A buddy and I have made a few home brews together and a couple of them taste bad. The smell matches the taste. It blocks any flavor at all. Can't even taste hops in a pale ale. Both of us a new to brewing on our own, but not to the process. We know a lot about sanitizing and frequently sanitize everything. Could there be anything else that is causing this? Thanks!
“We know a lot about sanitizing and frequently sanitize everything.” Hopefully by “frequently” you mean always? If you provide more details maybe we can be of more help. Based upon the information you provided so far it sounds like you experienced an infection to me. Anything that touches wort or beer must absolutely be sanitized or else you run the risk of infection. Cheers!
"Both of us a new to brewing on our own, but not to the process" How can this be? You are missing a cleaning/sanitation step somewhere. How To Brew, Chapters 1 &2 http://www.howtobrew.com/
Sounds like an infection. I'd go through your process, and figure out what might be causing it. Something as simple as milling your grain and getting dust all over things that you might not have sanitized can cause a lacto infection to run wild. Check your buckets/carboys and siphons and hoses first. If it's consecutive batches, I'd replace the gear, or promote it to sour beer production ( on purpose ). If it's random.. check your sanitation again.
I meant frequently as in we sanitize frequently while we brew. Everything is sanitized before touching the wort. I guess we have missed something. Thanks everyone!
Little infectious bugs can strike you from the least likely places that you can think of when you are fairly new to brewing, but are well known to more experienced brewers. You need to be anal about sanitizing, keeping your wort covered to protect against wild yeast in the air, etc. I suggest that you review every minute detail of your beer-making process to see where something might be suspect.
Give more details and we can maybe help narrow the infection source down. Do you bottle? How do you sanitize the bottles? What do you do when you sanitize (process)? What sanitizer do you use? What does it taste like beyond "The smell matches the taste." Does it taste bad right away or is it something that builds and gets worse? How quickly do you chill? How do you chill? When do you start drinking on brewday?
I do bottle. I noticed it after an amber we brewed. It has never tasted like an amber. We just moved a pale ale to the secondary and it has the same smell. We couldn't even smell hops. As far as taste, it tastes bad right away and you can't even detect any flavors like malt or hops or anything. We chill our beer within a half hour with a wort chiller that hooks up to the sink (been meaning to use ice water with a pump). We also keep it covered while it's chilling.
The sour smell/taste, is it like Lemonade sour, or Vinegar sour? The answer to this question could shift some of the replies.
Sounds like a possible acetobacter infection. For acetobacter to sour your beer, you need the bacteria to be present AND you have to have excess oxygen in your wort. That is to say, you are introducing oxygen to the wort after the bulk of fermentation has started/completed. I suspect you need to look at your racking and storage procedure as well.
I will second @JohnSnowNW vinegar is a different issue. How do you ferment your beers? Carboy? Bucket? How do you close off your system? Foil? Saranwrap? Rubber Stopper with Airlock? Stopper with tube into vessel of liquid? Does this happen only on beers you do a secondary on? How do you bottle? Rack to bottling bucket? Siphon to bottles?
