Homebrew Off-flavor: Medicinal, Phenolic, Chemical

I entered my Oktoberfest into a local brewing contest.

I got good scores and would have placed if I showed up for the meeting where they announced the winners (I got hosed......damn thesis dominating my life!)

Here are the score sheets: #1, #2, #3

So, the issue is in the flavor, with a "medicinal/phenolic" aftertaste in the beer. (NOTE: these are 3 judges sitting in a room together drinking, not really independent observations, but still........)

Question: Where does this come from in y'alls opinion?

I either Brita filter my water or let it sit out overnight in the brew pots to volatilize the chlorine.

I batch sparge most of the time (I did for this beer)

I made a 1-gal starter (2-step, ea 1/2 gal steps)

I use vinyl tubing when I autosiphon (only use it on beer that is at pitching temps or lower)

I use Star San (I rinse the SS foam at kegging time from the kegs with hot tap water. This is a quick rinse with no more than 1/2 gal of hot water, and is done right before kegging, i.e. the keg is rinsed quickly and filled with beer within minutes)

I mash in a plastic cooler (?)

I use Bevlex 200 tap lines and flush the lines before filling up bottles.

I have used Oxyclean in the past to clean the kegs (not Oxyclean FREE, just the regular, but with onlt 30 min contact time and thorough rinsing)

I use an Immersion Chiller (IC).

Brew notes from the day:

Brew Day. Mashed at 151 F for 60 min. I was able to cool it down to ~70 F before moving it to carboy. I let it get to below 60 F before pitching the yeast starter.

*Yeast Starter: I did a two-step starter to build up my yeast cell count. I used the WYeast yeast calculator to figure out my process. In a 1 gal container I added 0.5 gal wort (DME boiled and cooled) and the yeast packet (propogator), let it ferment for 24 hrs @ ~62 F. At this point it was high kraeusen, and I added another 0.5 gal of wort to the container, resulting in my 1 gal starter. I let that ferment out for another 36 hours or so, then I flocculated out the yeast by placing the starter in the fridge for ~8 hrs. I decanted off most of the liquid and added the rest to the carboy at pitching time. I don't use a stir plate, but I do swirl the bottle every time I walk by it to keep them yeasties reproducing.

Click to expand...

Anything else I should let you know about?

This link states that it is either chlorine or over sparging. I just don't think its either one of those, BUT chlorine can be in issue with my tab water (but I filter or let sit overnight before brewing with it)

Thanks,
funk

Hmmm... Well you seem to have ruled out a couple things already, meaning chloramine, not using bleach or too much plastic.

But I do see you are rinsing your starsan away with tap water. That could be either chloramines or an infection since you are rinsing away your protection. No rinse sanitizers are that, NO RINSE....Most of the sanitzers we use, especially Starsan and iodophor are No rinse/wet contact sanitizers. They are literally double edged swords. They kill two ways. They kill everything on the object prior to sanitizing, and then as long as they are still wet they form a sanitizer barrier that kills everything that comes into contact with object.

If you let the sanitizer dry, or rinse it away any micro organism that comes in contact with the sanitized object, rather than being killed by it, makes the object no longer sanitzed.

If you let it dry or rinse it you are reducing it's efficacy by 50%, so you could be leaving your self vulnerable to one of the two other possibilities, infection. Or by using tap water you are getting some chloramines.

The other option is fermentation temp....how high did the beer get?

Revvy - (how's it going ) I control the fermentation temps. This was at 50-52 F and I pitch cold.

Its got to be a water thing or perhaps over sparging (but I batch sparge.....).

So, when you sani a keg with StarSan, you just let it drip dry? Or you fill it with some sani soln still in the keg? When I use it I end up with a lot bubbles in the keg (which doesn't bother me so much before fermentation). But adding a finished beer in a keg with some sani soln let over in it doesn't seem right to me. Its not going to be "scrubbed out" by fermentation and just mix with the beer I drink.

I know its a hot topic, do you rack to a keg with StarSan bubbles in it? Then serve that keg up?

funkswing said:

Revvy - (how's it going ) I control the fermentation temps. This was at 50-52 F and I pitch cold.

Its got to be a water thing or perhaps over sparging (but I batch sparge.....).

So, when you sani a keg with StarSan, you just let it drip dry? Or you fill it with some sani soln still in the keg? When I use it I end up with a lot bubbles in the keg (which doesn't bother me so much before fermentation). But adding a finished beer in a keg with some sani soln let over in it doesn't seem right to me. Its not going to be "scrubbed out" by fermentation and just mix with the beer I drink.

