Grass Metallic Taste, need help

I have been attempting to brew some 5 gallon extract recipe kits but the results have been, well not so good. All the kits have been amber ales or brown ales, but none the same, however each finished beers have the same metallic grass taste. Each sample I have tasted, prior to bottling, has been ok, to this one is going to be great, but the end result still remains the same awful taste, after four weeks in the bottle. I do brew Mr. Beer kits and get good results using the the same equipment and bottling procedures.

So this is how I am doing things, maybe someone can figure out what I am doing wrong.

  1. 2 1/2 gallons of filtered tap water heated to 150F to 160F.

  2. Grains in the bag and steeped for 20 minutes, a stir of the water at the 10 minute mark and followed by few dunks of the bag.

  3. Grains removed and wort heated to a boil and flame out. At this time LME added and wort brought back to a rolling boil, hot break observed.

  4. Hops added for the 60 minute boil. I have done this comando, but now I am using a hop spider. Hop additions are made at the proper times following the instructions.

  5. At the end of the 60 minute boil, flame out, hop spider removed, kettle is covered and placed in an ice bath for 30 minutes.

  6. Two LBKs are sanitized using One Step no rinse.

  7. Kettle is remove from the ice bath and the wort is transferred and divided into two LBKs and filtered tap water water is added to each LBK, to bring the wort to my 2 1/2 gal mark.

  8. The wort is aerated in each LBK.

  9. The wort temp is uselly at 65F at this point and the yeast is added. All my batches so far have used S-04.

  10. The two LBKs are placed in my fermentation chamber and the wort temp is kept at 64F for two weeks.

  11. After two weeks the wort is transferred into my secondary fermentation LBKs (sanitized with One Step) and placed back in the fermentation chamber for one week. Temp is kept at 64F and if dry hopping is required it is done at this time and I keep the hops in a nylon bag, which are boiled before use.

  12. After a week in the secondary LBK the fermentation chamber temp is dropped to 40F, for three days.

  13. After the cold crash 24 PET 740ml bottles are sanitized using One Step no rinse.

  14. One teaspoon of Dixie Crystal cane sugar is added to each bottle.

  15. Each bottle is filled, capped, placed in a box and stored at 70F to 73F for four weeks.

I am hoping it is something simple I am missing and just can not see. I have enjoyed brewing the beers, but with undrinkable results, the fun is disappearing quickly.

Couple things… when you say filtered tap water, is this city water? I’d try a batch with store-bought distilled water and see if that solves the problem. Depending on the filter, you may or may not have chlorine or chloramine in the brewing water, and that can cause all kinds of off flavors.

Second, One Step is a good cleaner, but not such a good sanitizer. I’d suggest getting some star-san.

However, water is almost always the first thing to investigate.

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I have one last kit to brew, an IPA, and I plan on using spring water, instead of my filtered tap water. Yes the tap water is city water.

I have been told before not to use distilled water, that spring water would be better.

Use spring water for rehydrating yeast, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using distilled or RO water for extract brewing. The dry or liquid malt extract was wort at one point, with all the minerals present from the original brewing water. You just have to replace what was evaporated out of the wort with pure water to get the same original water profile that was used to make the wort in the first place. The risk of using spring water is that without knowing the mineral content, you risk skewing the water profile into undesirable areas, including wrong pH.

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Ok, what you are saying makes sense. I will give that a try with the IPA.

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors

Reading what Tom also offers, coupled with Pork Chops insight, would you consider trying a kit from Northern Brewer? They do move alot of product and you’d have the potential to have the freshest ingredients… I may be not so smart… LBK… Little boil kettle? :no_mouth: And what are your kettles made of ? Is there any one near you that brews and could sit in and watch/help you on a brew day? Sneezles61

Regarding Water,

My neighbor uses hose water ( I tease him that he has hose water beer but if the water is clean, it works well)

I use to go to the store for Reverse Osmosis Water (what a hassle).

Now I have a Carbon Water Filter in my Garage for 10 gallon batches.
I tend to store it in three plastic sanitized 5 gallon carboys with Campden tablets added a week prior to brew day (not sure if that is required but I do it…)

1/4 tablet for 5 gallons

I am not a big fan of using priming sugar (I switched to kegging and beer guns if I need to bottle).

I am also not a big fan of dry yeast. I use WLP001 CA Ale Yeast now and I have never had any weird results (unexpected farm house ale taste like I would have occasionally with dry yeast).

All all these kits have come from Northern Brewer and brewed shortly after receiving them.

As someone who started with Mr. Beer kits as well I just want to point out that you have graduated from pre-hopped carefully balanced LME to the chaos of doing it yourself. Congrats there is no going back now.
It may be that you don’t like the hops you have picked. Have you calculated your theoretical IBUs. Mr. Beer kits are not hop forward. What hops are you using? I started with S-04 as well out of the gate. Perfectly good yeast but doesn’t do much flavor wise. Play around with some yeast that will contribute more. Are you sure you’re fermenting at 64F? That’s close to the high end of S-04. Try a yeast that can take higher temps or a yeast like Hot Head where temperature doesn’t matter.

LBK = Little Brown Keg. These are 2 1/2 gal fermenters, which are easy to carry from the kitchen to my fermentation chamber, which is, upstairs,in my man cave.

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I have only used the hops Northern Brewer has provided with the kits. The kits I have brewed are Brown Ale, Black Magic, Caribou Slobber, Block Party, Private Rye and Dawson.

Northern Brewer states “Dry: Safale S-04 Ale Yeast. Optimum temp: 64°-75° F”

I really have been just following their instructions, because I am new to this and they know better then me.

All right, now we have some area’s narrowed down… Seems as though we should focus on water and sanitization… And perhaps your boil kettle… What is its construction? I don’t want to snoop too much, but your water source is? Sneezles61

FERMENTATION: ideally 15-20°C (59-68°F)

I’m sure your fine at 64F but if you are reading 64F on a temperature sticker on the outside of your LBK it’s most likely you are 3 or 4 degrees higher than that during active fermentation.

These flavors are typically associated with poorly stored ingredients. So I guess I have to ask if you got these kits directly from NB and used them in a timely manner and put your hops in the fridge as soon as they arrived

Sanitizer is One Step no rinse.
Water is charcoal filtered city tap water.
My kettle is a SS 5 gallon.
Soap used to wash things is a clear non-scented and everything is rinsed thoroughly and rinsed again before sanitizing and use.

Give the Star-San a try and try ditching the soap. I’m lazy so I typically give use water, occasionally oxiclean, but always Star-san.

Using a Inkbird and the probe is insulated from ambient temp, getting the temp directly from the side of the LBK.

Yes all the kits have come from NB, and none of them have laid around long.

This is the first I have heard of refrigeration of the hops, but the longest it has taken me to brew a kit is three weeks.

Do you refrigerate the yeast?

Yes and I let it warm up before brew day.

When you say “warm up” do you mean your packet of dry yeast or harvested yeast from a previous batch.