First bad beer

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rewster451

rewster451

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Well, it finally happened. We brewed a bad beer. Some have been not so great, but this one is bad. It was supposed to be a chocolate porter, and we did it pretty much the same as the ginger chocolate porter, but without the ginger and with more chocolate.
The first problem is that we got a lot of banana from the yeast, but beyond that, I think it may have a slight infection. I can't tell though. It seems like there's a slight band-aid flavor, but it's hard to distinguish from the banana and chocolate (I know that might sound good "Mmmmm...chocolate banana," but it's not). After you drink one it kind of stops tasting terrible, but not good. And it's really not worth it to drink one.
Out of curiosity, is there a way to tell for certain that this badness is due to infection or ingredients? And what can I do to avoid that banana flavor in the future? Is it a temperature issue? It did get kind of warm here for a while, and the beer fermented mostly in the 70-74 range. The temp also went up and down a lot.
 
rewster451 said:
Well, it finally happened. We brewed a bad beer. Some have been not so great, but this one is bad. It was supposed to be a chocolate porter, and we did it pretty much the same as the ginger chocolate porter, but without the ginger and with more chocolate.
The first problem is that we got a lot of banana from the yeast, but beyond that, I think it may have a slight infection. I can't tell though. It seems like there's a slight band-aid flavor, but it's hard to distinguish from the banana and chocolate (I know that might sound good "Mmmmm...chocolate banana," but it's not). After you drink one it kind of stops tasting terrible, but not good. And it's really not worth it to drink one.
Out of curiosity, is there a way to tell for certain that this badness is due to infection or ingredients? And what can I do to avoid that banana flavor in the future? Is it a temperature issue? It did get kind of warm here for a while, and the beer fermented mostly in the 70-74 range. The temp also went up and down a lot.
Click to expand...

the banana flavor is often due to high temps (or certain yeasts like hefeweizen strains). I had an IPA that fermented in ambient temps of about 75°F and it tasted like bananas. This tastes comes from esters that the yeast produce. Higher temp = more esters.

The Band-Aid flavor (from what I have read) comes from phenols. Phenols are produced by the yeast, but (from what I know) have nothing to do with temperature. Chlorine can combine with the phenols to produce chlorophenols. The use of bleach without adequate rinsing can result in this nasty flavor.

Did you use bleach?

Bottom line, I don't think you have an infection, but a temp problem and perhaps a pseudo-sanitation issue (not unclean, but unrinsed.)
 
when you say chocolate, do you mean actual chocolate or the chocolate malt? too much speciality grains can leave the harsher flavors you are describing as well. it may mellow with time, or it may not.
 
I agree with Imperial Walker. The banana flavors are usually caused by fermenting too high and the band aid flavor is caused by using bleach and not rinsing properly. The band aid flavor can also come from your tap water if you are not using a carbon block filter to remove the chlorine.
 
Which yeast strain did you use? Some strains really brew bad beer at higher temperatures. I had a batch with WLP028 Edinbrough at about 70-72 that I threw out. It tasted much like you describe.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
The bleach would contribute a vinegar-like bitterness.:mad:
Click to expand...

An infection would contribute vinegar like bitterness, bleach reacts to create a medicinal flavour.

I wouldnt give up on it yet, i've heard people describing young beers in that manner thinking they had a problem. Consider putting it aside for another month then make your mind up.
 
Thanks for the input. We used actual chocolate, and some chocolate malt, but not a ton of either. I think we used 10 oz. of unsweetened chocolate, and maybe 4 oz. of chocolate malt. We sanitize with iodophor and don't use a ton of that either. We also brew with distilled water and gypsum and irish moss to fool around with the water chemistry to get it a little harder.
After giving it some time it seems like it might settle out and be ok. Not great though. I don't have my brewlog on hand, but I looked it up earlier, and the type of yeast we used was prone to banana flavors. It just didn't seem like a bad idea to have banana and chocolate when we threw the recipe together, but somehow it just doesn't work with beer.
Anyway, I'm going to let them sit for a while and see what happens.
 

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