I know its a hot topic, do you rack to a keg with StarSan bubbles in it? Then serve that keg up?

Click to expand...

You don't fear the foam, you rack on top of any starsan foam on any surface. The foam breaks down into pretty much the same compounds as are in coca cola.....

If you let the sanitizer dry any micro organism that comes in contact with the sanitized object, rather than being killed by it, makes the object no longer sanitzed.

If you let it dry you are reducing it's efficacy by 50%

You really want to sanitize right at the time you are using the thing you are sanitizing. And let the wort/beer flow on top of it.

I put a lot of good info and tips of effectively using sanitizers in here. Including the podcast from Charles talley who created starsan about how safe it is and how good it is for our beer ;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/sanitizer-question-54932/

In starsan's case it becomes yeastfood which is really good for fermentation.

Plus it is fun to look at.

"Stupid Starsan Tricks" or why you shouldn't fear the foam...

More like this in there;

Do you use a garden hose to get your water? Do you use bleach at any point in the process?

Chlorine is easy to get rid of but cholramine is VERY hard to get rid of. So maybe you have an issue with cholramine but I doubt it. As I understand it cholramine will not have a big impact on beer flavor.

Could be a fermentation by product. Could be a minor infection. If this is a one time thing then RDWHAHB. If it's every batch then you have a problem.

PS: Don't rinse the SS foam. The foam is good for your beer.

funkswing said:

Revvy - (how's it going ) I control the fermentation temps. This was at 50-52 F and I pitch cold.

Its got to be a water thing or perhaps over sparging (but I batch sparge.....).

So, when you sani a keg with StarSan, you just let it drip dry? Or you fill it with some sani soln still in the keg? When I use it I end up with a lot bubbles in the keg (which doesn't bother me so much before fermentation). But adding a finished beer in a keg with some sani soln let over in it doesn't seem right to me. Its not going to be "scrubbed out" by fermentation and just mix with the beer I drink.

I know its a hot topic, do you rack to a keg with StarSan bubbles in it? Then serve that keg up?

Click to expand...

Don't Fear The Foam!!! https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/stupid-starsan-tricks-why-you-shouldnt-fear-foam-127044/index2.html

But, do you think that this is really causing the aforementioned off-flavors?

I know that the added "rinse" water could be adding some chlorine (So I will ponder that technique).

But I do that for all my beers, and its not always a problem. Just fishing for more possibilities.

Thanks.

P.S. - Revvy, you have no respect for your floors!!! (citing the racking on top of the foam pics in the link).

Oh, and did you dump most of the liquid, then rack on the foam in that pic (the beer is pushing out only foam, not sani soln?)

funkswing said:

But, do you think that this is really causing the aforementioned off-flavors?

I know that the added "rinse" water could be adding some chlorine (So I will ponder that technique).

But I do that for all my beers, and its not always a problem. Just fishing for more possibilities.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Well, all the other things you posted in your first thread leads me to believe this is the weak link in the chain. And rinsing in this batch bit you in the butt. There's really no way for us to know, except our experience.

Looking at what you are doing, the one potential threat point is rinsing the starsan with tap water. Like I said EITHER you are opening up your batch to an infection, OR you actually ARE introducing chloramines/chloraphenols at that point.

So the first thing to do is to eliminate that step from your process.

If you do that, and you never get this problem again, then you know...if not we'll have to go deeper.

But since starsan shouldn't be rinsed, stopping that is a good practice either way.

But a shotgun approach is not a good way to isolate a problem, changing to many variables, or exploring too many variables won't help narrow it down.

funkswing said:

But, do you think that this is really causing the aforementioned off-flavors?

I know that the added "rinse" water could be adding some chlorine (So I will ponder that technique).

But I do that for all my beers, and its not always a problem. Just fishing for more possibilities.

Thanks.

P.S. - Revvy, you have no respect for your floors!!! (citing the racking on top of the foam pics in the link).

Oh, and did you dump most of the liquid, then rack on the foam in that pic (the beer is pushing out only foam, not sani soln?)

Click to expand...

Yeah, I doubt a little rinse water would make a big difference. I doubt you could reliably say that this is what caused the flaw in your beer. Now if you had been using bleach to sanitize your fermenter. Or cleaned out your mash ton with some bleach based cleaner then we'd have a good idea that was the cause.

With the star san, the point is that it's better left un-rinsed. Next time your brewing have a taste of the mixed up star san solution. It's completely safe to drink. It has a sour flavor like citric acid but that's it. In huge amounts it may lower the pH of beer but you'd need to add quite a bit before you'd notice.

