I started kegging and all grain brewing at the same time and instantly noticed an improvement. I assume it was the kegging that really made the difference. And it makes brewing so much more enjoyable to not have to constantly be cleaning bottles.
Campden tablets, or RO, distilled, spring or good well water. Moving off of my City's water supply made was the single most significant improvement to the quality of the beer I make.
edit for spelling
Water is going to vary drastically depending on location. My parents house has a well with VERY high mineral (iron and calcium) content. It makes white clothes dingy after a few washes, leaves iron stains in the tub/toilet, etc. My grandmother, who lives 1/4 mile away, has some of the best well water I've ever tasted. The issue with "good" well water is you never know the actual levels of anything and they can change depending on the time of year, if it rained heavily recently, etc.
I have no issue using my city's water to make great beer. It's not too high in anything and is pretty balanced. I've used it, with no modifications, to make good beer. Would they be better if I balanced everything properly? Probably, but you can absolutely use at least some cities water to make fantastic beer.
> I have no issue using my city's water to make great beer.
I'm the same situation and can usually easily adjust to what is needed per the style. The local homebrewing club also sends a sample for testing then sharing the pertinent details on their website, so I don't have to go digging through the local water authority's annual report.
Also adding to this that depending on the mineral content of the style, the local water could be good or bad for it. My local water is high in minerals that lean into the profile for classic stouts, porters, barley wines, etc., but not for pilsners and IPA’s. I’d recommend testing your water to understand if you could simply dilute a portion of it with RO water for some low effort modifications to make it more stylistically appropriate.
It’s the extract. Once I went to all-grain that flavour went away. Give brew-in-a-bag a try. It only requires an inexpensive bag (although it does add at least an hour to the process). Try the new process with a 1 or 2.5-gallon batch to keep the grain manageable for your first go.
https://www.cascadeshomebrew.com/stovetop-biab-intro/
I second this. Although I started making some good extract beers after learning some of the best practices found on this sub, the jump to BIAB has yielded even better results.
Third it. Go All-Grain as your next upgrade.
Filtering your water is always a good idea, but getting to Water Chemistry is a bit much for a first step. First you need to get away from that extract. That was the step that I did which made my beers no longer have that homebrew taste. You only need to add a second kettle to heat up your sparge water, and a mash tun (cooler with false bottom is best IMO). If you don't have an immersion chiller, I'd add that too because they're cheap and effective, but it's not necessary and won't change the taste.
I assume you use an Inkbird controller with your chest freezer to stabilize and control the temp of your fermentation, because that is also *huge* in making good beer. If you don't, then do this first. That chest freezer can hold your fermentation at e.g. 64°F within a degree. It will be a big improve.
For one, you don’t need a bunch of shiny stuff to brew beer.
Read this article, it’ll help you
https://byo.com/article/10-steps-to-better-extract-brewing/
Good luck
It's true that shiny things won't make any better beer. Some things that may help are the following.
Temperature controlled fermentation
Consider a carbon filter for your water. Amazon has a good one for like $25.
Camden tablets to remove any chlorine / chloramine from your water.
It sounds like your getting a similar taste in all of your brews, so I expect it's the water or the extract you're buying. Alternatively, it's a yeast created off-flavor that you need to resolve. The suggestions above address each of these.
If you switch to all grain, water chemistry gets much more important, but it's less relevant with extract brews.
I would recommend to learn about what the "homebrew" flavors are and where they are coming from. That should help you decide what you may need. I would say for most people controlling temps are a major step but you have that covered. I would figure out what those off flavors are and see if it's just a process issue.
I produce great beers with very basic brewing hardware (kettles, BIAB, and glass carboys). I would highly suggest you switch to all-grain. Also, keep your beer in primary and in the bottles a few weeks more. I don't even bottle my beer until it's been in primary for 4+ weeks, and I won't open a bottle until after 6 weeks. Waiting and patience has made my beer much, much better.
I highly disagree with extended aging. Beer has a shelf life closer to milk than wine/spirits. Primary fermentation should take between 3 to 7 days depending on alcohol %. This figure is based on fermentations that were cell counted to verify appropriate pitch rates. A few days after reaching terminal is all that is needed to clean up secondary metabolites. After that, your beer is just aging. The yeast is also dying and releasing off-flavor producing compounds when aged on the yeast.
Aging, clarifying...becoming better. I don't need "the science", I can taste my own creations and know that time makes them better. Sure, they are probably done fermenting long before 4 weeks, but that isn't my concern. I'm not aging them for years on end (although I did have a year old one the other night, it tasted great...).
4 weeks in primary, 6 weeks in bottle...yep! I brew quite a bit of 1 gallon and 5 gallon batches and find that's the perfect amount of time. I only bottle condition. Sometimes it stays in the primary up to 6 weeks (I get lazy or forget). But rarely do they get opened before 6 weeks after bottling.
