band aid beer

well, I tried my band aid ale last night - it's about 3 weeks old now, in the bottle for a week. the bad band aid flavor is still there, but I was able to suffer through a half bottle before giving up - so either the flavor is getting better, or it's killed my taste buds. At this rate, I might be able to actually drink some of it ... someday...

sad thing is that it's a beautiful beer - nice head, clear, light tan. a good effort...on the visuals at least.

Have you identified the cause yet? You are using to much bleach, change your procedures so this doesn't happen to the next batch. More info can be found in how to brew by John Plamer.

The cause are various phenols which are initially produced by the yeast. Chlorophenols result from the reaction of chlorine-based sanitizers (bleach) with phenol compounds and have very low taste thresholds. Rinsing with boiled water after sanitizing is the best way to prevent these flavors.

I had this problem with an AG batch back a few months. I had a Styrofoam taste that was nasty ( think campfire with a Styrofoam cooler thrown on top ). I attributed it to too much chlorine sanitizer.

Switched to Star San. No problems now.

Yes, the most recent two batches are made w/o using any bleach - but they are also ME beers rather than PM's. Since I"m going on vacation for 2 weeks, It will be another month before I narrow down what the issue was, but I suspect it was either:

1) bleach

or

2) maybe hot-side aeration(?) or some other issue w/the mash. maybe not pitching fast enough?

never had a bleach issue before, so not sure yet...

Just remember when using bleach you only need 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of bleach for an entire 5 gallon carboy. The best solution is 1/4 cup of bleach and 1/4 cup of distilled vinegar to 5 gallons of water, kills nasties in less than 30 seconds and is mostly tasteless.

I believe that the band aid flavor can come from excess bleach or from infections.

1/4 cup bleach in 5g water is much to much.
Mixing bleach with vinegar is dangerous.

From the complete joy of homebrewing:

"Never mix acids, ammonia or anything else for that matter whith chlorinated cleaners."

"For homebrewers, and effective sanitizing solution can be prepared by mixing 1/3 - 1 1/2 teaspoons (3 - 10 ml) of household bleach in 5 gallons of cold water. This mixture will yield chlorine in solution at 5 - 25 ppm - an effective sanitizer with a 1/2 - 1 hour soak, immersion, or contact with clean equipment."

That's much closer to the rate I used to use before I switched to no rinse sanitizers.

hot side aeration should be a stale taste...a lack of flavor even...not a pronounced band aid taste.

and hot side aeration is very uncommon in the home brewery. You'd have to pour hot wort back and forth between two vessels to cause it...and it wouldn't do damage immediately but instead screws up the long term stability of the beer.

It's possible I had a bacterial infection, or maybe it was the bleach.

I've switched from bleach, and will have to do another PM batch to see if I've ironed out the "bugs"..

glad to hear that I probably don't have a hot-side issue.

to sum up - changes I've made to my method to make sure this does not happen again:

1) switched from bleach to star-san
2) been more anal about sanitizing
3) preboiled and chilled top up water
4) cooled the wort as fast as I can and pitched ASAP

I don't have a wort chiller, but do an ice bath in the sink with the carboy. I can chill it down in about an hour (versus about 5 hours before of just letting it sit and cool). In the future, I've figured out that I can get more of the carboy in cold water if I put it in my brew pot in the sink, hopefully this will reduce my cooling time further. Maybe I could even drape a wet towel around the top of it as well.

Had a funny thought about getting a small motorcycle radiator and using it as a wort chiller. Anyone know if that would work? Probably still cheaper to buy a real wort chiller, LOL.

tranceamerica said:

Had a funny thought about getting a small motorcycle radiator and using it as a wort chiller. Anyone know if that would work? Probably still cheaper to buy a real wort chiller, LOL.

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That would be a food safe motorcycle radiator would it?
I would think a wort chiller would be much cheaper

tranceamerica said:

well, I tried my band aid ale last night - it's about 3 weeks old now, in the bottle for a week. the bad band aid flavor is still there, but I was able to suffer through a half bottle before giving up - so either the flavor is getting better, or it's killed my taste buds. At this rate, I might be able to actually drink some of it ... someday...

sad thing is that it's a beautiful beer - nice head, clear, light tan. a good effort...on the visuals at least.

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A week in the bottle is way to early to determine final taste. Your saying 3 weeks from boil till drinking?? That's what hell of a green beer.

I too have made a band aid beer. Never used any bleach in anything. Just Idaphore. It got infected some how and never got better. Left that crap in the keg for at least 3 months and it got worse in my opinion. It's to bad too, i had tried my hand a making a Phin and Matts extrodinary ale and used a crap load o styrians in there. Wish I had those back!

Gruntled said:

That would be a food safe motorcycle radiator would it?
I would think a wort chiller would be much cheaper

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yeah, I'll run down to the combination motorcycle repair shop and resturant supply house =) he he he .

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

A week in the bottle is way to early to determine final taste. Your saying 3 weeks from boil till drinking?? That's what hell of a green beer.

