Problem with 3 batches so far...

I've brewed about 15 extract batches with no issues, until the last 3. And I am curious if anyone here might be able to help me nail down what might be the issue. This is my first run in with bad batches.
The taste is hard to describe, slightly skunky but I can’t see any visible sign of infection, and nothing as pronounced as heinken in the sun or anything like that. It’s hard to describe since I’ve never tasted a “bad” homebrew so I’ve got nothing to work from.

A quick history:
Batch 1: Blue Moon Clone extract with White labs Wit yeast from my LHBS. Fermented for 3 weeks in primary. Airlock was bottled water used to brew.
Batch 2: Bourbon Barrel Porter extract from Midwestsupplies with White Labs English Ale. Fermented for 3 weeks in primary and 4 in secondary carboy. Airlock was bottled water used to brew.
Batch 3: Blue Moon Clone extract from Austin Homebrew with White labs Wit. Fermented for 2 weeks in primary. Airlock was star san mix

The first 2 batches had the same taste only extremely pronounced, the 3rd has the taste only less pronounced and it finishes like Blue Moon, almost exactly the same after taste as Blue Moon from a bottle.

Equipment has been different for all 3 batches. After the first 2 bad ones I got rid of my cleaner, fermenting bucket, spoon, tubes/hoses, even used it as an excuse to step up from my turkey fryer to a Penrose (which I’m loving btw).
First 2 were cleaned with oxyclean and rinsed, which I thought was the issue, so the 3rd was cleaned with PBW and all 3 were sanitized with starsan.

The water I’ve used for all 18 brews was Primo bottled 5 gallon jugs from the store, and everything is fermenting in my basement at a pretty constant 69 degrees.
With the only constants being the water and my basement, the only thing I can think that might be contributing to the bad batches is that I believe my central heat was turned on for these 3, as well as some of the older ones.

The taste and smell is there when I take it out of the fermenter so I’m not thinking it’s hoses or anything going into the kegs.

Is it possible that even though my fermenters have positive pressure (lid on the fermenter is sealed and definitely at a higher pressure than the air in the basement) dust/mold or something else is getting through my airlock to change the taste of the beer so drastically?
It’s really all I can think of that is causing off flavors.

My wife just had our second baby and I had hoped to have the Blue Moon clone ready for her to drink, and the Bourbon Barrel for me for the new addition but it failed, hence the second batch of blue moon.

I’m frustrated to the point of not wanting to try my first all grain Milk Stout I have sitting there ready to go for fear of wasting yet another batch.

If it is related to air quality, I don’t have any place else to let it ferment, any options on trying to negate the issue?

Maybe place the fermenter in a trash bag to prevent outside air from getting in? Would that even work, since less O2 would get to the fermenter?

Any advice would be appreciated, Thanks.

Sorry if i missed it, but Are your fermenters shielded from light during fermentation?

Can you describe the flavor any more? Is there an accompanying aroma?

Are you tasting at every stage of the process? When does this flavor start appearing?

you will not get outside air into the fermenter unless you are cooling the wort and have negative pressure on the airlock.

What water do you use to mix your sanitizer? If its tap water with alot of chlorine that might be an issue.

The other issue may be your 69 degree ambient temp is making your beer ferment in the mid to upper 70s if you get an aggressive fermentation.

What about your keg cleaning procedure? Did you happen to reuse the same raking cane?

Wow, replies already, I love this site.

Fermenters are not in direct sunlight at all, there is sunlight in the room. I put a sheet between the sunlight and the fermenter (it helps having the basement photo studio with back drop poles.)

Fermentation is not what I'd call violent by any stretch, a couple of bubbles in the airlock every second for the first 2-3 days and then slowing down to nothing visible after 5-6 days.

There is definitely an aroma. Again it's hard for me to describe without a frame of reference, but I'd call it slightly musky and slightly brackish, but I've never smelled anything to compare it to. With the last batch there are hints of the Blue Moon flavors coming through the off scent.

I am tasting every time I take a gravity reading, so at roughly 10 days and again at 14. It does get worse the longer the brew ferments from what I can tell. Whether it's from contamination or over worked yeast I couldn't tell. I'm only pitching one vial in both of these, like I have in the past for all my brews without any adverse results previously.

The water for the sanitizer is tap water, which is hard water, I had assumed starsan was great enough to handle it. It the same water I have used for the past 18 months without any issue. It's possible the city changed some chemistry over time. Their water report doesn't reflect it though.

Keg cleaning procedure is exactly like all other cleaning, same chemicals and tap water for cleaning. The issue occurred before kegging though.

I have used 2 different racking canes. I literally bought a second set of everything for the 3rd batch and used everything new after cleaning and sanitizing.

If the water is hard I thought that the PBW and starsan would negate any of those issues. Which is entirely my ignorance.

I'm happy to know it most likely isn't an air quality issue, since that would be the most difficult to fix, and reaffirmed I remember high school physics classes.

