Bad flavor, no head

[sweetwater]

Just another new guy, I made a batch of lager, 2 weeks in the bottle now. The flavor seems medicinal and no carbination or head. I use one step no rinse cleaner on everything, but usually can't wait for everything to air dry before use. Could this be a flavor factor? or carbination too? Everything went according to recipe, all grain, tasted great at racking.
I'm ready to bottle a batch of stout and don't want the same thing to happen to that.
M

[Tweek]

could be that you had a bit of sanitizer left on your equipment. That could give a medicinal taste and would surely kill the yeast leaving your beer flat. That is my guess as to what has happened if you say everything tasted good at bottling time. Also sometimes it just takes a while longer than two weeks to carbonate is it really flat or just barely carbonated?

[S.F.B.]

I know lagers tend to ferment slower than ales. Maybe it is the same with carbonating.

I really don't think it would be the saitizer. I don't rinse my equipment or bottles after sanitizing. I let them drain but they are still wet/damp.

[sweetwater]

I guess you could say barely carbonated, and it does seem better than last week, but the flavor is a disappointment. Everything was rinsed with sanitizer and drained well, but not completely dry. I used to use sanitizer in wine making also and kept it in a jug for re use, is this a standard practice? or mix up new each time? It's cheap enough to mix new each batch, but just curious.
Thanks for the info.
This weeks brew will be a Leinies clone, all grain, any suggestions? I use a 3 stage system, mash in a 3 gal. SS pot, Sparge with hot water, then add additional water to make 5 Gal. All good tested well water, but wonder about that too, should it be boiled and cooled before using? Priming- corn sugar and water added during the last syphon at bottling.
M

[wortchillergoal]

I would start by asking did you remember to put priming sugar in? Did you nix the suagar through the beer? Have you given it enough time and storage temp? The taste is another matter. On page 2 of the hombrew section of the community board ther is a thread about carboard taste. In one of the replies there is a link to a page that describes off tastes and their causes. Yours sounds phenolic(spelling?). It is caused by cholrine sanis and sparge temps. You may want to check it out. Good Luck.