C
cheaptoy
I'm having some troubles with an All-Grain IPA recipe. I've made it twice now, and the first batch ended up completely undrinkable due to a hard-to-describe mediciny, alcoholy, nasty flavor. I transferred the second attempt from primary to secondary, and after tasting it I think it's going to end up the same way. I'm concerned because I'm not sure where the problem is coming from. (Unfortunately, I don't have the recipe handy on this computer, so I can't post it just yet.)
For some possibly helpful background:
I mash in a 9-gallon stainless steel pot with a SS braided hose for a manifold. (Although, since I can no longer use a propane burner I want to switch to a cooler for mashing.)
Since I moved to a small apartment, I've been doing infusion mashes.
The first attempt was my 6th or 7th all-grain batch. I've had very good success so far, but this has me slightly confused.
I stopped filtering out the hops after cooling the wort and transferring to the fermenter, so it's all in there during fermentation.
Now, here's where I think the problem might be:
I use a 6.5 gallon glass carboy for fermentation and a 5 gallon for secondary. I usually sanitize the carboys using bleach and try to rinse them out as good as I possibly can. Is it possible that this is where I'm having issues? I think from now on, I want to switch to something like Star-San, since I've heard that causes less issues than bleach. (bleach is being used for financial considerations, since I'm a fairly recent college grad basically just starting out.)
I'm attempting an American brown ale this weekend for the first time, and I don't want to have any issues like this, so any help is much appreciated. As I mentioned, I plan to get some Star-San from the local brew shop and see if that helps any. But if anyone has any other ideas as to what I might be doing that's causing this problem, that would be great.
For some possibly helpful background:
I mash in a 9-gallon stainless steel pot with a SS braided hose for a manifold. (Although, since I can no longer use a propane burner I want to switch to a cooler for mashing.)
Since I moved to a small apartment, I've been doing infusion mashes.
The first attempt was my 6th or 7th all-grain batch. I've had very good success so far, but this has me slightly confused.
I stopped filtering out the hops after cooling the wort and transferring to the fermenter, so it's all in there during fermentation.
Now, here's where I think the problem might be:
I use a 6.5 gallon glass carboy for fermentation and a 5 gallon for secondary. I usually sanitize the carboys using bleach and try to rinse them out as good as I possibly can. Is it possible that this is where I'm having issues? I think from now on, I want to switch to something like Star-San, since I've heard that causes less issues than bleach. (bleach is being used for financial considerations, since I'm a fairly recent college grad basically just starting out.)
I'm attempting an American brown ale this weekend for the first time, and I don't want to have any issues like this, so any help is much appreciated. As I mentioned, I plan to get some Star-San from the local brew shop and see if that helps any. But if anyone has any other ideas as to what I might be doing that's causing this problem, that would be great.