AZWyatt

Recipes 

I've had like four batches that I don't want to share with anyone because they've all got a serious cardboard taste to them. I used to be using the Mr Beer fermenter as my primary, then 'racking' (without tubing) to 1-gallon jugs as my secondary. That went very well for the first two batches, then the beer started to develop that cardboard taste so I went to the standard 5-gallon setup with 5-gal glass carboy secondaries. I now use tubing for all my racking as well.

And now that I've done that, I STILL have a cardboard taste in my beer. I even got a bottle filler to avoid aeration during bottle filling. I figured that, with the bottle filler, I could set the bottling bucket spigot on full-blast while bottling. Is this a mistake? Do most of you all set the bottling bucket spigot to a very low setting when bottling to avoid aeration? Do most of you pinch the tubing while racking to secondary to make sure the turbulence doesn't aerate it?

Or is it even an aeration issue? Could I be over-aerating when I pour my cooled wort into my primary? Could I be introducing too much air when I rack to the secondary? I make sure the tube is submerged as soon as there's enough beer in the secondary to submerge it. I just don't know what else I could be doing wrong! Could that taste be due to an infection? It doesn't taste sour, like most infections do, just heavily cardboard-y.

PLEASE HELP! I seriously don't want to explain to my friends again why I'm not sharing any of my beer with them.

Biermann

Recipes 

Hmm. . .sounds like a good case of oxidation to me.

First off, ditch the Mr. Beer. Invest in a carboy or BB. Then get an autosiphon.

As a general rule, rack with minimal disturbance, and bottle with a low flow. The more turbulance, and the faster the flow, the higher the risk of oxidation.

If you have a carboy, you could eventually even invest in a carboy cap, a CO2 tank, and transfer under CO2, which would virtually eliminate the problem.

Anyway, take a look at your procedure--I'm sure you're introducing way too much Oxygen/Air during racking and bottling.

Cheers.

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brewt00l

Recipes 

OP: How long are the bottles sitting before they develop the off flavor?

If your first 2 batches in the mr.beer didn't have this flavor then the next 2 did, what changed? What does this have in common with the 2 off flavored batches in the new gear?

malkore

Recipes 

on my bottle bucket, I only open the spigot about 60-70%

any more and I feel like I'm aerating the first inch of beer in each bottle.

also what are you using for a sanitizer?

__________________
Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
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AZWyatt

Recipes 

I've already ditched the Mr. Beer--that's why I'm confused--even with a bottling bucket, glass secondary carboy, autosiphon, tubing and a bottle filler I'm still getting the cardboard taste.

How do you rack with minimal disturbance? The beer flows freely and fast when I rack it. What can I do to counteract that? I just bought a CO2 tank for kegging, so I'll definitely rack under CO2 next time.

During bottling, I figured that the bottle filler would take care of the oxidation problem and I could open up the spigot full-blast. I guess that wasn't a good idea. I'll put it at about 2/3 of full blast next time (or I'll just go to kegging).

Thanks for the help, guys!

brewt00l

Recipes 

I bottle with the spigot wide open and a wand...no issues with oxidation to date.

What about the questions I posed?

AZWyatt

Recipes 

The off flavor isn't present when I'm bottling so far as I can tell, but it's there as soon as carbonation develops, 1-2 weeks later. I suppose this would indicate that the aeration is happening during bottling.

I'm not sure what changed. Hardly anything, really. The only thing I can think of for sure is that, at first with the Mr. Beer, I used filtered tap and store-bought water. I changed to filtered tap and reverse-osmosis water with added yeast nutrient when the cardboard taste popped up, but I have no idea how that would possibly affect it.

As for sanitizer, I was using One Step. This last batch I used One-Step for the tubing and autosiphon and used iodophor for the fermenters.

gman

Recipes 

How are you cleaning the bottles?

Are you just rinsing really well and then sanitizing (works if you rinse as soon as you use the bottle)? Or are you washing them with soap of some kind?

What color are the bottles? Etc etc...

AZWyatt

Recipes 

The bottles I just rinse really well right after using, then drain and keep on the bottle tree until I sanitize and re-use. As for the carboys, I rinse, rinse thoroughly with soap, scrub if necessary, rinse again and then sanitize. The bottles are mostly amber, a few green. No difference in taste between the colors.

brewt00l

Recipes 

If the brewing water is the only variable that corresponds to the flavor change, the first thing I would do is brew a batch with store bought spring water w/o the nutrient. If the taste goes away, you have found the answer.

It sounds like your santization techniques are prb up to par. I used onestep for a while but got tired of the cost & switched to starsan.