Aluminum causing my off flavor?

So batch #6 is just about ready to be bottled. I've been noticing the same off-flavor inhabiting all of my brews, couldn't really put my finger on what it was (I'm brewing with extract and specialty grain). Tried different sanitizers, different extract, different styles, bought a grain mill, and started using bottled water, but to no avail. When my friend tried batch #5, he described the flavor as "metallic." So I start researching what causes that, and turns out aluminum pots supposedly can. Looking at it, I never researched enough about aluminum to prepare the pot. I never boiled any water in it prior to brewing, so I'm wondering how possible it is that I've brewed 6 batches of beer and never built up an oxide layer, maybe the wort isn't allowing anything to build up? If I go ahead and boil some water for about an hour now will I be good, even though the pot has been used quite a bit? Any help would be greatly appreciated, because this is getting pretty discouraging!!

not sure its the aluminum. people use them everyday. Maybe try switching brands of extract once.

Done that, used two brands of liquid and at least two brands of dry.

i use aluminium and i have never had a "metalic" taste to any of my beers. i didn't even prime my first batch by boiling water in it. i have had plenty of beer go through mine as well.

I and many others use aluminum pots, so I don't think that should be a problem. Since this is affecting all of you batches, have you thought about testing your water itself? If you are using tap water, there could be high mineral content contributing off flavors. You could also try a batch using distiller water. Just a thought.

Distilled water rather (darn auto correct ;-)!

My friend at work had a metallic taste which seemed to come from his well water.

Another possible cause could be oxidation. Many describe it as papery, but I find it could seem metallic as well. Sort of like rusty. Rust is oxidation after all, right?

Also what about yeast health. What yeast are you using? Making a starter? Fermenting for how long?

What are you cleaning it with? You mentioned sanitizers (which aren't necessary for a brew pot), you aren't using one step or oxy are you?

Stop using LME entirely and the problem will go away

Haven't used LME since my 3rd batch or so.

I use distilled water as well as RO bottled water (boil with RO, top off with distilled).

I've used several different yeasts, 3 from wyeast (two of them were pretty new, one was pushing 6 mos.), nottingham, and safale s-04, can't speak on the freshness of the dry ones.

I don't use anything but water and a sanitized sponge on my brewpot (no soap, just sanitize and then rinse), oxyclean and starsan on everything else.

Other suggestions? Help is really appreciated... nothing worse than spending all this money on this hobby and not being able to make beer that's even OK...

I used oxyclean in my aluminum pot once ~ is that an issue? Water and soft scrub now

Your heading in the right direction, eliminating one thing at a time. However me personaly would discredit your friends metalic taste. Reason being there are very few people that have 100% acurate taste buds. Try this experiment........go out and buy a bunch of different beers that have diff. flavors. Then pour out a bunch of samples and have you & someone try them Not knowing what they are and have them try and tell you what's in them. Anyway the off taste can be almost anything. What temps are you fermenting at? Higher temps give off an ester taste. What type of spoon do you use for mash? There must be 100 different types of stainless out there. Is your fermenter in mint condition? A few scratches in the bucket can hold onto all sorts of undiserable flavors.
Pete

Two weeks ago when I was buying my beginner kit, my LHBS said to stay away from aluminum and go stainless. I already had a big stainless pot so he wasn't telling me that in order for me to buy one of his. Just passing along the info that I've been told.

I know some people use distilled water, but I don't care for the taste of it. It has a astringent taste that I wouldn't want to transfer over to my beer. Try some bottle spring water instead

VAShooter said:

Two weeks ago when I was buying my beginner kit, my LHBS said to stay away from aluminum and go stainless. I already had a big stainless pot so he wasn't telling me that in order for me to buy one of his. Just passing along the info that I've been told.

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There are many thousands of brewers who use aluminum that empirically prove this to be nonsense. No worries, as I know you were only passing along what he told you, but that is incorrect.

This is a long shot, but how are you cooling your wort? Any chance that the metal in your CFC/IC/whatever is transferring to your wort?

How long are you leaving the batches on the yeast?? How often, or how little, do you check on them? What are you fermenting in? Have you tried replacing the fermenter yet?