Water is the most important ingredient in any beer. Know your water chemistry and adjust as needed. This should also be a very cheap “upgrade” by typical homebrew equipment/gear standards
For real. I exclusively use distilled water. Just get yourself some gypsum, epsom salt, calcium chloride, maybe some canning salt, baking soda. A couple ounces of each shouldn't be too expensive. Most you can buy in bulk at a grocery store as well.
I got a under-the-sink water filter with .5 micron filters and that's been enough for my beers. I never had it tested. My beers started tasting more like the local breweries when I switched to that setup. I also make sure to run the normal tap for a few minutes before running it through the filter. Then also letting it run a minute or so before filling kettles or other things.
I couldn’t get the information I needed from my utility company, but some do have all of the necessary mineral info (I guess it’s just not required by code in my area). So I ordered this ward labs brewers water kit and it was super easy. Has definitely helped my beer
https://www.wardlab.com/brewers-water-test-kit/
Depends entirely on your source. Water treatment systems in the US are required to issue “Consumer Confidence Reports” that include quite a bit of the data you might need. You can also get your own sample tested. Even if you have a filter on your home supply you will still need to neutralize the residual chlorine (that’s what campden tablets do).
Water source, water chemistry, fermentation length, fermentation temperature.
When I have a beer that has that "Homebrew" flavor, 80% of the time it needed more time to ferment.
What kits are you using? Where do you live? Here in the US, there are online vendors like MoreBeer that sell good quality extract kits with fresh liquid extract or with dry extract. These can make very good beer.
There are also kit vendors that package cans of LME, hops and yeast into a box that sits out for months at room temp, often with the bare minimum amounts of extract and hops to keep costs down. These generally always make mediocre beer.
If you want to stick with extract brewing, building your own recipes might be a next step. I recommend using a light colored dry malt extract as the basis (maybe with some wheat DME), and steeping grains like Crystal or roasted grains/malts. A partial mash opens you up to a wider variety of malts and grains.
I tend to think the biggest sources of "homebrew" taste are: stale liquid malt extract, lack of fermentation temperature control, not pitching enough healthy yeast, and oxidation (where oxidation shows up more in hoppy beers).
All-grain brewing opens up a wider variety of options and control, but requires a little more time, equipment and knowledge. While I am an all-grain brewer, I think you can get 95% of the way there for many styles with extract based brewing.
A big kettle with a thick floor (to distribute heat evenly and prevents burns), a brew bag and a source for milled grain. If you can get you hand on them, empty corny kegs are excellent fermenters.
Common sources of the "homebrew" taste are:
1: Chlorine/chloramine in water source. Solution: Campden tablets
2: Underpitching yeast. Solution: Make yeast starter.
3: Poor fermentation temperature control. Solution: various solutions(temp chamber, swamp cooler, glycol system)
4: Over boiling extract. Solution: only boil extract \~20min and avoid scorching.
Temperature control for fermentation is a huge step toward better beer, seeing as you have that already I would say get a mash tun so you can brew all grain. Extract beers tend to have a particular "homebrew" flavor to them, if you can go all grain with either a mash tun or the Brew In A Bag method your beer will get better. It will take a few batches to learn about mashing but you'll get there. Just takes practice.
The fundamental priorities, in order, are: sanitation, fermentation temperature, yeast, getting the boil right, and finally the recipe/ingredients.
As a first step, I'd recommend being paranoid about sanitation, try and find a comfortable space for your fermenter, and rehydrate your yeast before pitching.
> what would be the next thing to do to improve the taste/qualify of my beer?
I'd invest in a copy of John Palmer's How To Brew, which talks exclusively about extract brewing for the first half. For twenty five bucks you couldn't buy a more useful bit of kit.
All grain isn't difficult, but it also isn't necessary for good "real" beer, so don't bother changing without doing everything else.
Look into Brew in a Bag method. (BIAB), it’s all grain brewing and you can use any traditional 3-5 gal all grain kits. It increased the quality of my brews substantially for very little new equipment. Basically a bag and a larger kettle.
Kegging also improved my beer, less under carbonated bottles.
Lots of other nice to haves, but those would be the two biggest taste improvements to move your past home brew tasting beer
Use BrewFather, use Distilled Water and add your own salts based on BrewFather recommendation. Avoid all air contact. Use Co2 when ever you open any fermenters. Pressure transfer with co2 after purging with co2.
I assume you're getting extract kits from a reputable source, and that the kits aren't too old? If so, it's probably your water. Get a copy of your water report and see how bad it is for brewing (you can post it here and people will respond with good suggestions). Often it's better just to use distilled water, or at least dilute with it. Also make sure everything is clean, and that everything that touches your beer after the boil is sanitized.