Do you know what your local municipality uses to treat the water? If they use chloramine instead of chlorine, letting it sit out overnight won't help at all, and filtering will only reduce the chloramine, not remove it. Campden tablets would be a cheap and easy fix if that's the problem.

And +1 to not rinsing the star-san. It's unlikely that it's the issue, but if you live really close to a water treatment point in the sytem you could have enough chlorine present that the residual from a rinse would cause a problem. The taste threshold for chlorophenols is very low.

maida7 said:

As I understand it cholramine will not have a big impact on beer flavor.

Click to expand...

Chloramines react with yeast the same way chlorine does, creating chlorophenols. The human taste threshold for chlorophenols is very low, and chloramines have the same impact on beer flavor as chlorine.

When I moved my brewing from my house to my woodworking shop accross town, it never occurred to me that they treated the water differently, and and I did my usual let the water sit out overnight to let the chlorine evaporate. The first two batches I brewed there tasted like burnt plastic, and I finally figured out that it was because the water supply at my shop was treated with chloramine, rather than chlorine. I started using campden tablets, and that was the end of the nasty burnt plastic taste.

Examine your brew process, even your starter process, to see if you could be oxidizing your beer/starter post (or during) ferment. Mind you, this is my beer experience not yours, but I have found this to be the cause of exactly what you are describing in 2 of my beers. I have eliminated the problem by not pitching the starter liquid if I am doing intermittent shaking during its ferment. Here is the thread with my results on how I came to this conslusion.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/first-time-making-starter-204970/

jjones - I don't think oxidation is the issue, but it is a good point. I have been brewing long enough to have that part down (transferring and what-not). With my 1 gal starter I of course decanted off most of the liquid before pitching the slurry (I crashed cooled the starter to drop out the yeast) because I do the intermittent swirl of the flask to keep them yeasties working.

They use chlorine at my water treatment facility.

funkswing said:

They use chlorine at my water treatment facility.

Click to expand...

So you beer spends time in the keg with chlorinated tap water (wet to dry) because you rinsed away the starsan.

I'm just sayin......

Medicinal flavors come generally from a group of chemicals called phenols. Excess phenols can be caused by a variety of factors. The two most common are infection by wild yeast or bacteria, and stressed and mutated brewers yeast. Some lager strains can be particulaly easy to stress if not pitched in very high quantities into well oxygenated wort, this is especially true in higher gravity worts.

beeber said:

Medicinal flavors come generally from a group of chemicals called phenols. Excess phenols can be caused by a variety of factors. The two most common are infection by wild yeast or bacteria, and stressed and mutated brewers yeast. Some lager strains can be particulaly easy to stress if not pitched in very high quantities into well oxygenated wort, this is especially true in higher gravity worts.

Click to expand...

Yeah...we've kinda been discussing that already.

Ok, I'm a BJCP judge, 1 experience point away from National ranking. 1) What brewing contest is contingent on you being present to win? I've heard must be present to get the swag, but I have never heard of a contest that required presence to be awarded a place. 2) The scoresheets contain no information as to the the qualifications of the judges, not even names. Do you have any idea what the actual qualifications of the judges were in your particular case?

So...I ask you this, can you taste the "medicinal" character when you drink the beer in question yourself? All judges are not created equal and just because a particular "judge" calls something medicinal doesn't necessarily mean that it's actually a medicinal quality and not something else that's the true off in the beer. You may end up chasing the causes of medicinal character when what you really have is vegital, tannic, or some other problem. You'll never hunt down the actual issue because you're looking in the wrong place. Also, just because a particular set of judges says something at a particular competition if you can't taste it yourself I would not "presume" there's a problem on the basis of one set of opinions alone, particularly if I had no information about the qualifications of the judges issuing those opinions. Remember, it could be a flaw to that particular bottle.

If YOU can taste something that you would independently identify as medicinal, plastic, burnt plastic, then I agree with Revvy that your two most likely causes are either infection or introduction of chlorine back into your process through the rinse water. Chlorine is a sneaky opponent. Are you mixing up your star san with regular tap water? There's chlorine in that. Are you filtering the water for your starters too? There's chlorine in that. Just saying, take a really careful look at not just what happens at brew day and I bet you find many places where chlorine could be coming into contact with your beer. If it's not present in all your beers, remember that beers with stronger flavors, ie IPAs, mask offs more effectively than something more delicate - like an O'fest, Pils, etc.

If you don't taste the "medicinal character" enter the beer in another competition. If the same comments come back, then start looking for a potential problem. My 2 cents.

Great post Kelly!!!