One follow up question as well

If I've already kegged, carbed and chilled the brew is there any point in letting it sit for a while to see if it gets better? If it's a water issue is it a moot point since it's only going to get as good as what I put in it?

Thanks again to everyone.

It can't hurt to let it condition for awhile if you have the time and the room to do it.

If you are opening the fermenter to take samples it could in fact be an airborne contaminant though this is not as likely.

Where do you brew at and do your yeast pitch? Are you handling grain anywhere near the finished and cooled wort before pitching?
How do you sample and test the gravity?

Does your new fermenter have a spigot in it?

A musty odor/flavor would indicate oxidation.

I guess I don't know what "brackish" smells like, unless you mean like a shrimp-like flavor in which case that would be either DMS or maybe some other sulfur compounds. Do you get any sort of rotten egg smell? For DMS it is likely caused by a short boil, a non-vigorous boil, poor/slow fermentation, or infection. For other sulfur compounds, that is almost definitely an infection or possibly you have contaminated water.

DMS is actually a possiblity for the blue moon since traditionally witbiers use a good amount of Pils malt, which is higher in SMM (the precursor to DMS) than other base malts and requires a longer, vigorous boil, 90 minutes minimum usually. Also, combined with the underpitch you are doing, you'll get some lag time which could definitely produce DMS. In fact we just had a sample from a commercial brewpub last night with a low-moderate level of DMS (more of a cooked corn, though) where the brewer said that the yeast wasn't in the best shape, and they had a 48 hour lag time before fermentation really kicked off.


Are you doing a full boil, or topping off the fermenter post-boil?

Are you brewing in an aluminum pot?

Also I have made 50 or so extracts and I have never opened it to check anything. I leave it 1-2 weeks in the primary and then it gets kegged, carb'd and drunk. All turn out spectacular.

I am doing full boils, 2 were in aluminum and one was in stainless. I did have to top off about 1/2 gallon of the bottled water due to an overly active boil and not calculating boil off on the new pot correctly.

I brew in my garage (cleaned and where I've always brewed) with no grain around when I'm cooling and pitching. I test the gravity with a cleaned and sanitized turkey baster and hydrometer tube. I switched both hydrometer and turkey baster between batches 2 and 3.

My fermenters are Ale Pails with no spigot, just a normal bucket.

I will most likely let things sit for 2 weeks before opening it up from now on, I was just anxious to see if this last batch was going bad or not on the 3rd batch.

This last batch very well could have been DMS related (Had to make a quick google biological chemistry tour to learn about that since it was new to me.) It was only a 30 minute boil, which was covered the majority of the time due to brewing outside in high winds. There was no sulfur/egg smell however.

I'm not sure that is the issue for the first batches since they were 60-90 minute boils and cooled in about 20 minutes down to 75 degrees. I even switched immersion chillers between batch 1 and 2 with the same taste in both batches.

It does generally take a day or so for the fermentation to take off. Which I"m sure isn't helping if I'm under pitching, I'm just not sure why I'm seeing any issues now when I didn't have any in the previous batches, even previous trappist and witbeers.

I'm grateful for all the help and will give more details as soon as I can get to the keg and take another taste.

I'm really starting to wonder if it might not be the water I'm using for cleaning and sanitation. It seems to be the one constant on the ingredient side, either that or they changed something in the bottled water that I have been using for the wort. The last seems unlikely though.

So I finally got home to the keg and let it warm up so I can get the flavors. This batch seems to have mellowed out considerably in the past 3 days. Now that I know what I'm looking for there is indeed some papery taste to it, but no where near what I was tasting before.

Is it possible that oxidation can correct itself? I did let the keg sit for a while before chilling it, so some more fermentation could have occurred but I don't see that it was enough to level out the tastes I was running into.

I appreciate all the help, and even though I have read it 1000 times and told other brewers it, I should have just relaxed and let nature do it's thing.

In the future I will defintly look into boiling the water I use to clean and rinse to make sure it's de-chlorinated as well as be a little less eager to move things into the keg.

Again I'm very happy to know it was most likely not airborne and my assumption that if it was under positive pressure it was only what was in the fermenter could be causing the issue.

Still learning and glad I am. Thanks all.

Just saw your post I had a similar problem and after all was said and done it turned out to be my hops. I had a few pounds of whole hops and they got funky. so If your using whole hops that might be it.

I wonder about the change from a/c to heat, causing hot dry air currents rather than cool ones blowing past your fermenter. Maybe move to another area of the basement; or put a thermometer in a glass of water, and try it for a day at a time in different spots to see if it was in a hot spot.

OK a couple of things:

Boiling would help if the water is contaminated, but boiling the water to de-chlorinate will only work if they chlorinate the water by dissolving Chlorine gas into it. If instead they use Chloramine, which is pretty common, it won't remove the chlorine. Instead try adding about 1 campden tablet per 20 gallons of water, OR you can add 320mg of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) per 20 gallons and that will drop out the chlorine regardless of how the water is treated.

