Help!!!! Coopers bitter has a strong taste of iodine

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nivaguk

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Hi,

I brewed a coopers English bitter 3 months ago( my second batch at brewing it) the first batch was brilliant, a nice colour and body with a decent head and a nice taste.

With it being so nice I decided to make another batch but something has gone wrong. I made my second batch exactly the same as the first batch, everything was sanitised using milton liquid in the same way with plenty and I mean plenty of rinsing.

It was in the fermenter for 4 weeks and has been in the bottle for 8 weeks, I did a taste test before I bottled it any everything tasted the same as the first batch, so I had a bottle of it last night and it has a very strong smell and taste of iodine. Will this taste go with more bottling time or is it ruined?

I am using coopers PET bottles they have bens used a few times before so could it be that the bottles can only be used so many times.

Thanks for your help:tank:
 
I say the "Milton liquid" must be an iodine based sanitizer like Idophor. that stuff must not have rinsed out of everything real well. I bet that's what you're tasting. Maybe you thought you rinsed everything well,& didn't or forgot something. I like that Cooper's English bitter myself,& never encountered an iodine flavor/smell. I use Starsan,a wet sanitizer that's no rinse. Switch to that & I bet the problem goes away. It's got to be the Milton liquid.
 
I say the "Milton liquid" must be an iodine based sanitizer like Idophor. that stuff must not have rinsed out of everything real well. I bet that's what you're tasting. Maybe you thought you rinsed everything well,& didn't or forgot something. I like that Cooper's English bitter myself,& never encountered an iodine flavor/smell. I use Starsan,a wet sanitizer that's no rinse. Switch to that & I bet the problem goes away. It's got to be the Milton liquid.

Hi unionrdr.

Milton liquid is a no rinse solution but I always rinse anyway and it doesn't contain iodine so I can't see that being the problem.
 
Hi


Is it effecting all bottles or just the one you tasted? Could it be contamination of one or two of the bottles?
 
I say the "Milton liquid" must be an iodine based sanitizer like Idophor. that stuff must not have rinsed out of everything real well. I bet that's what you're tasting. Maybe you thought you rinsed everything well,& didn't or forgot something. I like that Cooper's English bitter myself,& never encountered an iodine flavor/smell. I use Starsan,a wet sanitizer that's no rinse. Switch to that & I bet the problem goes away. It's got to be the Milton liquid.

Milton's is a chlorine sanitizer. No iodine in it.

I also like the Cooper's EB and have used both tap and RO water.. RO was better, but no Iodine in any of them??????

bosco
 
So I think its safe to say that the sanitiser Isn't the cause here so what could it be. I don't want to start a new batch untill I can work out what's caused it
 
Clean everything (bottles to when the time comes) with a cleanser like Oxy-clean (unscented) or use the Cooper's cleanser... Rinse well with hot water and use a sanitizer like Starsan.

Buy 23 liters of distilled water or RO water (you do not need added salts when using a Cooper's extract kit) and give it another try.

Best of luck.

bosco
 
The iodine wouldn't come from any kind of water. I use local spring water For all brewing now. The yeasties seem to love it. I hate that Cooper's cleaner. Used it once,still have the bottle. It smells like bleach water to me & has to be well rinsed with lots of hot water. I swear by PBW to clean with & Starsan for a no rinse sanitizer. PBW can clean anything in the right concentration. PBW rinses off easilly. What else do you use in your process? It's got to be something you're missing.
 
The iodine wouldn't come from any kind of water. I use local spring water For all brewing now. The yeasties seem to love it. I hate that Cooper's cleaner. Used it once,still have the bottle. It smells like bleach water to me & has to be well rinsed with lots of hot water. I swear by PBW to clean with & Starsan for a no rinse sanitizer. PBW can clean anything in the right concentration. PBW rinses off easilly. What else do you use in your process? It's got to be something you're missing.

My process is as follows,

Day before bottle day fill each bottle with Milton liquid and leave for 30 mins empty and rinse (no need to rinse but I do) put on a bottle tree for 24 hours, the day before brew day put 2 litres of Milton in the fermenter and shake for 10 mins and clean with a clean rag, on brew day I clean my brewing pot with Milton with a cloth. Do my brew and 3 weeks later I bottle ( in the 3 weeks between bottle cleaning and bottle day the bottles are in a air tight container) so I can't see anything getting in the bottles. So i am baffled as to what has cause this problem.
 
My process is as follows,

Day before bottle day fill each bottle with Milton liquid and leave for 30 mins empty and rinse (no need to rinse but I do) put on a bottle tree for 24 hours, the day before brew day put 2 litres of Milton in the fermenter and shake for 10 mins and clean with a clean rag, on brew day I clean my brewing pot with Milton with a cloth. Do my brew and 3 weeks later I bottle ( in the 3 weeks between bottle cleaning and bottle day the bottles are in a air tight container) so I can't see anything getting in the bottles. So i am baffled as to what has cause this problem.

ok,first of all,you shouldn't rinse a no-rinse sanitizer. That negates any sanitization effects you had. And the airtight container has air in it,so if anything was in said air,it gets into the bottles over the 3 weeks they're sitting there. Not to mention what was in the water when you rinsed the sanitizer off.No need to sanitize the BK,since it'll have boiling liquid in it.
Don't use a cloth to wipe the sanitizer off anything,especially no-rinse ones. They're typically wet contact sanitizers.
 
I'm thinking chlorophinols. All that rinsing the sanitizer with tap water could likely be it. Besides any chlorine like chemicals in the sanitizer,like that Cooper's stuff I mentioned earlier. If you can get some Starsan,try that. It's a wet contact,no rinse santizer that's acid based. So that would elliminate one possible source of chlorine based problems.
 
Ah. That could just be it. Different source,different amounts of chlorine. Or worse,the new source could have chloromines,which can't be boiled out. you gotta use campden tabs for that.
 
Ah. That could just be it. Different source,different amounts of chlorine. Or worse,the new source could have chloromines,which can't be boiled out. you gotta use campden tabs for that.

Campden tabs are top of my list to buy. I can start looking forward to starting my next batch without worrying how it will turn out
 
I think that's the best course of action at this point. And don't sanitize things that'll touch the beer till right before they're used. Including the bottles. That should take care of that possibility as well,just to be sure. Sanitizers don't last that long on surfaces to start with.
 
Thanks for all the help I'll let you know how my next batch turns out in about 6 weeks
 

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