Kelly's post was great. But it looks like the scoring sheets are 3 different judges, am I correct on that? I guess I don't understand judging at all, because to me any medicinal flaw in a beer would render it undrinkable and I would be the Simon Cowell of beer judging.

But I certainly agree that if you don't taste the flaw, it really doesn't matter much.

Also, while I don't rinse StarSan and think it is an odd practice to do so, I can't imagine that the minute amount of H20 left from rinsing could be causing the off flavors, just as the minute amount of Iodine sanitizer does not show up in the beer taste either. Point being I'd look elsewhere. Does the Brita filter do an effective job? Don't know, maybe others can chime in on that.

Many of you keep saying you "can't imagine that a tiny amount of chlorinated water can cause this." But THAT is exactly the nature of Chlorophenal in brewing they happen in the most unusual of situations. That's why they are so difficult to get a handle on. It can take the tiniest contact with you beer in the most benign of situations, it could be the "right" combination of circumstances....somewhat degraded plastic + "x" mineral in our water + the tiniest bit of chlorine + a million other small variables that can't often be duplicated.

You could simply decide to get your water out of the bathroom and not the kitchen on a batch of beer, and then get it in that batch.

Read some of these threads and maybe you'll get a grasp of this thing you "can't imagine..."

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/ch...is-my-moby-dick-my-caddy-shack-gopher-116482/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/spring-water-chlorophenols-disgusted-115676/?highlight=chlorphenols

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...-chlorophenols-85981/?highlight=chlorophenols

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/chlorophenols-10066/?highlight=chlorophenols

His beer is sitting in a keg, that had JUST come in contact with chlorinate water, for god knows how long....it may be warm for awhile before it get's kegged, the beer gets pushed through hoses that also were in contact with chlorinated water....it may be inconceivable to you that this could happen but not to me......

Do you use a plate or counter flow chiller?
That could be a source of contamination.

maida7 said:

Chlorine is easy to get rid of but cholramine is VERY hard to get rid of. So maybe you have an issue with cholramine but I doubt it. As I understand it cholramine will not have a big impact on beer flavor.

Click to expand...

Chloramines have a huge impact. Water chemistry is a big part of brewing, and I'd suggest getting a water report ($16 from Ward Labs) if your beer has an off-flavor.

Yooper said:

Chloramines have a huge impact. Water chemistry is a big part of brewing, and I'd suggest getting a water report ($16 from Ward Labs) if your beer has an off-flavor.

Click to expand...

A 16.00 ward labs report will not give you info about chlorine or chloramine. Traditional brewing water chemistry does not focus on chlorine and chloramine.

It's my understanding that Chlorine is free in water and can easily react with phenols from the grain husks to form chlorophenols (those are the nasty medicinal plastic tasting compounds). But Chloramine is much less reactive and the formation of chlorophenols is much less significant. This source states "Formation of chlorophenolics and other chlorinated byproducts are reduced by 98% with chloramines relative to chlorine. That means even if you do leave some of it in your brewing water, it won't be a significant problem."

The good news is that the highly reactive chlorine is very easy to get rid of. Simply heating the water (like when you heat the water for the mash or sparge) is enough to get rid of chlorine.

Like I said before. If this is a one time problem RDWHAHB. But if it's something that shows up in every batch, start changing your process.

Like I said before. If this is a one time problem RDWHAHB. But if it's something that shows up in every batch, start changing your process.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I appreciate all the opinions. But it isn't something that is plaguing my beers every batch. It was those judge's opinion (and they were all sitting in a room together drinking, so its not really 3 independent opinions).

But I did notice it myself in that beer. It was a lager, so some different rules apply in some cases. Here are my brew notes:

Brew Day. Mashed at 151 F for 60 min. I was able to cool it down to ~70 F before moving it to carboy. I let it get to below 60 F before pitching the yeast starter.

*Yeast Starter: I did a two-step starter to build up my yeast cell count. I used the WYeast yeast calculator to figure out my process. In a 1 gal container I added 0.5 gal wort (DME boiled and cooled) and the yeast packet (propogator), let it ferment for 24 hrs @ ~62 F. At this point it was high kraeusen, and I added another 0.5 gal of wort to the container, resulting in my 1 gal starter. I let that ferment out for another 36 hours or so, then I flocculated out the yeast by placing the starter in the fridge for ~8 hrs. I decanted off most of the liquid and added the rest to the carboy at pitching time. I don't use a stir plate, but I do swirl the bottle every time I walk by it to keep them yeasties reproducing.

Click to expand...

So it could be that I didn't cool the yeast either 1) not down far enough or 2) not far enough AND not quickly enough.