Also, if it is chlorine causing the issue, you should be getting a distinctive band-aid, medicinal, chloroseptic kind of aroma and flavor. Go unwrap a new band-aid and smell it, and that is close to what you get when you have chlorophenols.

Papery/cardboard/musty are indications of oxidation. Oxidation is not really going to go away over time, but I have to say it doesn't make much sense to me that you would be getting that in terms of process, unless you are getting the mythical Hot Side Aeration, which is pretty hard to get on a homebrew scale. I mean it would take you really frothing the wort while you are heating it to cause those reactions in sufficient quantity to be a problem.


Actually, I suppose that would be a good question. What is your process for chilling and aerating your wort for pitching? Also, what is your process for transferring after fermentation?

Process for chilling is simply move the kettle off of the flame and hook up the hose to the IC. Once it drops down to below 80 I stir while pitching in the yeast. Nothing majorly aggressive and it generally takes about 20-30 minutes to drop from boiling thanks to the pool pump in a bucket of ice water I use for the IC.

Based on what I've read on HSA, I don't think anything I'm doing would cause that.

Transferring to the keg may be where I got some oxidation. I clean my kegs, and flush both the keg and the beer lines with starsan then leave them in the fridge under pressure until it's time to keg. when transferring from primary to keg I used a new clean and sanitized hose to siphon (no auto siphon and new racking cane) from the primary about 3 feet above the keg into the keg. I didn't leave the hose submerged and it was splashing some on the last batch so that is a possible issue.

To your point weirdboy, I didn't get anything that strong at all, and nothing like the bandaid smell if it's that pronounced then I doubt that chlorine/chloramine was the culprit.

I suppose the next step is another batch of something similar and split it into 2 primaries all cleaned and sanitized the same way. I will try putting one at a buddy's house and see if that removes any off flavors. That would at least rule out environmental aspects from the basement.

Still not sure where the culprit is, but based on the tasting last night it IS getting better. The oxidation I'm tasting may have been secondary to under pitching/stressed yeast for at least this last batch because it is indeed improving as time goes by.

All in all I'm pretty sure I'm clean in the mechanics and process side of the brew, which means it's the chemistry part that I need to focus on.

This is a decent primer for me since I'll be trying an AG batch soon and need to make sure my water is in shape for it and will have to refresh my knowledge of water conditioning at the bare minimum.

But first I'll try the split fermentation to see if that gets me any changes.

If it is oxidation it can be partially mitigated with PVPP treatment. You will have to rack off the sediment after about 72 hours.

You mentioned boiling with a lid on - don't do that. Also, you can minimize the chance of oxidation while kegging by putting a barbed fitting on the end of your siphon hose, attaching it to a "beer out" QDC, and filling your keg via the "beer out" post on your keg. Purge the keg with C02 first and use the relief valve to purge the keg pressure as its filling.

One thing that jumps out is pitching hot, and severely underpitching. 80F is way too hot, and one vial of white labs is woefully inadequate even if you've made decent beer in the past. Both of those things could be contributing to some off flavors, and getting them under control will definitely help your beer. I think many of the flavors people are attributing to aeration could also be similar stressed yeast flavors.

Make a starter on your next batch and don't pitch until your beer is below your fermentation temperature.

An alternate to making a starter is you could pitch 2 (or 3) vials, if you don't have the time or equipment, or whatever. Of course, then you are spending quite a bit on yeast...


I agree though, the first thing I would focus on would be getting my fermentation under control. Proper pitching/fermentation temps, pitching healthy amounts of yeast, make sure you are adequately aerating/oxygenating your wort before pitching, etc. You want to eliminate variables rather than thrash around trying random things. If you are splashing when transferring to the keg, that is another area where I'd get it under control. Make sure your tubing goes all the way to the bottom of the keg when you are racking, and fills up from the bottom. Again, I don't think oxidation is the smoking gun here because those flavors usually take a while to develop. However, you want your process to be as rock-solid as possible so that it is easier to identify the source.

If you can run your temperatures on the higher side the Saison yeast would be a great strain to use in your next batch. It loves upper 70's...I had my Saison yeast in the 90's and it was fabulous.

Good luck. Its unlikely the beer is displaying oxidized character sense you are kegging it off so fast. What you might be experiencing could simply be yeast bite...If in two weeks the beer tastes funny it might be a flaw, or it could just be the way the beer turned out.

My first lager, I thought was plagued with DMS...but the tasting panel said it was best beer I have ever made. I think the "paper" taste is probably just a lot of yeast...Once it drops down more the beer ought to taste even better.

Your on the right track I think

Thanks for all the replies. Santa is bringing me a flask for starters. I agree that under-pitching might be an issue.

Just the first time I've ever had 3 batches taste off the same way and I wanted to ensure I wasn't completely hosed using the facilities I have.

I realize this is a dead thread bu I hate leaving things hanging out there. it was 100% an under pitching issue. I've double pitched a couple of brews since then with great success. the starters were the right way to go.

Glad to hear it. It's always nice to make small changes that get big results.