That homebrew taste

[Aid]

Hello all,
I know this is going to have been asked many times before, and I found a few references using a search, but let me ask anyway. What is that "homebrew taste"?
15 years ago, at uni I brewed an ale kit in a bucket and bottled to big brown beer PET bottles; I did two of those and both had an undesired smell and taste. Next I spent more of my hard-earned goverment grant on a reasuringly expensive kit which I fermented out then put in a plastic barrel - same smell and taste. In May I started doing wine with reasonable results so I thought I'd try an ale again. I bought a Coopers Real Ale and a Muntons IPA (reassuringly expensive). I thought I'd do the Coopers first, make sure it all went ok and then go for the IPA. Did the the Coopers in one of those wide-necked brew bins with a bung&bubbler in the lid. All went fine, bottled&crowned 9 in glass ale bottles and as an experiment, the rest is in a big PET clearing a little prior to bottling. I tried one of the nine yesterday - it's a few weeks early but I wanted get an idea... It was fully clear and had just enough fizz, but the same overpowering smell and taste as before.
At uni I used table sugar, on the coopers I used brewers sugar (and half tsp for bottle fermenation).
I'm not expecting to brew Landlord or Summer Lightening from a kit, but I'd really appreciate being able to shake this taste.
All help greatly appreciated.
Aid

[deadlydes]

get yourself a water filter. it will make a huge difference

[Aid]

of course, I forgot to mention at uni I made one batch with mineral water - same difference. My water now is very hard, for the Muntons, I will definitely run it through the filter! Great start, thanks.

[Aid]

no difference is what I meant! same smell and taste. That was bottled water, expensive kit, years ago.

[Curious Brew]

Instead of table or brewing sugar try using either an equivalent amount of Dried Malt Extract (DME) or 1.5 times the amount of Liquid Malt Extract (LME).

[Aid]

I've got water filter and campden tablets. So, my munton process should be...

check the bb date on the kit,
prepare water using one or other methods,
replace sugar with appropriate quantity of DME,
treat the brew gently.

2 questions. Is half campden tablet enough for the 23 (ish) litres of water.
Can I use DME to prime the bottles?

thanks guys.

[Curious Brew]

Is half campden tablet enough for the 23 (ish) litres of water.

Yes, it's what I do.

Can I use DME to prime the bottles?

Yes, although the minor amount of priming sugar required means that table or brewing sugar would be sufficient.

[Aid]

I've been having a look around at the forums and I've been finding expressions like "doing a muntons" referring to hung-ferments. Since my next brew (using my new advice) is a Muntons IPA, any advice to stop it doing-one?

[Aid]

i think two in a row failures would be bad for my morale. Can anyone suggest a readily available kit to try for more reliable results before I go for the Munton. My preference is towards IPAs rather than dark brews. My morrisons 4 for 5 could be something like, summer lightening, Landlord, Golden Champion, Empire.
thanks.

[GTATTY]

I'd recommend Coopers IPA with 1KG of dry Glucose.

I've just done this kit and it's awsome with no off tastes. I also primed with Glucose.

It's quite dry but mouth watering with very nice fruit flavour, just like an IPA should be IMHO

Regards

Graham

[Aid]

Sensibly I should try the same Cooper kit as before but following the advice above. I'm intruiged though...with glucose? Isn't that along the lines of brewing sugar?

[SiHoltye]

Was/Is your homebrew smell/taste a TCP medicinal twang type thing? I suffered from this even after treating my water with campden. Turned out the campden had done the trick neutralising the chlorine and chloramines in the water, but I had chlorine residue clinging to the inside of my fermentor. This residue came, in my case, from VWP cleaner. It can happen with any chlorine based cleaning product. So to ensure even after 5 rinses with tap water there was no more residue, I made a solution of sodium metabisulphate (1pt warm water/1tsp sodium metabisulphate) up to about 2 pints and swilled this around my fermentor, and made sure any other utensils got the same treatment. This solution is no-rinse, Just let drip dry a little and it was good for me.

I don't use VWP now at all, Daab steered me towards a thin bleach solution at ½cup per 5G for 20min soak.

Good luck, it sounds like it's just one issue that's holding back a flood of brewing for you!

[mattfuzzy]

glucose? thats brewing sugar? or is that dextrose? think its dextrose... ok glucose... lucozade? whered you get glucose from anyway?

as for muntons, never tried it, heard its something to do with the amount of fermentable sugars in the malt, hence the preference for dry been enzyme (bit of useless info for ya there)

personaly iv been into these 3kg kits, no extras needed, cant go wrong, even for me id try a few of those, after 4 or so kits i bet you'll want to go all grain anyway

i usually use 1 crushed campden tablet per 24L, must admit, i do hate having to waste water rising off all that damn VWP, no rinse stuff coming my way next order me thinks.
-matt

[Aid]

it's not medicinal. I do use VWP but I also (begrudgingly) rinse properly. I doubt it helps that my tap water already smells slightly chloriney anyway! I may open a new post about cleansing cos if there's a way to not waste all that water, I'm in. I'll have a bottle tonight and try to put words to the taste.
You're probably right, 3 or 4 succesful kits I'm likely to want to evolve.

[mattfuzzy]

yes daab go on, do it! plz, mabe put into categorys too like sanitisers for corni kegs/ss and for plastic and no rinse and rinse stuff would be nice... bit like a complete FAQ.
-matt