This hobby can be frustrating sometimes

My last two batches of Pale Ale have gone south on me. Both have had this nasty, soapy taste(Autolysis Maybe??) that only gets worse with time. I had one a couple weeks ago, and it was very noticable. Then I had one last night and it just about made me puke. I'm attributing it to bad yeast. I washed some WLP004 a while back and I've used it in both batches. The first time I thought it just fermented too warm, but now I'm pretty sure it yeast. BUT...I've used that same yeast in my Oatmeal Stout and it came out excellent, I'm thinking that the issue is there but the Roasted Barley is masking it.

Anyhow, just frustrated and felt like venting a little. I should have chucked the yeast after the first bad batch. Saving 7 bones isn't worth a bad batch, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Instead of saving yeast and introducing more variables, you CAN still use the same yeast cake... just rack a new brew ON it the same day or day after you rack the other beer OFF it.... I do that a lot.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

My last two batches of Pale Ale have gone south on me. Both have had this nasty, soapy taste(Autolysis Maybe??) that only gets worse with time. I had one a couple weeks ago, and it was very noticable. Then I had one last night and it just about made me puke. I'm attributing it to bad yeast. I washed some WLP004 a while back and I've used it in both batches. The first time I thought it just fermented too warm, but now I'm pretty sure it yeast. BUT...I've used that same yeast in my Oatmeal Stout and it came out excellent, I'm thinking that the issue is there but the Roasted Barley is masking it.

Anyhow, just frustrated and felt like venting a little. I should have chucked the yeast after the first bad batch. Saving 7 bones isn't worth a bad batch, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Click to expand...

Don't blame autolysis. You can't really experience off flavors from bottle conditioning and unless you let your beer sit in primary for several months. What I'm thinking is that your one jar of yeast was infected. You washed it and then pitched it into two beers. One was infected, one wasn't. Somewhere along the line, that jar got messed up.

If it's only frustrating "sometimes", then you ain't brewin' often enuff.

The Pol said:

Instead of saving yeast and introducing more variables, you CAN still use the same yeast cake... just rack a new brew ON it the same day or day after you rack the other beer OFF it.... I do that a lot.

Click to expand...

yeah, I actually just did that for the first time a few weeks and it worked well.

I think I'm going to look into what it would take to do some culturing using slants.

carnevoodoo said:

Don't blame autolysis. You can't really experience off flavors from bottle conditioning and unless you let your beer sit in primary for several months. What I'm thinking is that your one jar of yeast was infected. You washed it and then pitched it into two beers. One was infected, one wasn't. Somewhere along the line, that jar got messed up.

Click to expand...

Autolysis was just a thought, because of the soapy taste, but I understand what you are saying.

I was looking back through my brewing records, and found that I harvested all this yeast from a batch that fermented really warm, and had this same bad taste. So I guess whatever happened to that first batch, carried over into this batch via the yeast.

So I open up the first bottle from another batch tonight, and it has the same horrible,overpowering off flavor. The first thing that comes to mind is Soapy, but then after a second it goes to Band aid like/Medicinal taste.

I'm ruling out Yeast now, because it was two different yeasts strains, though both were washed. I'm thinking I might have an infection in my Primary, but I always give it a good soak in Iodophor before I rack the wort into it.

I starting using some buckets from Tractor Supply as Secondaries. They are HDPE #2 just like my Primary. It's my impression is that they are food grade, am I correct?

My fermenting temps have been pretty good lately, low to mid 60's so I should be good there.

I think my biggest problem is that I'm having a hard time explaining it, which is making it hard to diagnose. I definitely have a big problem here though, maybe I'll take a bottle down to my LHBS and see if they can help out. The woman that runs it is a certified judge. My recent history with this tells me that within the next couple of weeks this will be completely undrinkable, and I fear that everything in my pipeline might have this same issue.

There's a post somewhere that I don't even know where to start looking for that goes into solid detail about the difference betwenn HDPE #2 and food-grade HDPE #2. I believe it had to do with food-grade being more pure HDPE #2, whereas non-food-grade is just primarily HDPE #2, but can have any number f different fillers. The numbers are simply regarding how easily they're recycled and have nothing to do with whether they're food-grade.

That being said, I don't know how you could go about checking whether your buckets are food-grade or not.

*EDIT* Found the post.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/building-10-primary-fermenter-89738/index6.html#post981123

TheTower said:

There's a post somewhere that I don't even know where to start looking for that goes into solid detail about the difference betwenn HDPE #2 and food-grade HDPE #2. I believe it had to do with food-grade being more pure HDPE #2, whereas non-food-grade is just primarily HDPE #2, but can have any number f different fillers. The numbers are simply regarding how easily they're recycled and have nothing to do with whether they're food-grade.

That being said, I don't know how you could go about checking whether your buckets are food-grade or not.

*EDIT* Found the post.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/building-10-primary-fermenter-89738/index6.html#post981123

Click to expand...

Thanks for that link, that helped. I called the company(Foretex) that makes those buckets for Tractor Supply, and they said that they are food grade. I'm still suspicious of them though. I'm thinking about getting an SS pot to use as a secondary, something around 22 qts or so. And then possibly getting a 30qt or so as a primary. That would take all the guessing out of the equation.

I think my cheapness is biting me in the A$$