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well, now I'm out of the country for 2 weeks, so I'll have another go at it when I get back. It'll be about a month old when I get back I suppose...worth another sip anyway

I too have a "band aid" ale on tap, my 3rd one as a fairly new brewer. Trying to pin it down seems everyone talks about Phenol factor and the water being used. I only use bottle spring water, clean with starsan but have just read that i should rinse AFTER cleaning. I thought that starsan was a no rinse and the last thing that should touch the vessel.

Anyway sharing my 2 cents as i search for an answer of my own. Have a cool Switchback Ale in my keg cant bring myself to dump a 3rd on (in past few months). I would like to know..is is BAD for you. I can probably drink through it in the interest of "committing to the brew" but don't want to poison myself.

The brew is perfect in every other way, color, head , clarity. Just that dreaded "band aid" smell and taste that has caused me to dump 3 times now. It KILLS me i hate it.

New to the forum on a quest for saving a good brew.

Don't forget chloramines from city tap water as another source of band-aid.

naplesbrew said:

. . . clean with starsan but have just read that i should rinse AFTER cleaning. I thought that starsan was a no rinse and the last thing that should touch the vessel.

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Starsan is a sanitizer, not a cleaner, clean with hot water and PBW or Oxyclean and rinse thoroughly. Sanitize with starsan and do NOT rinse.

I'm not sure how this would contribute to the chlorophenol/bandaid flavor though.

This "band aid" flavor is a also a by-product of fermentation. Belgian yeasts and such will produce.

Naplesbrew, I see you have revived an old thread.

I had several early batches with off-flavors. My thoughts about your post:

- If you have already tasted it, and didn't die, then you will probably live.
- It sounds like you have probably eliminated water as the culprit - as long as the bottled water you used was NOT distilled (yeast need minerals to thrive).
- Try using a good dry yeast like Safale US-05 (you might use 2 pkg until you have nailed down your problem).
- Make sure your fermentation temperature is as stable as possible, and optimal for your yeast. For the Safale, you might try for 68 - 72 degrees. You can put your carboy or bucket in a water bath & add ice packs as needed to maintain a stable temperature.
- Use a known good recipe.

For me, the solution was changing the yeast. I would be interested in knowing what your find out once you get a good brew.

Thanks for the information. I have used distilled bottled water in the past but now use only bottled spring water. Temps i have controlled in a keezer that i made pretty solid at 68 degrees or whatever i set it at.

This problem occurred with several different types of yeast (all ales) so figure i could rule that out but could be wrong. First was a Magic Hat Clone, the next was an Orange something right after the Magic Hat. At that time i was experimenting with cleaning with diluted bleach and after reading several articles on the band-aid flavor topic, thought i had pinned it down to left over bleach residue in my vessels.

That said I dumped cleaning with anything and just use hot water followed by starsan. I have PBX cleaner also but now paranoid about using any cleaner thinking this is my culprit.

I have read mixed input regarding starsan...some people say that starsan should be the last thing that touches the vessel. Other say, as a fix to the band-aid thing to rinse AFTER starsan with boiled water. Any thoughts there?

My local supplier suggested that this could be a Chlorimine issue. Although i use bottled water only, when i clean i use my house tap water through a hose (no more hose after he told me that). Anyway 2 thoughts here. One he said to add a tiny pinch of potassium metabisulfate to my brewing water to react out any Chloromine.

Also to add a pinch to my starsan water to rule out any that is introduced by my cleaning water. I dont know much about potassium metabisulfate except what he told me you think it is safe to add to my brew water or do i need to since i use only bottled?

I am pretty thorough about my cleaning and environment but i could be missing something maybe the hose water since it is the last thing that touches my vessel. All i know is i am tired of dumping my good beer that i worked so hard to make so on a mission to figure this out.

Currently i am hanging on to my Switchback which is kegged already in hopes that after a week or so it will settle down. I will let you know.

Oh you mentioned adding double dry yeast. Would that help with a Chloromine contamination you think?
Any and all comments welcome.
Thanks

Do not rinse Starsan. That is not the culprit and that defeats the purpose of starsan. If you are concerned with chloramines, drop 1/4 of a campden tablet (which is potassium metabisulfate) into your 5 gallon batch at the start. Skip the bleach.

Ive had two batched that this happened. It wasbecause I fermented to hot. Stupid winter brewing and having to keep it in a office that gets hot at night. All batched that were controlled properly didnt have problems.

The potassium metabisulfate i have is in powder form so a pinch i can do. I start my brews with 2-2.5 gal of water usually so half a pinch when heating up my initial brew water in all recipies is a could practice?

naplesbrew said:

The potassium metabisulfate i have is in powder form so a pinch i can do. I start my brews with 2-2.5 gal of water usually so half a pinch when heating up my initial brew water in all recipies is a could practice?

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I use it in mine to remove the chloramines. I think I read about it in a BYO article. A pinch seems to do the trick.