Is this classed as an off flavour???

zippy40 · Oct 20, 2016

Hi All

I have just brewed a batch of Cwytch welsh red ale. It has come out lovely but for one weird thing that has never happened to me now.

When drinking it, the colour, aroma and flavour are superb - almost like a cross between an amber ale and an American IPA. But after a drink and little burp, I get a strong plastic taste to the back of my mouth!! Absolutely no taste of this when drinking it but when I burp I get it for the first pint then it diminishes.

It is very weird - never had this before. I don't know if it is because of the dry hopping in the kit with pellets or what but has anyone had a similar experience??

Zippy

Oneflewover · Oct 21, 2016

zippy40 said:
Hi All

I have just brewed a batch of Cwytch welsh red ale. It has come out lovely but for one weird thing that has never happened to me now.

When drinking it, the colour, aroma and flavour are superb - almost like a cross between an amber ale and an American IPA. But after a drink and little burp, I get a strong plastic taste to the back of my mouth!! Absolutely no taste of this when drinking it but when I burp I get it for the first pint then it diminishes.

It is very weird - never had this before. I don't know if it is because of the dry hopping in the kit with pellets or what but has anyone had a similar experience??

Zippy

Yep, I have had this with a St Peters Golden Ale. It reduced over time, but was quite off - putting when the beer was young. I just put it down to that kit, but I could've been wrong.....

zippy40 · Oct 21, 2016

Glad its not just me lol. The beer is still quite young and it has reduced slightly already so I will just have to wait a bit longer :thumb:

JRTurner1234 · Oct 21, 2016

ok, read up. I have had *exactly* this same issue and this will save you months of trouble!! I spent 9 months trying to work this problem out and I almost gave up home brewing after having to throw away two all grain batches! I spent countless hours researching this issue in vain and only solved it by running multiple experiments with different sanitisers and process etc.

When you say the flavour reduced slightly (over time)- trust me it hasn't! Your first bottle had wild yeast in and the next bottle your drank did not. It took me ages to work this out.

This taste is caused by one of two things:

1) chlorine in your water
2) wild yeast

Solve 1 by using campden tablets (simple)
solve 2 by killing the wild yeast.

Killing wild yeast will not be achieved with Starsan! You need to:

- Boil all small equipment (taps, hoses, bottle wands etc)
- Use bleach to clean your buckets (or throw away)
- Oven bake your bottles (or clean with bleach)

For me, the cause was having wild yeast in one bottle, which I then transferred to all my bottles spreading it using starsan (bloody starsan) in a vinator.

Here was my original plea for help on the forum: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=63954

dad_of_jon and Dads_Ale both offered to taste my beer at the time - so thanks again to them for helping me resolve the issue. Now I'm paying it back!

Enjoy!

Jamie

terrym · Oct 21, 2016

JRTurner1234 said:
Killing wild yeast will not be achieved with Starsan!
For me, the cause was having wild yeast in one bottle, which I then transferred to all my bottles spreading it using starsan (bloody starsan) in a vinator.

This is an interesting post.
It seems to suggest that Starsan solution can itself be a source of contamination if reused. :hmm:
Personally I use VWP solution to clean all my kit before and after a brew, followed by a good rinse in cold mains water.
And although I do use Starsan, it's in small quantities from a spray bottle, which is then rinsed off.

MyQul · Oct 21, 2016

Because I simply rinse my bottles after use, I always oven my bottles as a matter of course when I have about 25 or so then put little cling film caps on them before storing away. Thay way I know, if I ever get a gusher, it's not wild yeast getting into the bottles and can look at other sources for the problem

JRTurner1234 · Oct 21, 2016

terrym said:
This is an interesting post.
It seems to suggest that Starsan solution can itself be a source of contamination if reused. :hmm:
Personally I use VWP solution to clean all my kit before and after a brew, followed by a good rinse in cold mains water.
And although I do use Starsan, it's in small quantities from a spray bottle, which is then rinsed off.

Yup, somewhat ironically, Starsan was the vector! Starsan is fantastic for killing bacteria, but ineffective against wild yeast...

Oneflewover · Oct 21, 2016

Thanks Jamie for your wisdom, very interesting. My experience was not, I suspect, due to wild yeast. The beer has not continued to ferment in the bottle, no drying out, no gushers. I really do think the flavour has reduced over time, and I wonder if it could be chlorine - the water here does sometimes taste of chlorine.

The only other thing that occurs to me is that both kits mentioned above are I believe produced by Muntons.

zippy40 · Oct 21, 2016

JRTurner1234 said:
ok, read up. I have had *exactly* this same issue and this will save you months of trouble!! I spent 9 months trying to work this problem out and I almost gave up home brewing after having to throw away two all grain batches! I spent countless hours researching this issue in vain and only solved it by running multiple experiments with different sanitisers and process etc.

When you say the flavour reduced slightly (over time)- trust me it hasn't! Your first bottle had wild yeast in and the next bottle your drank did not. It took me ages to work this out.

This taste is caused by one of two things:

1) chlorine in your water
2) wild yeast

Solve 1 by using campden tablets (simple)
solve 2 by killing the wild yeast.

