I'd say what MTW says, find your local hombrew club, then you will get a wide view of what could be where your going wrong.

You never know you may get friendly with a few and join in in a brew, see how others do it and you can ask all silly questio, like why you do that and why you do this, and then I do this and etc.

We had some new peeps come along to a meet, the beer had some funny taste, they said they followed the instructions that came with GF to a tee.....short answer was they were only rinsing cleaning solution once with x amount of water for 15 min on recirculating just as the instructions said, bingo... More than a few said rinse more than once, ie 1st time gets rid of 95% of the cleaner 2nd time gets rid of 95% of the first rinse lat was left behind, 3rd time if you can be bothered will get the rest.
Anyhow the next meetup they came with good beer, and said thanks

[Cozzyb]

No clubs local to me, never heard of any in Sheffield where I lived before either. I did some home brew trades years ago so I know how it can taste plus I know that bar some small differences realistically drinkable beer should be easy so I know something is off, going to bleach all my equipment, wash and starsan then try to be careful with oxygen so I can rule out those two things

[Pedagogue54]

Hi, Cozzyb,
I'm in Sunny Donny if I can be of assistance.

[BrewHouse]

This might be worth considering - http://www.flavoractiv.com/drinks/beers/enthusiast-kit/
I bought one last year with the intention of getting better acquainted with common off flavours but have never got round to using it and so can't comment on how good they are. They are pretty pricey, but if you a throwing away a lot of beer....