Persistent nightmare

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In your previous thread on this, as well as one possible cause being the yeast I also said sulphur tastes/smell can be caused by bacteria infection. By the sheer persistence of the taste over a number of brews and the fact you've used different yeasts leads me to suspect this might be the cause. Have you tried to eliminate bateria infection as a cause.

Infections/microbes can be bleedin' persistant because there so resiliant - If bacteria weren't so resilient/persistant there wouldn't be any life on earth which is good in general but bad for the HBer. Bacteria can form a 'biofilm' which if you don't thoroughly clean your kit they can hid under and use to resist sanisers like star san. Bacteria can also survive being boiled. While the bacteria themselves are killed there spores aren't so they can regrow.

If I was you I'd take the nuclear option to try to rule out a bacteria infection.

Replace all the plastic kit you are able to afford to. Then with your remaining kit you need to firstly thoroughly clean it, attacking the problem from more than one direction. a) Elbow grease - scrub everything extremely thouroughly.I'd doesn't really matter what you use. A scouring sponge and washing up liquid will do.Its the scrubbing itself which is effective.If your biab pot has a tap remove it and take it apart. From what I've read this is a notorious area for grime to build up and therefore bacteria. b) Chemical cleaning - soak everything in oxyclean. Oxyclean is good at cleaning away biological matter - 1tsp/5L for 40 mins then rinse thoroughly

Santising

Star san is good but I'm not sure it kills 'everything' It doesn't seem to effect wild yeast for example. You need to go to DefCon-1.
Again I would suggest a two pronged attack. Firstly heat. If you can fit it in your oven and it wont melt, 150C for 20-30mins should do the job. Everything else boil (in your brew pot) if necessary for 15 -20 mins.

As mentioned bacteria spores can survive boiling so time for the chemical attack - Bleach. Get some of that 29p thin bleach you can get from the supermarket. 100ml/2L is a good strong solution. Soak everything for 20 mins and rinse throughly.

I've had wild yeast infections twice (through my own carelessness) and got rid of them both time using the above 'two pronged attack'
 
Thanks guys, will try MyQul's suggestion above.

I only have the lid on while heating the water, and of course the mash, as well as bringing up to the boil, as soon as boiling is reached I remove it. My element is pretty clean when the boil is over, I clean it with soda crystals and maybe some lemon juice to remove any stubborn **** if required.

I did used to do kits with no issues, the first time it happened was in my first extract brew, I got the Way to Amarillo extract kit as well as Irish Red Ale kit from Brewuk, it happened with the WTA but not with the Irish Ale.

I've not removed the tap on my buffalo, it would just be my luck that it will leak when I replace it but I should get to removing it and cleaning it. This instance of it occurring is in a new FV though, so it might lead to it being somewhere else.

As said, I think I need to go nuclear on it.

Will report back with my results on my next brew day.
 
I think it's infection too. Just one thing, don't use anything abrasive in plastics, you don't want any scratching whatsoever. And nothing acidic that may attack the surface of the plastic. Bleach is good, thin household bleach in water, very effective.
 
clibit is right, don't use anything abrasive on plastic. Sorry forgot to mention that. tbh I just use a J cloth, washing up liquid and plenty of elbow grease when I clean my FV
 
I'm going to deep clean everything, as well as the bleach we've got one of those Vax steam cleaners. There's an attachment on there that I can use which won't be abrasive, so can use that on the fvs.
 
The steam cleaner sounds a good idea to clean everything although I'd still use one of the other two cleaning methods just to make sure.
I'm unsure whether the microbes need a sustained contact time with heat to kill them (although I suspect they do else the standard advise to boil water for 15 mins would't be 15 mins it would just be bring to the boil wouldn't it) which wouldn't happen with a steam cleaners so you may still want to boil/oven things as well as bleach them, although bleach is very effective.

good luck
 
Yep, it's going to be steam as well as the bleach. Hopefully will kill everything in sight.
 
You mentioned early on that you think it could be yeast - as its from a brewery, did you research what the cell count is? Its really easy to underpitch with yeast from a brewery because I would guess they arent washing it (ie concentrating it), and they may be just top cropping which would mean that whilst its very viable and healthy it will be diluted with beer...just a though!

I would throw away the plastic bucket you have and get a new one for the cost, and try a dry yeast or ready liquid just to rule everything out.

Good luck and dont quit.
 
To be honest, I never looked at the cell count, didn't really give it a thought as it was new in my brewing career, I just thought that yeast was yeast, I know differently now though. They told me they top crop their yeast, but I let it settle and poured off the beer before pitching what I thought was the right amount.

I have tried different yeasts with the same problem, so after further thought I now think it is more likely to be an infection and not the yeast. I've read other threads about people who have underpitched and none have mentioned this taste/smell.

I also think it is not in the FV, as I've used different FVs with the same effect, so it must be something inbetween boiling and transferring the wort to the FV. I think it is either the jug I was using, plastic and not in the best condition, or the sieve which was a cheapy and not stainless steel. Both have been disposed of now and other equipment is sitting in a bucket of bleach solution. I mistakenly thought that as I was transferring into the FV while it was still hot it would kill anything, as well as giving it a spray with starsan. Thinking about it I let it cool so I can add flameout hops so it wouldn't have been hot enough to kill any nasties.
 
I don't syphon until I bottle. I had thought of that but I used the tap on my buffalo to transfer to the jug, then poured it in the FV.

The effect is there before I come to bottle so at that time it hasn't even touched the syphon.
 
OK, just a thought. Once the beer has started cooling after the boil, don't let any body parts touch it. Or a pig's head, for that matter. :thumb:
 
Great. Sounds like you are getting sorted. Just a thought but bleach can cause off flavours even when rinced well. It took me a while to realise that after rinsing with water the residue would run back down the walls. I now use brewery sanitizer product just to eliminate that problem.
 
I've not had that problem. I used 4 ml thin bleach per litre of water, and rinsed well.
 
One thing that may or may not be relevant is about leaving the lid on while boiling. I've read that this is a bad idea and can lead to nasties dripping back into the beer.
 
The lid is only on while mashing and coming to the boil, the whole 90 min boil the lid is on the counter :-)
 
One thing that may or may not be relevant is about leaving the lid on while boiling. I've read that this is a bad idea and can lead to nasties dripping back into the beer.

Anything that fell into the boil would be killed. You need to leave the lid off as part of the reason for the boil is to drive off unwanted compounds that can possible cause off flavours in your beer
 
Bottled one of the two brews that I had done recently with no off flavours at all :-D Was a Ghost Ship clone and tasted bloody good. Very relieved as I have filled an easy keg to give to my BIL for Xmas so would've had to think of something else to give if it hadn't worked!

Tipped the other brew away, absolutely stank of the struck matches etc. Washed out the FV and filled it with bleach solution and will leave it in there for a little while.

Made a pseudo-lager today, and as I know the FV that had the Ghost Ship came out ok, I am using that to brew the lager. This is for my other BIL so hoping this one turns out ok as well. Currently sitting in the fridge getting down to 14 degrees before I pitch the yeast.

Every single piece of plastic I own has been soaked in bleach and rinsed thoroughly so hopefully I've put a stop to it for now, but I have realised I may have been a bit haphazard with my cleaning/sanitising so have vowed to put a lot more effort into it from now on. Got a spare bucket with bleach solution so when not in use I will leave things in there.

Thanks for all the advice in here, I will update with how the lager gets on, it will either be a success story, or a post in the classifieds selling my fridges and boiler!
 
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