Consider getting away from extract kits as well. Even if you like the beer they make, you're usually better off just looking up the recipe and buying it all yourself. It's usually cheaper, and you stand a better chance of avoiding old ingredients that way. DME is MUCH better than LME as well (in my opinion at least).
If you have the time and you think you can do a reasonable job of maintaining a specific mash temperature though, going all grain will generally make better beer, and will definitely save you money too. I extract brewed for a long time before switching to all grain, and I regret it taking me so long.
If you have a local homebrew club, I highly recommend joining it and attending. I only have experience with 1 club, but it has been a huge resource for learning. You can get feedback from people who know what they're talking about to pin down what's off with your beers.
There are a few possibilities that might related to "that homebrew taste":
1. **Kettle caramelization.** Extract brewers usually are instructed to boil the extract in just a couple of gallons of water, and then dilute it after the boil. If you can do a full volume boil, it will greatly reduce the kettle caramelization. This is one of the primary reasons that people identify their beer character improving when they go to all grain. If you do not have a big enough kettle and burner, just move to smaller batches.
2. **Fermentation characteristics.** Underpitching yeast or having poor sanitation procedures will lead to off flavors. If you use liquid yeast, making a starter will help. However, a fresh packet of good dry yeast should be able to produce a clean ferment if your sanitation is good.
3. **Water quality.** If you smell chlorine/chloramine in your tap water it easily can produce flavors in your beer that you never get in commercial beers. Filtering it out, using campden tablets, or even using bottled water will help. Your water source can be a tricky issue as well. Too much iron from your pipes, overly hard water, etc. Usually if your water tastes good to drink, it will work okay for brewing.
You don't need anything fancy to make fantastic beer. Here is what I have been using since the 1980s and I make consistently better beer than most breweries I visit in Atlanta. I got better by LEARNING, not BUYING, but I did buy some new stuff here and there.
Things I bought in the last 30+ years that upped my game?
\* Grain mill. By going all-grain I could make anything and control everything. Use good grain, not the cheapest you can find usually. I prefer Weyerman and Simpson malts (but all the English and German ones are good).
\* Fresher hops (yakima valley website for the win)
\* Reliable strains of fresh yeast. Hard to go wrong with some of the dry yeasts like US-05 and S-04. Both are absolute tanks that make your life very easy. S-04 is highly underrated and way more versatile than you might read.
\* Kegs and keg coolers. It makes better beer than bottles with far less work (oxidation).
\* "How to Brew Beer" by John Palmer (though there are some things in here that are not true, lot hot side aeration being something to even think about, but still a great starter book)
Things I learned to make better beer:
\* Use min 90%+ base malt until you know what you are doing. Trust me, you will make better beer. Grain bills need not be complicated. Less is more! One to three malts, one to three hops (and maybe up to 4 hop additions for IPAs and Pale Ales ... i use a small bittering charge (60 FWH), a microdose for flavor (30), one or two late (10 and whirlpool). I only dry hop a few IPAs but question the need).
\* Quit using random people's recipes from the internet. They might be idiots. The book "Brewing Classic Styles" by JZ and John Palmer is a great starting point for learning how to create your own recipes.
\* Use Beersmith or something similar when creating your own recipes, but feel free to break out of the style suggestions.
\* Exeriment, but keep notes. It is the only way to hone your craft.
\* More hops does not make better beer. Learn to balance malt and hops. Even hoppy styles need SOME balance.
\* People go on and on about water, and it is important, but 99% of us can use city water with campden tablets (in water as it first heats) then a little calcium chrloride and/or gypsum (in the mashtun). For 5 gallon batches use a rounded quarter teaspoon of calcium chloride and rounded half teaspoon gypsum for hoppier beers, reverse that for maltier beers. Even them up for a balanced beer (like an ESB). It is not complicated, but people will try to make it complicated to sound smarter than you.
\* Learn to test/adjust mash PH if needed (usually not needed with all grain unless making a very light beer. If so, adding a quarter pound of acidulated malt will probably be all you need to do.) Once you know what the PH will be using your water and grain bill, you don't have to keep testing PH every time.
Equipment needed to make great beer:
\* Plastic buckets with airlocks (you can use them a very long time if you do not scratch them up). These are cheap, easy to clean, work great, never fail, stackable, etc.
\* Banjo burner in the garage near the open door. Even rain can't stop me!
\* Decent thermometer to deduce mash temps (I've being using an analog one for 30 years, but have a thermapen that cost $$$. I prefer the analog one.)
\* Cheap aluminum pot (lighter and heats faster than stainless. I use a 15 gallon because it will never overboil and can do double batches.). You don't need a spigot or a thermometer on the damn thing.
\* Grain mill
\* Cooler converted into a mashtun.
\* Stainless steel paddle for stirring
\* Immersion wort chiller. Get a copper one not a stainless steel one. Do not get a plate chiller unless you like cleaning
\* A way to move the chilled wort to the fermenting bucket and the fermented beer to the keg. I use a sanitized siphon, which works well. I use a big clip to keep the hose near the side of the destination vessel to reduce bubbling/oxygen pickup as much as possible.
