New to the forum

Hi all,

glad to be on board.  I have been brewing extract and specialty grains for a while now.  I think I was using the wrong sanitizers and struggled with temp control using two liter pop bottles and basically created beer with such a strong solvent aftertaste that I couldn't drink it.  I recently discovered Star san and PBW and purchased a fermenter with temp control.
My first kegged batch disappeared at a recent summer bbq party in short order and everybody said they loved it. So now that I can actually create drinkable beer I'm excited about experimenting particularly with pale ales because I drank my first bitter on tap in London years ago and fell in love with the smooth taste of a good bitter.

Cheers!

welcome!  good work getting over that hump!

Greetings Jonny and welcome.

On your point of a solvent after taste, as it turns out, the creator of this forum and BeerSmith software, Brad Smith, wrote a very informative article in this months edition of Brew Your Own (BYO) magazine.  In that article he specifically addresses the causes of the solvent-like "off" flavor.  He mentions this flavor can be produced by an excessive amount of esters which, in turn, are caused by high fermentation temperatures.  I suppose it's all part of the very big beer brewing puzzle. 

Good luck and stay in touch!