Killing wild yeast will not be achieved with Starsan! You need to:

- Boil all small equipment (taps, hoses, bottle wands etc)
- Use bleach to clean your buckets (or throw away)
- Oven bake your bottles (or clean with bleach)

For me, the cause was having wild yeast in one bottle, which I then transferred to all my bottles spreading it using starsan (bloody starsan) in a vinator.

Here was my original plea for help on the forum: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=63954

dad_of_jon and Dads_Ale both offered to taste my beer at the time - so thanks again to them for helping me resolve the issue. Now I'm paying it back!

Enjoy!

Jamie

thanks for this Jamie. It makes sense since my last brew had a wild yeast infection in some of the bottles. I had sterilised this time with bleach but didn't bleach the bottles. That does sound like this is the problem but I haven't had any over carbonation - I will maybe chuck the FVs and buy some campden - belt and braces :thumb:

Zippy

Leon103 · Oct 21, 2016

A thread about burping. Whatever next?

dad_of_jon · Oct 21, 2016

Leon103 said:
A thread about burping. Whatever next?

no hb'er should have to endure a plasticy burp.

An amarillo/galaxy hop burp the following day is the gift that keeps giving.:thumb:

A little reminder of the lovely experience the day before :grin:

but yes a big thing here is that star san is yeast friendly. It is fantastic being a great bacteria zapper, however if you brew outdoors in warm weather or indoors with the windows open you could pick up more than you bargained for.

I innoculate my new plastic parts by brewing with a neutral yeast strain I only use star-san and water to clean my equipment. If I have to zap yeast boiling water is used.

For bottles I oven them as learned from myqul. and that's after they've had a dish wash!!!

if you get plastic burps you could use bottled water on your next brew to rule out your tap water. If it remains - up your sanitization regime.

Covrich · Oct 21, 2016

Leon103 said:
A thread about burping. Whatever next?

... You really want to go down this route ?:lol:

Slid · Oct 21, 2016

Oneflewover said:
Thanks Jamie for your wisdom, very interesting. My experience was not, I suspect, due to wild yeast. The beer has not continued to ferment in the bottle, no drying out, no gushers. I really do think the flavour has reduced over time, and I wonder if it could be chlorine - the water here does sometimes taste of chlorine.

The only other thing that occurs to me is that both kits mentioned above are I believe produced by Muntons.

If it is not Coopers, the kit is produced by Muntons. Few exceptions.

Oneflewover · Oct 22, 2016

Slid said:
If it is not Coopers, the kit is produced by Muntons. Few exceptions.

I guess Ritchies and Young's, amongst others, might not necessarily agree, but I catch your drift :thumb:

H0PM0NSTER · Oct 25, 2016

This thread is going to keep me awake at night.
I've gotten a bit lax with my bottle cleaning - a thorough rinse after pouring a beer and then leaving to dry and storing away until the next use. Then just a quick rinse in hot water and a squirt of starsan before bottling. I'd always taken comfort in the theory that if there was an issue with a bottle it would only be one bottle out of the batch. Now I learn that the starsan could be transferring wild yeast into every bottle

Time to order some extra VWP - I think my usage is about to increase.

zippy40 · Oct 26, 2016

I was at my local hb shop the other day and asking them about my problem. I said I wondered if it was the starsan. She said do I let the starsan air dry, to which I said no - just coat the bottle for a while and leave. She pointed to the instructions and sure enough it said to airdry! So I may have been using the starsan incorrectly.

I stopped using it anyhow because of this and just use cheap bleach and plenty of rinsing now.

yeastinfection · Oct 27, 2016

interesting and slightly worrying ,
how do you *oven* your bottles?

dad_of_jon · Oct 27, 2016

yeastinfection said:
interesting and slightly worrying ,
how do you *oven* your bottles?

I do 8 bottles on 2 shelves for 45 mins at gas mark 6.

this may be overkill, but I leave the kitchen door open and it sometimes saves the central heating from coming on. - win-win.

Personal91 · Oct 27, 2016

JRTurner1234 said:
Yup, somewhat ironically, Starsan was the vector! Starsan is fantastic for killing bacteria, but ineffective against wild yeast...

did you sanitise your bottle caps tho ! I wash my bottle caps with no rinse solution before capping as to eliminate the risk from the caps itself

if you clean your bottles why not do the caps aswell.......:whistle:

JRTurner1234 · Oct 28, 2016

Personal91 said:
did you sanitise your bottle caps tho ! I wash my bottle caps with no rinse solution before capping as to eliminate the risk from the caps itself

if you clean your bottles why not do the caps aswell.......:whistle:

Caps get Starsan.

Is this classed as an off flavour???

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

Regular.

Landlord.

Regular.

Well-Known Member

Member

Chairman of the Bored

Well-Known Member

Landlord.

Regular.

Landlord.

Beer designer

Geek

Forum Friend

Landlord.

Regular.

Regular.

Landlord.

Beer designer

Landlord.

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Join the conversation!

Join today and get all the highlights of this community direct to your inbox. It's FREE!