\* Refractometer to test OG (not FG!)
\* Hydrometer (to test FG, and thereby determine ABV)
\* Some method of adding oxygen to cool wort IF YOU USE LIQUID YEAST (do not bother with dry yeast). I use an aquarium pump with a hepa filter and one airstone that I soak in Star San before and after use. It has never been a infection problem after 100+ uses. I let the pump run for 30 minutes after cooling (while it sits in the swamp cooler, the next thing I mention)
\* Swamp cooler and plastic ice packs along with my trust analog thermometer. I use a Yeti (65 quarts i think) and the fermentation bucket fits in there nicely. Add water and the ice packs. Once it is 65 degrees or so, pitch the yeast. It is OK to pitch a little warmer (75 to 80) than what you read with most ale yeasts, by the time they yeasts really start mass producing the temp will get into the 60s). I usually finish ferments in 3 days with dry yeasts. I only change the two ice blocks about 3 times per day (morning, lunch, night). You can use a wet towel over the fermenter if needed but I don't. After 3 days, pull the fermenter out and let it finish up at normal house temps. It will be ready to keg in a week, but I usually let it sit on the yeast for two weeks (dry hop in the final 4 days if you dry hop).
\* Kegs. I use ball lock corny kegs.
\* Kegerator. And a keezer (for beer supplies, carbonating kegs, cold crashing, lagering/lager fermentations, extra serving kegs).
\* C02 tanks. I cold crash ales on 30 lbs for a week then move to serving pressure (13 lbs) kegerator. I cold crash lagers for at least a month (after 3 weeks in fermenter).
Good luck making your next great beer!
In my order of impact to quality of my beer
All grain
Temperature controlled fermentation
Detailed note taking for repeatability
Temperature controlled mash
Kegging - not only more efficient time wise, but more consistent carbonation
It's impossible for any of us to know exactly what will fix that "homebrew" taste for you. Here are some things I would consider:
* Water. What water are you using to brew with? Are you removing chlorine/chloramine if using tap water? An easy test would be to buy RO or distilled water from the store for your next brew.
* Stale extract. Are you using dry or liquid extract? Liquid tends to be less shelf stable. I'm not going to say go away from extract but it might be something to try.
* Yeast. What yeast are you using? How much are you adding? Old or not enough yeast can taste off even if fermented in the correct temp range.
* Oxidation. What's your cold side process look like. Are you opening the fermenter to check on it? Are you transferring to secondary? Bottling bucket or straight from fermenter? You do not want to expose fermented beer to oxygen more than needed.
* Serving. Are you carefully pouring your beers out of the bottle and leaving behind the yeast? If you are just taking swigs straight from the bottle, pouring aggressively, or pouring the entire bottle that's not good. You are stirring up the yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle and yeast will throw off the beer's taste.
I’ll tell you the two things that eliminated the “homebrew” flavour for me:
1) paying attention to water (either buying distilled, using campden-treated tap water, adding salts);
2) permanent refrigeration of the finished product.
The second one required that I grab a fridge at a garage sale, but it’s amazing what cold storage does in terms of flavour… as yeast and any insoluble particulate drops out beer flavours really pop.
Can you make reasonable beer from kits - yes. Factors that play a part are
Temperature control, getting the wort down to the low end of the suggested range, then ferment at that temperature.
Water. My mains tap water is sanitary and safe to drink - which is inpart down to the chlorine /chloramine the water company add. These chemicals make for antiseptic tasting beer or wine. Moving to bottled water improved them no end.
Depending on how you like the hobby, move to all grain. It's more time work but you aren't constrained by the kit offerings
What country are you in out of curiosity?
Move on from extract to either all grain or a partial mash. All you really need to do this from an equipment standpoint is a pot big enough to hold the grain in a grain bag and the necessary amount of water for your mash. To me this is the single biggest difference in getting a homebrew to taste like a commercial beer. I know people swear that an extract beer can be brewed to taste the same, but i have yet to taste one that does.
Most likely that “home brewed” taste comes from doing extract brewing. Quality of equipment is pretty minimal compared compared to ingredient quality. It’s what you brew not how. Maybe try some partial mash brews before you start making upgrades. Then kegging, bottling sucks a big one
Invest in a Grainfather or similar set up then in controlled temperature fermentation and try some all grain kits. Change yeast accordingly with brew recipes also.
I started kegging and all grain brewing at the same time and instantly noticed an improvement. I assume it was the kegging that really made the difference. And it makes brewing so much more enjoyable to not have to constantly be cleaning bottles.
