Problems with my IPAs

Well 2 problems to be specific. First off The very first homebrew I made was an IPA, turned out decent for my first time chill hazed protien hazed, no head or retention, but tasted great. I didnt add any salts to my mash so i thought this explained the "rounded" bitterness. So months later I made an IIPA added mgso4 and caso4 as recomended by a water spreadsheet to get a Burton type water. This brew had a good malt body and decent hop aroma. went for the taste and there was some terrible off flavor. I cant describe this flavor as I have only tasted it in my brew (although I caught it slightly in a 3 Floyds Zombie Dust bottle months later) btw that batch got infected so i figured it was caused by the infection. but i also got extremely sick the next day. Now before we all comment saying no pathogen can grow in homebrew let me finish. This brew had me throwing up so bad the next day and such a splitting migrane that I wished I was hungover instead of what I had. It was like food poisoning type sickness. didnt eat for 2 days and even though i tried I just puked it up. The puking was so bad I was expecting **** to be sucked out of my intestines and back up through my mouth. The migraine was so bad i wanted to just die. and on top of that i would break out into a cold sweat each time i puked or moved. I figured it was just from that infection. So i dumped them all $60 worth of beer in the trash. So to prevent another infection to ruin my beer and waste my money i bleached everything, oxycleaned it all. Made another IPA. added my salts, smelled it and it smells wonderfull, drank it and noticed the same flavor. this time there was no infection visible. No signs of fussel alcohols either. Next day got sick as a dog again. Exact same sympotms. And trust me this was not a hang over. Now I know that pathogens cannot survive in homebrew but what is causing this. its not from other foods. its only from my homebrewed IPAs. any other beer I make turns out great and leaves no sickness.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

BTW no commercial IPAs make me sick like this
can anyone elaborate without simply saying its not the homebrew.

How much of each mineral are you adding and where did you buy them from? Are you measuring it in grams, teaspoons, tablespoons? How large is the batch? What was your base water profile before adding the salts? Are you adding it during the mash and boil and possibly doubling your amount you're aiming for? Too much magnesium should just give you the ****s, but if it's high enough that your body is trying to reject it then it could explain the intense vomiting.

I would not drink another one of those beers for the time being, something is not right with them. Hopefully you're still awake so we can figure this out.

brew with gallon jugs of spring water and see if it clears up also give beer to friends and see if they get sick may be your system

Allergy?

What hop varietal did you use? A good friend of mine and brewer in England is allergic to hops that are high in AA's. Post your water xls and your additions, recipe, etc so we can help you get back to brewin your own beer.

There could be any number of problems. Without alot of detail, it's hard to know.

For sterilization, I will say that one should NOT use bleach - it's difficult to rinse clean (and you need to sterilize your rinse water?) and is not good for stainless steel. Use Isodophor or (my favorite) StarSan. Starsan is great because it is no-rinse.

Second, Oxyclean works as a cleaner, but you need to rinse VERY well. I assume you know the difference between cleaning (soils removal) and sterilizing.

If you suspect a sterilization problem, go to the section on that and read the primer.

Spend the time to detail your process and recipe steps/ingredients/temperatures, and you may get some help here. Don't leave anything out. What you think may not be important could be the "one thing" that is causing problems.

Dougie63 said:

brew with gallon jugs of spring water and see if it clears up also give beer to friends and see if they get sick may be your system

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Sorry, this made me laugh. I can just see that conversation.

"Hey Jim, try this beer. It gave me a massive two-day headache that made me want to die. Oh, and I puked my guts out like crazy. I want to see if it has the same affect on you."

SwampassJ said:

How much of each mineral are you adding and where did you buy them from? Are you measuring it in grams, teaspoons, tablespoons? How large is the batch? What was your base water profile before adding the salts? Are you adding it during the mash and boil and possibly doubling your amount you're aiming for?

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I'm worried about this too - especially if you were shooting for Burton water which is pretty extreme. In addition to the runs mag sulfate overdose can give you vomiting, flushing, sweating, overall crap feeling. Can be pretty dangerous actually.

Ok so I added 20g CaSO4 and 7g MgSO4 to 4.5 gallons in my mash plus 6 gal distilled water in the sparge. The 4.5 gallons was tap water with. 79ppm cal, 25ppm Mg, 19.3 Na, 57 Cl and 51 SO4

Ended up with 6 gallons in the fermentor

Also its not the yeast. Some people I have talked to said maybe I'm alergic to the specific yeast strain I'm using but I brew all my ales with the same type of yeast (wyeast 1056) and I never reuse the yeast if I suspect an infection or anything off in a beer. I figure its easier to just spend 6.99 for fresh yeast than risk any beer spoilers. So I know its not this.

Oh much did you drank to be sick like that?

Are you 100% sure you weight the salts properly?

Did you use brewers /food grade salts?

You dont need to add magnesium.. stick to the gypsum like most brewers do to bump sulfates.

Can you describe the off flavors?

My vote is the salts you added. If you are fine with the non treated beer you have brewed and the only change was the salts then I would have to imagine that is the smoking gun.

I can't describe it, but it overpowers all the malts and grains in flavor, yet it has no aroma. My IPAs smell great they just taste like this off flavor.

KuntzBrewing said:

I can't describe it, but it overpowers all the malts and grains in flavor, yet it has no aroma. My IPAs smell great they just taste like this off flavor.

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What is your base malt ?

Aschecte said:

My vote is the salts you added. If you are fine with the non treated beer you have brewed and the only change was the salts then I would have to imagine that is the smoking gun.

