mandoman
Well-Known Member
So this is the 4th time I've had this band-aid, medicinal flavor in one of my beers. First two times were long ago, in a brown ale and a pale ale. I originally attributed them to an infection as I don't think it's chlorine, which seems to be the popular culprit for this flavor. I use chlorinated water but never use bleach. None of my hundred or so other batches ever had the off flavor including lighter beers and lagers.
Now I've moved to a 1 bbl semi-pro system and 2 of my first 4 batches of beer have the same friggin' band-aid off flavor. My stout and brown ale were fine but BOTH batches of APA had the off-flavor. Same yeast, similar ingredients (with overlap) so it's not ingredient-based. I don't think it's a sanitation issue any more as I was super anal with the last apa as the first one went south. I also don't suspect it is yeast as I repitched the brown ale yeast to the second apa.
After painstaking detective work via my notes, the only thing I can come up with is dish soap.
For both batches of apa, and neither of the brown or the stout, i used a spray bottle to mist the boil to prevent a boil over. In my detective process I smelled/tasted the spray bottle water and it smelled a little soapy. Not much taste, but still a bit. I remember using this same bottle once to detect leaks in my kegging system and put a bit of dish soap in it. I guess I assumed it was gone by now. The soap contained something called triclosan"
"This organic compound is a white powdered solid with a slight aromatic/phenolic odor. It is a chlorinated aromatic compound which has functional groups representative of both ethers and phenols. Phenols often show anti-bacterial properties. Triclosan is only slightly soluble in water, but soluble in ethanol, diethyl ether, and stronger basic solutions such as 1 M sodium hydroxide. Triclosan can be synthesized from 2,4-dichlorophenol." -wikipedia
which looks like it could induce some of the same reactions as chlorine. Now, it was a crazy trace amount but could this be it? Anyone have any experience with this stuff or know about organic chemistry?
Now I've moved to a 1 bbl semi-pro system and 2 of my first 4 batches of beer have the same friggin' band-aid off flavor. My stout and brown ale were fine but BOTH batches of APA had the off-flavor. Same yeast, similar ingredients (with overlap) so it's not ingredient-based. I don't think it's a sanitation issue any more as I was super anal with the last apa as the first one went south. I also don't suspect it is yeast as I repitched the brown ale yeast to the second apa.
After painstaking detective work via my notes, the only thing I can come up with is dish soap.
For both batches of apa, and neither of the brown or the stout, i used a spray bottle to mist the boil to prevent a boil over. In my detective process I smelled/tasted the spray bottle water and it smelled a little soapy. Not much taste, but still a bit. I remember using this same bottle once to detect leaks in my kegging system and put a bit of dish soap in it. I guess I assumed it was gone by now. The soap contained something called triclosan"
"This organic compound is a white powdered solid with a slight aromatic/phenolic odor. It is a chlorinated aromatic compound which has functional groups representative of both ethers and phenols. Phenols often show anti-bacterial properties. Triclosan is only slightly soluble in water, but soluble in ethanol, diethyl ether, and stronger basic solutions such as 1 M sodium hydroxide. Triclosan can be synthesized from 2,4-dichlorophenol." -wikipedia
which looks like it could induce some of the same reactions as chlorine. Now, it was a crazy trace amount but could this be it? Anyone have any experience with this stuff or know about organic chemistry?