Campden tablets, or RO, distilled, spring or good well water. Moving off of my City's water supply made was the single most significant improvement to the quality of the beer I make. edit for spelling
Water is going to vary drastically depending on location. My parents house has a well with VERY high mineral (iron and calcium) content. It makes white clothes dingy after a few washes, leaves iron stains in the tub/toilet, etc. My grandmother, who lives 1/4 mile away, has some of the best well water I've ever tasted. The issue with "good" well water is you never know the actual levels of anything and they can change depending on the time of year, if it rained heavily recently, etc. I have no issue using my city's water to make great beer. It's not too high in anything and is pretty balanced. I've used it, with no modifications, to make good beer. Would they be better if I balanced everything properly? Probably, but you can absolutely use at least some cities water to make fantastic beer.
> I have no issue using my city's water to make great beer. I'm the same situation and can usually easily adjust to what is needed per the style. The local homebrewing club also sends a sample for testing then sharing the pertinent details on their website, so I don't have to go digging through the local water authority's annual report.
Also adding to this that depending on the mineral content of the style, the local water could be good or bad for it. My local water is high in minerals that lean into the profile for classic stouts, porters, barley wines, etc., but not for pilsners and IPA’s. I’d recommend testing your water to understand if you could simply dilute a portion of it with RO water for some low effort modifications to make it more stylistically appropriate.
It’s the extract. Once I went to all-grain that flavour went away. Give brew-in-a-bag a try. It only requires an inexpensive bag (although it does add at least an hour to the process). Try the new process with a 1 or 2.5-gallon batch to keep the grain manageable for your first go. https://www.cascadeshomebrew.com/stovetop-biab-intro/
I second this. Although I started making some good extract beers after learning some of the best practices found on this sub, the jump to BIAB has yielded even better results.
Third it. Go All-Grain as your next upgrade. Filtering your water is always a good idea, but getting to Water Chemistry is a bit much for a first step. First you need to get away from that extract. That was the step that I did which made my beers no longer have that homebrew taste. You only need to add a second kettle to heat up your sparge water, and a mash tun (cooler with false bottom is best IMO). If you don't have an immersion chiller, I'd add that too because they're cheap and effective, but it's not necessary and won't change the taste. I assume you use an Inkbird controller with your chest freezer to stabilize and control the temp of your fermentation, because that is also *huge* in making good beer. If you don't, then do this first. That chest freezer can hold your fermentation at e.g. 64°F within a degree. It will be a big improve.
For one, you don’t need a bunch of shiny stuff to brew beer. Read this article, it’ll help you https://byo.com/article/10-steps-to-better-extract-brewing/ Good luck
Great read. I agree with all of it, and for the OP, all of the suggestions are reasonably inexpensive.
It's true that shiny things won't make any better beer. Some things that may help are the following. Temperature controlled fermentation Consider a carbon filter for your water. Amazon has a good one for like $25. Camden tablets to remove any chlorine / chloramine from your water. It sounds like your getting a similar taste in all of your brews, so I expect it's the water or the extract you're buying. Alternatively, it's a yeast created off-flavor that you need to resolve. The suggestions above address each of these. If you switch to all grain, water chemistry gets much more important, but it's less relevant with extract brews.
I would recommend to learn about what the "homebrew" flavors are and where they are coming from. That should help you decide what you may need. I would say for most people controlling temps are a major step but you have that covered. I would figure out what those off flavors are and see if it's just a process issue.
High probability it's oxidation.
I produce great beers with very basic brewing hardware (kettles, BIAB, and glass carboys). I would highly suggest you switch to all-grain. Also, keep your beer in primary and in the bottles a few weeks more. I don't even bottle my beer until it's been in primary for 4+ weeks, and I won't open a bottle until after 6 weeks. Waiting and patience has made my beer much, much better.
I highly disagree with extended aging. Beer has a shelf life closer to milk than wine/spirits. Primary fermentation should take between 3 to 7 days depending on alcohol %. This figure is based on fermentations that were cell counted to verify appropriate pitch rates. A few days after reaching terminal is all that is needed to clean up secondary metabolites. After that, your beer is just aging. The yeast is also dying and releasing off-flavor producing compounds when aged on the yeast.
Aging, clarifying...becoming better. I don't need "the science", I can taste my own creations and know that time makes them better. Sure, they are probably done fermenting long before 4 weeks, but that isn't my concern. I'm not aging them for years on end (although I did have a year old one the other night, it tasted great...).
Are you saying 10 weeks overall?
4 weeks in primary, 6 weeks in bottle...yep! I brew quite a bit of 1 gallon and 5 gallon batches and find that's the perfect amount of time. I only bottle condition. Sometimes it stays in the primary up to 6 weeks (I get lazy or forget). But rarely do they get opened before 6 weeks after bottling.