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Yup. How much does everyone else add? What's your ipa water like?

KuntzBrewing said:

Yup. How much does everyone else add? What's your ipa water like?

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Adding salts is done for two reasons #1 to mimic a famous brewing regions water and ti do this you simply need your base water profile and the target water profile than make additions to come close as possible to the target. #2 you can add salts to alter you relative alkalinity in order to brew to color ie a light pilsner or a dark stout alkalinity favors colors though his is a handshake at best. All this being said I don't add salts as my water is fairly good and has the charecteristic flavor that is to my brewhouse and make it my own.

KuntzBrewing said:

Ok so I added 20g CaSO4 and 7g MgSO4 to 4.5 gallons in my mash plus 6 gal distilled water in the sparge. The 4.5 gallons was tap water with. 79ppm cal, 25ppm Mg, 19.3 Na, 57 Cl and 51 SO4

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This should give you
Ca- 265ppm
Mg- 49ppm
Na- 19
So4- 651ppm

Something with these mineral additions are causing you problems with getting sick. Are you positive you are weighing in grams? Rough volume measurement for 20grams of gypsum would be ~5tsp and about 1.5-2tsp for the Mag. Don't drink any more of these beers.

If our using pilsner malts a a base it can be dms that you are tasting. I believe its dimethly sulfide.

Aschecte said:

Adding salts is done for two reasons #1 to mimic a famous brewing regions water and ti do this you simply need your base water profile and the target water profile than make additions to come close as possible to the target. #2 you can add salts to alter you relative alkalinity in order to brew to color ie a light pilsner or a dark stout alkalinity favors colors though his is a handshake at best. All this being said I don't add salts as my water is fairly good and has the charecteristic flavor that is to my brewhouse and make it my own.

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True, I've been using spreedsheets to calculate everything based off my tap water. But I'm about to throw that out except for adding chalk for my stouts and porters. My water seems to be best related to a munich type, so my german lagers are very good, and my porters and stouts are great too. Just these damn IPAs....

Its not DMS or any "normal" off flavor, I've had the butterscotch taste in beers (Upland Pale Ale) and my dads homebrew had the green apple taste once, I've expeirenced off flavors from other brews and this is nothing I've ever had

KuntzBrewing said:

Its not DMS or any "normal" off flavor, I've had the butterscotch taste in beers (Upland Pale Ale) and my dads homebrew had the green apple taste once, I've expeirenced off flavors from other brews and this is nothing I've ever had

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Ever had to take Epsom salt as a laxative? Does it taste like that? Or is it a sharp piercing bitterness?

EDIT did you treat any extra sparge water with acid or did you use more acid then you intended? I just screwed up a wheat because I decided to try and tart it up by using a ml of lactic acid in it and I can taste it in the end product very clearly.

KuntzBrewing said:

Its not DMS or any "normal" off flavor, I've had the butterscotch taste in beers (Upland Pale Ale) and my dads homebrew had the green apple taste once, I've expeirenced off flavors from other brews and this is nothing I've ever had

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Dms is more like creamed corn or vegetable'ish.

Aschecte said:

Dms is more like creamed corn or vegetable'ish.

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Think Heineken burp.

Not a corn flavor or anything, and I don't use any acid, also don't measure pH . But my estimated mash ph based off of salt calculations is 5.6

First off adding salts won't improve the taste of your IPA's. You do want your calcium to be between 100-250 ppm. So I believe your problem is the salts.

KuntzBrewing said:

Ok so I added 20g CaSO4 and 7g MgSO4 to 4.5 gallons in my mash plus 6 gal distilled water in the sparge. The 4.5 gallons was tap water with. 79ppm cal, 25ppm Mg, 19.3 Na, 57 Cl and 51 SO4

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Don't know if it could be what's making you sick, but those are huge salt additions. I add way less than that to ro water.

If your first one was good but just didn't have any head and chill haze, perhaps if we knew your recipe and mashing schedule we can narrow down your problem. As far as the water goes you only need to get that calcium up.

It sounds like your base water is somewhat like mine. My darker amber beers and stouts are great with it, but my pale ales have a funny taste to them.

After much reading, the solution i came to try and brew with RO, and that fixed it. Now, after some experimenting and even more reading about water chemistry, I found that diluting the water with about 50% RO water fixes the off taste.

Can't really comment on why you're sick though. My guess is that it's probably the Epsom Salt. Its a laxative, and if your water actually is similar to mine, you're using like a bajillion times more Epsom Salts than i do.

Ok I never dumped this batch, kept all the bottles and I'm just now starting to try them. The mysterious dominating off flavor is no longer dominate. Smells like an ipa and taste pretty good. No sickness from it either. I'm possitive the early bottles made me sick but what could have changed that now it doesn't? I know I couldn't pinpoint the flavor but I'm thinking maybe an extereme minerally bitterness could be close to describing it. Like too much minerals obviously. But now its subdued and tastes fine. Still slightly in the taste but no where near as bad and the hops are shining thru now. Can young beer have anything in it to make you sick? Like things yeast clean up with conditioning? This batch was not infected

Also on my latest ipa I cut my water in half with distilled water that was charcoal filtered and added 5g Gypsum only to mash. Haven't bottled yet but it sure smells great and no off flavors in the hydro tube I sampled

I'd suggest too many sulphates are upsetting your system, then you're using a load of water from your body to try and dilute them which is giving you a bad head ache.

As to why you're not getting sick after they've conditioned more I don't know. The only thing that could be is more yeast in suspension. Magnesium is only really needed for yeast health so adding that is pretty pointless as they don't need much at all.