If one were to carefully treat their brewing and sparge water with campden tablets but clean kegs that the fermented beer was going into with water that wasn't treated with campden tablets, could that possibly result in chlorophenols? I'm asking because I have a beer suffering from chlorophenols and I did treat the brewing water. I didn't treat the water that I used to clean the kegs, so theoretically, chlorine deposits were in the keg. I never thought that was a problem since the beer going into the kegs was already fermented. Am I wrong? Or do I need to look elsewhere in m process for the culprit?
Chlorophenols Post Fermentation?
- Thread starter reuliss
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No, I don't think so. There would be so little water in there relative to the amount of beer. Now if you clean the kegs with a chlorine based cleaner and don't completely wash that out the residual cleaner can cause such effects.
I would certainly want to be very sure that any chlorine based cleaning products (or any cleaning products for that matter) were thoroughly rinsed out and, if your water does contain a lot of chlorine/chloramine, that any was thoroughly drained. Test you hypothesis by cleaning kegs with water that has been treated with Campden. If the brew water and cleaning water are both treated then clearly the source of your problem is elsewhere including possibly that the flavor you are identifying as being from chlorphenols is something else.
Thank you, AJ. From what I'm getting from you, though, it is possible to create chlorophenols post fermentation?
Also, is there any chance that rinsing my fermentor with untreated tap water would leave enough chlorine deposits to cause this problem? I'm fairly certain it's chlorophenols. The beer smells plastic and medicinal, and I get that band aid burp after taking a sip.
I highly doubt it. Unless your water dept is in the middle of flushing their system, the tap water doesn't contain enough chlorine that would make rinsing with it a problem. You made no mention of using bleach on your equipment, so I'd assume that's not an issue. Also, aren't you sanitizing both the fermenter and the kegs with StarSan prior to use?
Do you have the ability to cold lager that beer? 8-10 weeks at 35-38*F could help eliminate/reduce the off-flavors you're experiencing.
I was sitting at a bar in the Portland airport and was served a beer that reeked of chlorophenol. It turned out that the server had just cleaned the glass in a chlorine-based solution and the glass had not dried out fully. It takes incredibly little chlorine to screw up a beer.
PS: Yes, they gave me another pour of the same beer in a properly dried glass and there was no hint of chlorophenol.
PS: Yes, they gave me another pour of the same beer in a properly dried glass and there was no hint of chlorophenol.
Yes, using star san. Is that relevant, other than that it has no chlorine? Also, I've never known chlorophenols to clean up with lagering. Have you experienced that?
Yes. See #5 (if you haven't already).
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