Off flavour

[Jakeyboi]

hey all,

I've just tasted my latest beer, and it has an off flavour which I have had a few times in the past. I've never managed to pinpoint the problem. I believe it's either chlorine based, yeast stress, or temp fluctuations endused. I may be wrong. I ended up with 4 bottles after kegging, if there is anyone out there that thinks they could help identify this off flavour I would greatly appreciate the help. If anyone is willing please pm me and I will get a bottle sent out.

Thanks

Jake

 

[BeerCat]

You can send me a bottle but i wont be drinking all of it. :) I have had a lot of funny tasting beers in the past and my guess is it's most likely yeast stress. I have not had any badly fermented beer since i started using yeast nutrient, always pitched more than one pack of yeast or large starter and controlled the temps.
I have not changed my sanitising so that was not the cause. I know the band aid taste only too well though. If you search beer off flavours there is quite a lot of info.
I don't use tap water so mine were never chlorine related. I think you can even get away with temp swings as long as you use enough yeast.

 

[Sadfield]

Might be worth popping to your local brewery with a bottle and ask them to take a taste. Most brewers are usually quite keen to give advice, in my experience, and you might get to nosey around whilst your there.

 

[Jabo1428]

You can send me a bottle but i wont be drinking all of it. :) I have had a lot of funny tasting beers in the past and my guess is it's most likely yeast stress. I have not had any badly fermented beer since i started using yeast nutrient, always pitched more than one pack of yeast or large starter and controlled the temps.
I have not changed my sanitising so that was not the cause. I know the band aid taste only too well though. If you search beer off flavours there is quite a lot of info.
I don't use tap water so mine were never chlorine related. I think you can even get away with temp swings as long as you use enough yeast.

Where do you get your water?

 

[dad_of_jon]

I have had a lot of bad batches recently; very disappointing. I sanitise everything for each brew. Started treating water by boiling it for a while and adding a campden tablet to remove chlorine as suggested in a different thread. Still getting problems. Was going to try bottled water next as part of the elimination process but that might get expensive and unnecessary. Would it be worth increasing the yeast? I usually brew about 20 litres and pitch one packet of yeast, following the instructions on the packet. On the verge of giving up and selling the kit as it's getting really frustrating.

if it's a medicinal tcp taste then chlorine is the top suspect, but the campden tablet should remove that. using bottled water (chase spring) at 17p a bottle is going to cost £1.84 for 22 litres. one packet of yeast rehydrated will be fine. do you suck syphon if transferring to bottling bucket? A hot alcohol taste is normally caused by fermenting yeast at too high a temp but it varies depending on the yeast used. It's also possible you need to up your sanitizing regime.

 

[Dads_Ale]

So a fellow home brewer at work has has similar issues recently. Even though he swore blind he hadn't changed anything and his sanitation regime was spot on these are the things we found wrong:

Incorrect water treatment. Misreading values and adding twice as much acid than needed.
Mold build up in the bubble wrapped temp probe in the brew fridge.

And what we think was the main culprit:
crud build up in his FV taps. These are the 3 piece type ones where the tap unit can rotate. Beer can seep between the two joining ridges and cannot be removed without the tap being spilt apart. This is fairly easy with a swift tap form a socket extension and hammer. A bit of lube when reassembling helps prevent this in future.

In fact crud can build up in most taps even though you think you have flushed them through. Always worth a bit of disassembly now ant then to check.

 

[Jabo1428]

The problem, when it occurs, is always in the first fermentation. Before brewing I run boiling, or very hot water through the system, use Star San as directed and rinse everything with hot water. After the boil it goes through a heat exchanger (I run a little boiling wort through first and discard) into a sanitised bucket. Yeast in, lid on and leave. Opened bucket yesterday and could tell straight away that it was off. There had been no interaction or interference to contaminate it since it went in the bucket. I have had some excellent brews and this problem is really bugging me as I'm sure I do the same every time.

 

[The Baron]

Do you think a new FV may be the next thing as it could be harbouring bacteria which can get in small scratches through use even though you think it is clean.

 

[Jakeyboi]

I have a feeling that I used vwp on the fv for this brew. Anyway I sent a bottle off so let's see what's made of it. I had a friend round who had tasted my beers before that had this taste, he said he couldn't taste it... and that he thought it was really nice. The flavour is definitely not as bad as before, maybe I'm paranoid.

 

[Drunkula]

I've had the same thing happen. I took beers to a party and could taste the vinyl taste in my beers and thought they were pretty rank and people were scoring them 7 and 8 out of 10, even strangers and I always ask for brutal honesty. You definitely get more tuned in to the badness and maybe can taste it when it's faded past others' perception levels. I definitely get that with chlor(am)ine now, and I never used to. It's ruined even having a cup of bloody tea some places.