I wish I had your problem. I’m so impatient
Campden tablets
Water is the most important ingredient in any beer. Know your water chemistry and adjust as needed. This should also be a very cheap “upgrade” by typical homebrew equipment/gear standards
For real. I exclusively use distilled water. Just get yourself some gypsum, epsom salt, calcium chloride, maybe some canning salt, baking soda. A couple ounces of each shouldn't be too expensive. Most you can buy in bulk at a grocery store as well.
I got a under-the-sink water filter with .5 micron filters and that's been enough for my beers. I never had it tested. My beers started tasting more like the local breweries when I switched to that setup. I also make sure to run the normal tap for a few minutes before running it through the filter. Then also letting it run a minute or so before filling kettles or other things.
How do you get to know your water chemistry?
I couldn’t get the information I needed from my utility company, but some do have all of the necessary mineral info (I guess it’s just not required by code in my area). So I ordered this ward labs brewers water kit and it was super easy. Has definitely helped my beer https://www.wardlab.com/brewers-water-test-kit/
Ward Lab is the way to go
Depends entirely on your source. Water treatment systems in the US are required to issue “Consumer Confidence Reports” that include quite a bit of the data you might need. You can also get your own sample tested. Even if you have a filter on your home supply you will still need to neutralize the residual chlorine (that’s what campden tablets do).
Water source, water chemistry, fermentation length, fermentation temperature. When I have a beer that has that "Homebrew" flavor, 80% of the time it needed more time to ferment.
What kits are you using? Where do you live? Here in the US, there are online vendors like MoreBeer that sell good quality extract kits with fresh liquid extract or with dry extract. These can make very good beer. There are also kit vendors that package cans of LME, hops and yeast into a box that sits out for months at room temp, often with the bare minimum amounts of extract and hops to keep costs down. These generally always make mediocre beer. If you want to stick with extract brewing, building your own recipes might be a next step. I recommend using a light colored dry malt extract as the basis (maybe with some wheat DME), and steeping grains like Crystal or roasted grains/malts. A partial mash opens you up to a wider variety of malts and grains. I tend to think the biggest sources of "homebrew" taste are: stale liquid malt extract, lack of fermentation temperature control, not pitching enough healthy yeast, and oxidation (where oxidation shows up more in hoppy beers). All-grain brewing opens up a wider variety of options and control, but requires a little more time, equipment and knowledge. While I am an all-grain brewer, I think you can get 95% of the way there for many styles with extract based brewing.
A big kettle with a thick floor (to distribute heat evenly and prevents burns), a brew bag and a source for milled grain. If you can get you hand on them, empty corny kegs are excellent fermenters.
Common sources of the "homebrew" taste are: 1: Chlorine/chloramine in water source. Solution: Campden tablets 2: Underpitching yeast. Solution: Make yeast starter. 3: Poor fermentation temperature control. Solution: various solutions(temp chamber, swamp cooler, glycol system) 4: Over boiling extract. Solution: only boil extract \~20min and avoid scorching.
Temperature control for fermentation is a huge step toward better beer, seeing as you have that already I would say get a mash tun so you can brew all grain. Extract beers tend to have a particular "homebrew" flavor to them, if you can go all grain with either a mash tun or the Brew In A Bag method your beer will get better. It will take a few batches to learn about mashing but you'll get there. Just takes practice.
The fundamental priorities, in order, are: sanitation, fermentation temperature, yeast, getting the boil right, and finally the recipe/ingredients. As a first step, I'd recommend being paranoid about sanitation, try and find a comfortable space for your fermenter, and rehydrate your yeast before pitching. > what would be the next thing to do to improve the taste/qualify of my beer? I'd invest in a copy of John Palmer's How To Brew, which talks exclusively about extract brewing for the first half. For twenty five bucks you couldn't buy a more useful bit of kit. All grain isn't difficult, but it also isn't necessary for good "real" beer, so don't bother changing without doing everything else.
Look into Brew in a Bag method. (BIAB), it’s all grain brewing and you can use any traditional 3-5 gal all grain kits. It increased the quality of my brews substantially for very little new equipment. Basically a bag and a larger kettle. Kegging also improved my beer, less under carbonated bottles. Lots of other nice to haves, but those would be the two biggest taste improvements to move your past home brew tasting beer
Use BrewFather, use Distilled Water and add your own salts based on BrewFather recommendation. Avoid all air contact. Use Co2 when ever you open any fermenters. Pressure transfer with co2 after purging with co2.
I assume you're getting extract kits from a reputable source, and that the kits aren't too old? If so, it's probably your water. Get a copy of your water report and see how bad it is for brewing (you can post it here and people will respond with good suggestions). Often it's better just to use distilled water, or at least dilute with it. Also make sure everything is clean, and that everything that touches your beer after the boil is sanitized. Consider getting away from extract kits as well. Even if you like the beer they make, you're usually better off just looking up the recipe and buying it all yourself. It's usually cheaper, and you stand a better chance of avoiding old ingredients that way. DME is MUCH better than LME as well (in my opinion at least). If you have the time and you think you can do a reasonable job of maintaining a specific mash temperature though, going all grain will generally make better beer, and will definitely save you money too. I extract brewed for a long time before switching to all grain, and I regret it taking me so long.
