Doh. So I cracked open the fermenter and siphoned to the bottling bucket. I used my sanitized turkey baster to get a sample and it tasted just like wine, very acidicy. I imagine my beer got infected? In any case, I guess I'll be starting my next batch this weekend. Hopefully I can keep everything really nice and clean and avoid some of the mistakes I made this last round. Has anyone had this problem before? If you have did you bottle the beer anyway? Is this one of those things that age might help fix or should have I not wasted the time bottling?

Hey why. I just found this board thought I would help out.

The basic keys to making beer is ingredients, make sure you use them properly and that they are fresh.

Second is the process, make sure you read your info. or disscuss all concerns with some one that knows how to do it.

Finally make sure its clean.

I'm a novice I've been brewing beer for almost a year and i've been through alot of material. It sound like something wasn't clean. You know what the problem is with out any one telling you. You got it. Just double check your stuff next time and you'll brew great! Me not being an expert but pulling from your last topic it might have been the ingredients, if they were canned or dry including the yeast and in a cool inviroment I don't think they were the problem. Me I have a problem with sweet beer. I either add too much priming sugar or I bottle when I need to let it stay for just a day or two more. Also temp. is important because I live in a town house I don't have the room for an extra frige. My girlfriend is pretty accomadating but to be nice I've only made one lager and too cold is bad for beer too warm bad for food, so it didn't come out its best ok but not good. Ales is what I do.

I got one of those prehopped cans and added 2lbs of corn sugar per instruction. I cleaned everything with the sanitizer. Perhaps the wort was out in the open too long? I've been doing some research and am wondering if the corn sugar is giving it the wine taste? It's fairly strange, it starts off with the wine taste and finishes with a beer flavor of what I expect it to taste like up front. My new kit doesn't use corn sugar for anything but priming so maybe I'll have better results.

Thanks for your response, any more information I can get on this will help me out a lot.

Don't Panic!!!!

I'm not sure the style you brewed up...but DON'T PANIC. Do your bottling using 3/4 cup of corn sugar, cap them...keep them at room temp for about 2 weeks...if you can move them to a cooler place in the house for another week or so...the chill one in your fridge and enjoy.

Your beer is tasting "hot" right now. I don't think it's anything to worry about right now.

The biggest and hardest thing you need to remember and practice right now is patience.

Bob

I agree with Bob. A sampling of your beer before it's been carbonated and bottle conditioned for a few weeks is not an accurate representation of your final flavor. You will get a flat, tongue tingling flavor that doesn't taste like beer. You can't determine contamination at this point either. If it doesn't smell bad then it is probably fine.

As Bob said, don't panic. Bottle and be patient.

This is an older post. Let us know how your brew turns out after it conditions for a couple of weeks. I hope you didn't chuck it!

Thanks everyone for your response. I opened up a bottle recently to try it out and the flavor is unchanged. So I guess my plan for this batch right now is to just let it sit in the closet forever and hope that one day it will become something fairly tasty.

On the bright side my most recent kit is about 2 more weeks from bottling and I have high hopes for this one. This kit came with grain, hop pellets and only enough corn sugar for bottling.