Seems to be an issue with lighter Ales - Soapy taste

Ok so I have an issue, after tasting my last two batches as I bottled them, I found that they each had a "soapy" taste.

Both were Beirmuncher recipes so you can easily find the recipes here:

Outer Limits IPA - (replaced all non-centennial with cascade)
Cenntenial Blonde

The Outer Limits was fermented for a week, then dryhoppped for a week, then cold crashed for a week. I bottled it (and sampled) and sampled it after two weeks in the bottle.

Both times had a slight soapy taste to it.

The Centennial Blonde I have only sampled at bottling but it had a much stronger soapy taste/aroma to it than I remember the IPA being.

Neither of these were on the yeast long enough for that to be a factor. My IPA was utterly soft in hops taste also, however I believe that is a water issue.

I searched for soapy taste on the forums I did not find alot beyond the "on the yeast too long" comment.

Anyone have any ideas? I brewed bier munchers "orange kolsch" and "green mountain porter" in this same 3 week span, neither of these exhibit that charactor.

Neither used Cascade hops either (correction there was .6 oz in the kolsch).....I am beginning to suspect that I may be perceiving that hop as soapy in taste.

How are you cleaning your bottles?

sidepart said:

How are you cleaning your bottles?

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I am on my 5th batch, all have been cleaned the same way:

I soak them in hot water and oxyclean to remove labels
I put them in my dishwasher and run (with detergent)
I then use a water/starsan sprayer and tree to sanitise

I do not recall there being a soapy smell to the bottles when I checked them out of the dishwasher.

That's "green beer" taste probably. Leave them alone to condition for a few weeks, and the soapy taste should be gone.

Jcoz said:

I am on my 5th batch, all have been cleaned the same way:

I soak them in hot water and oxyclean to remove labels
I put them in my dishwasher and run (with detergent)
I then use a water/starsan sprayer and tree to sanitise

I do not recall there being a soapy smell to the bottles when I checked them out of the dishwasher.

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Probably fine then. Might be the green taste that the other referred to but I'm too new to really know.

I get leery of detergent, especially when Jet Dry is involved but you're sanitizing after that with water/starsan. By comparison I use water/onestep to clean out the bottles, then stick them in the dishwasher without detergent (or rinse aid) to rinse/heat sanitize.

The only other thing I've come across is that a soft water profile can lend a soapy taste to hops. But that was maybe two comments out of alot of threads on the internet. Wish I had more to go on, I'm pretty dissapointed in how these two beers came out, particularly the Centennial Blonde was probably the best beer I ever brewed with regards to process/sanitation. Hit every number on the head in my recipe.

That beer was really young when I tasted it so I'm hoping that it subsides, but we will see.....

Bradyfumbled said:

That's "green beer" taste probably. Leave them alone to condition for a few weeks, and the soapy taste should be gone.

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I hope so.

What sort of yeast/pitching rate are you using?

I had a soapy tang in my first batch. After reading “Major League Pitching,” written by Terry Foster, in the March/April 2012 issue of BYO, I was led to conclude that maybe I underpitched (had no clue about starters, etc. -- just dumped the vial in and crossed my fingers).

Since then I've been making generous starters using the mrmalty calculator and have not had an issue.

My IPA was utterly soft in hops taste also, however I believe that is a water issue.

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Might be water but did you account for the change in AA% when you substituted Cascade for the other hops? If the Cascade is lower in AA% than the other and you just swapped out oz for oz then you ended up with fewer IBUs.

I soak them in hot water and oxyclean to remove labels
I put them in my dishwasher and run (with detergent)
I then use a water/starsan sprayer and tree to sanitise

Click to expand...

FWIW, you can probably skip the dishwasher part. The oxy clean should take care of it.

Jcoz said:

I put them in my dishwasher and run (with detergent)

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I like to run my bottles through the dishwasher too.... although I don't use detergent because I read somewhere here on this forum that you shouldn't use detergent because it can leave behind a soapy film inside the bottle.

I also pre-clean them with oxyclean so I really only run them through the dishwasher to remove any dust and other residue prior to sanitizing. Don't need soap for that.


[Edit to ad]: I bake a lot and one time I made a loaf of bread that tasted very soapy. I think I hadn't rinsed the plastic proofing bowl well enough. Soap can get into plastics and be hard to rinse out. I've read that you shouldn't use dish soap on plastic bucket fermenters as that can result in a soapy taste. I soak my fermenters in hot water and PBW; give it a good rinse and call it good.... NO dish soap goes into my fermenter buckets.

hogwash said:

Might be water but did you account for the change in AA% when you substituted Cascade for the other hops? If the Cascade is lower in AA% than the other and you just swapped out oz for oz then you ended up with fewer IBUs.

FWIW, you can probably skip the dishwasher part. The oxy clean should take care of it.

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Yah I compensated. It's beyond any reasonable miss in that even if I hadn't. The hops schedule is pretty extensive and it was dry hopped. It's like there was hardly any added. Tastes more like a weakly hopped imperial pale ale

kmos said:

What sort of yeast/pitching rate are you using?

I had a soapy tang in my first batch. After reading “Major League Pitching,” written by Terry Foster, in the March/April 2012 issue of BYO, I was led to conclude that maybe I underpitched (had no clue about starters, etc. -- just dumped the vial in and crossed my fingers).

Since then I've been making generous starters using the mrmalty calculator and have not had an issue.

Click to expand...

Admittedly I haven't used starters yet. I used 3 vials of WLP 007 in the ipa OG 1-078 and one package of notty for the centennial, was was something like 1-045

did the soapy taste go away over time?

Negative.... I later had my water tested and it wasn't much more than distilled, extremely low on calcium. That I think was a factor. I haven't had issues since

I just wanted to jump in and say that I had the exact same problem with EdWort's Haus pale ale, really muted hop flavors except for the soapiness. The water in Honolulu is pretty soft, our water reports don't show SO4 ever being above 30ppm.

I brewed the Outer Limits IPA a couple weeks with some gypsum to up my sulfate to a little over 200ppm and so far it tastes great in the primary. The hop flavor is pronounced and the bitterness is nice and sharp like it should have been with the APA.

This is a message to the future: If your pale ales are soapy, your sulfate is probably way too low.

don't know if this is a little of topic but what kind of water does everyone use? I have always used bottled water because our tap water is not that nice to drink and assumed that it would be the same for the beer made with it