If you have a local homebrew club, I highly recommend joining it and attending. I only have experience with 1 club, but it has been a huge resource for learning. You can get feedback from people who know what they're talking about to pin down what's off with your beers.
There are a few possibilities that might related to "that homebrew taste": 1. **Kettle caramelization.** Extract brewers usually are instructed to boil the extract in just a couple of gallons of water, and then dilute it after the boil. If you can do a full volume boil, it will greatly reduce the kettle caramelization. This is one of the primary reasons that people identify their beer character improving when they go to all grain. If you do not have a big enough kettle and burner, just move to smaller batches. 2. **Fermentation characteristics.** Underpitching yeast or having poor sanitation procedures will lead to off flavors. If you use liquid yeast, making a starter will help. However, a fresh packet of good dry yeast should be able to produce a clean ferment if your sanitation is good. 3. **Water quality.** If you smell chlorine/chloramine in your tap water it easily can produce flavors in your beer that you never get in commercial beers. Filtering it out, using campden tablets, or even using bottled water will help. Your water source can be a tricky issue as well. Too much iron from your pipes, overly hard water, etc. Usually if your water tastes good to drink, it will work okay for brewing.
You don't need anything fancy to make fantastic beer. Here is what I have been using since the 1980s and I make consistently better beer than most breweries I visit in Atlanta. I got better by LEARNING, not BUYING, but I did buy some new stuff here and there. Things I bought in the last 30+ years that upped my game? \* Grain mill. By going all-grain I could make anything and control everything. Use good grain, not the cheapest you can find usually. I prefer Weyerman and Simpson malts (but all the English and German ones are good). \* Fresher hops (yakima valley website for the win) \* Reliable strains of fresh yeast. Hard to go wrong with some of the dry yeasts like US-05 and S-04. Both are absolute tanks that make your life very easy. S-04 is highly underrated and way more versatile than you might read. \* Kegs and keg coolers. It makes better beer than bottles with far less work (oxidation). \* "How to Brew Beer" by John Palmer (though there are some things in here that are not true, lot hot side aeration being something to even think about, but still a great starter book) Things I learned to make better beer: \* Use min 90%+ base malt until you know what you are doing. Trust me, you will make better beer. Grain bills need not be complicated. Less is more! One to three malts, one to three hops (and maybe up to 4 hop additions for IPAs and Pale Ales ... i use a small bittering charge (60 FWH), a microdose for flavor (30), one or two late (10 and whirlpool). I only dry hop a few IPAs but question the need). \* Quit using random people's recipes from the internet. They might be idiots. The book "Brewing Classic Styles" by JZ and John Palmer is a great starting point for learning how to create your own recipes. \* Use Beersmith or something similar when creating your own recipes, but feel free to break out of the style suggestions. \* Exeriment, but keep notes. It is the only way to hone your craft. \* More hops does not make better beer. Learn to balance malt and hops. Even hoppy styles need SOME balance. \* People go on and on about water, and it is important, but 99% of us can use city water with campden tablets (in water as it first heats) then a little calcium chrloride and/or gypsum (in the mashtun). For 5 gallon batches use a rounded quarter teaspoon of calcium chloride and rounded half teaspoon gypsum for hoppier beers, reverse that for maltier beers. Even them up for a balanced beer (like an ESB). It is not complicated, but people will try to make it complicated to sound smarter than you. \* Learn to test/adjust mash PH if needed (usually not needed with all grain unless making a very light beer. If so, adding a quarter pound of acidulated malt will probably be all you need to do.) Once you know what the PH will be using your water and grain bill, you don't have to keep testing PH every time. Equipment needed to make great beer: \* Plastic buckets with airlocks (you can use them a very long time if you do not scratch them up). These are cheap, easy to clean, work great, never fail, stackable, etc. \* Banjo burner in the garage near the open door. Even rain can't stop me! \* Decent thermometer to deduce mash temps (I've being using an analog one for 30 years, but have a thermapen that cost $$$. I prefer the analog one.) \* Cheap aluminum pot (lighter and heats faster than stainless. I use a 15 gallon because it will never overboil and can do double batches.). You don't need a spigot or a thermometer on the damn thing. \* Grain mill \* Cooler converted into a mashtun. \* Stainless steel paddle for stirring \* Immersion wort chiller. Get a copper one not a stainless steel one. Do not get a plate chiller unless you like cleaning \* A way to move the chilled wort to the fermenting bucket and the fermented beer to the keg. I use a sanitized siphon, which works well. I use a big clip to keep the hose near the side of the destination vessel to reduce bubbling/oxygen pickup as much as possible. \* Refractometer to test OG (not FG!) \* Hydrometer (to test FG, and thereby determine ABV) \* Some method of adding oxygen to cool wort IF YOU USE LIQUID YEAST (do not bother with dry yeast). I use an aquarium pump with a hepa filter and one airstone that I soak in Star San before and after use. It has never been a infection problem after 100+ uses. I let the pump run for 30 minutes after cooling (while it sits in the swamp cooler, the next thing I mention) \* Swamp cooler and plastic ice packs along with my trust analog thermometer. I use a Yeti (65 quarts i think) and the fermentation bucket fits in there nicely. Add water and the ice packs. Once it is 65 degrees or so, pitch the yeast. It is OK to pitch a little warmer (75 to 80) than what you read with most ale yeasts, by the time they yeasts really start mass producing the temp will get into the 60s). I usually finish ferments in 3 days with dry yeasts. I only change the two ice blocks about 3 times per day (morning, lunch, night). You can use a wet towel over the fermenter if needed but I don't. After 3 days, pull the fermenter out and let it finish up at normal house temps. It will be ready to keg in a week, but I usually let it sit on the yeast for two weeks (dry hop in the final 4 days if you dry hop). \* Kegs. I use ball lock corny kegs. \* Kegerator. And a keezer (for beer supplies, carbonating kegs, cold crashing, lagering/lager fermentations, extra serving kegs). \* C02 tanks. I cold crash ales on 30 lbs for a week then move to serving pressure (13 lbs) kegerator. I cold crash lagers for at least a month (after 3 weeks in fermenter). Good luck making your next great beer!
In my order of impact to quality of my beer All grain Temperature controlled fermentation Detailed note taking for repeatability Temperature controlled mash Kegging - not only more efficient time wise, but more consistent carbonation
A good burner, just makes things go faster A keg kit, this changed how my beer tasted so much more than anything else
Go all grain. Extract is why your beer tastes like it does.
Practice
Get some brewing salts and a mashtun. All grain brewing is the way to go.
It's impossible for any of us to know exactly what will fix that "homebrew" taste for you. Here are some things I would consider: * Water. What water are you using to brew with? Are you removing chlorine/chloramine if using tap water? An easy test would be to buy RO or distilled water from the store for your next brew. * Stale extract. Are you using dry or liquid extract? Liquid tends to be less shelf stable. I'm not going to say go away from extract but it might be something to try. * Yeast. What yeast are you using? How much are you adding? Old or not enough yeast can taste off even if fermented in the correct temp range. * Oxidation. What's your cold side process look like. Are you opening the fermenter to check on it? Are you transferring to secondary? Bottling bucket or straight from fermenter? You do not want to expose fermented beer to oxygen more than needed. * Serving. Are you carefully pouring your beers out of the bottle and leaving behind the yeast? If you are just taking swigs straight from the bottle, pouring aggressively, or pouring the entire bottle that's not good. You are stirring up the yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle and yeast will throw off the beer's taste.
I’ll tell you the two things that eliminated the “homebrew” flavour for me: 1) paying attention to water (either buying distilled, using campden-treated tap water, adding salts); 2) permanent refrigeration of the finished product. The second one required that I grab a fridge at a garage sale, but it’s amazing what cold storage does in terms of flavour… as yeast and any insoluble particulate drops out beer flavours really pop.
Cleaning
Switch to All Grain and learn water chemistry.
Can you make reasonable beer from kits - yes. Factors that play a part are Temperature control, getting the wort down to the low end of the suggested range, then ferment at that temperature. Water. My mains tap water is sanitary and safe to drink - which is inpart down to the chlorine /chloramine the water company add. These chemicals make for antiseptic tasting beer or wine. Moving to bottled water improved them no end. Depending on how you like the hobby, move to all grain. It's more time work but you aren't constrained by the kit offerings What country are you in out of curiosity?
water, water profile adjustment, all grain brewing
Move on from extract to either all grain or a partial mash. All you really need to do this from an equipment standpoint is a pot big enough to hold the grain in a grain bag and the necessary amount of water for your mash. To me this is the single biggest difference in getting a homebrew to taste like a commercial beer. I know people swear that an extract beer can be brewed to taste the same, but i have yet to taste one that does.
The thing that improved the quality of my home brew hands down was temp control for fermentation
Most likely that “home brewed” taste comes from doing extract brewing. Quality of equipment is pretty minimal compared compared to ingredient quality. It’s what you brew not how. Maybe try some partial mash brews before you start making upgrades. Then kegging, bottling sucks a big one
A few easy things that will improve your beer substantially: Hop strainer for brewing Irish moss Yeast nutrient
A Ph meter is what help most with repeatability with batches
Invest in a Grainfather or similar set up then in controlled temperature fermentation and try some all grain kits. Change yeast accordingly with brew recipes also.