RedIrocZ-28 said:

Stop using LME entirely and the problem will go away

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What is LME?

RedIrocZ-28 said:

Stop using LME entirely and the problem will go away

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What is LME???

I had a metallic flavor, especially on hoppier beers, until I started adjusting my water.

NJtarheel said:

What is LME???

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Liquid Malt Extract

Blake

A4J said:

This is a long shot, but how are you cooling your wort? Any chance that the metal in your CFC/IC/whatever is transferring to your wort?

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Cooling with an ice bath.

Golddiggie said:

How long are you leaving the batches on the yeast?? How often, or how little, do you check on them? What are you fermenting in? Have you tried replacing the fermenter yet?

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3-4 weeks, just doing primary. Don't check on them until about 4 or 5 days before bottling to check the gravity and taste a sample. I have two fermenters, one I purchased at about my 3rd batch, same taste.

Peterock said:

Your heading in the right direction, eliminating one thing at a time. However me personaly would discredit your friends metalic taste. Reason being there are very few people that have 100% acurate taste buds. Try this experiment........go out and buy a bunch of different beers that have diff. flavors. Then pour out a bunch of samples and have you & someone try them Not knowing what they are and have them try and tell you what's in them. Anyway the off taste can be almost anything. What temps are you fermenting at? Higher temps give off an ester taste. What type of spoon do you use for mash? There must be 100 different types of stainless out there. Is your fermenter in mint condition? A few scratches in the bucket can hold onto all sorts of undiserable flavors.
Pete

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I dunno... I was going with astringent first, but when he said metallic, it seemed like a better way to describe it. Fermentation temps have varied, but the last couple have been in the low to mid 60's (actual, not ambient... basement has been in the upper 50's), my spoon is plastic (brewing extract, not really mashing), fermenters are in pretty good condition, get the same flavor with both (both are plastic, and both get cleaned, rinsed, and sanitized well before and after each use).

As a person in the water field, your distilled water and RO water in your aluminum pot could be helping. Both are 0 mg/L hardness, which is corrosive. The autoclave in our laboratory was getting pitted in the stainless steel jacket, and we found out that the distilled water was attacking it. We started adding plant tap water along with the Distilled, and the problem cleared up. We get complaints of people having the guts ate right out of 5 year old water heaters. We look into it and find out every time that the customer has an ion exchange system (culligan) installed. The 0 hardness eats the copper lines.

Though I'm a noob to beer, so my advice may not be the best, I would use some tap water along with your distilled to place some hardness ions in to make it more stable. If your tap water sucks, buy some spring water like someone earlier suggested and add that. Maybe try to let it boil in your pot a while prior to your next brew session to get an oxidizing layer back on.

Bensiff said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/what-wrong-my-beer-over-carbonation-metal-off-taste-178054/

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I'm sure you already read this,above
One other thought I had was......What are you using for priming? table sugar,corn,DME? I've heard that table and DME can leave off tastes.
Pete

Using between 4 and 5 oz of corn sugar for priming.

Would it be intelligent to maybe eliminate grain for one batch and just do a simple extract and hops recipe to see if that's the problem (maybe my steeping or crushing is off)? Will beer made without any grain taste pretty good? Was going to brew a wheat this weekend, so maybe just use the recipe I was going to go with and eliminate the grain?

I've heard from many not to use distiller water. The water makeup is too clean and you don't have a lot of the minerals in spring water that add to the flavor of the beer. I can't say that I know this from experience, but I've heard it from several sources.

One brew at a time...

Place a new aluminum brew pot in an oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove the pot from oven and allow it to cool naturally. This will create a passive oxide layer inside your pot, which will prevent your pot from leaching any metals into your brew as you boil it.

2
Clean your pot with dish soap and a nonabrasive cleaning pad only. Do not scrub your aluminum pot with a metal scouring pad and do not use oxygen-based cleansers, as these can scratch your pot or they can break down the oxide layer you created in Step 1. Do not use harsh, caustic cleaners of any kind.



Read more: How to Care for Aluminum Brew Pots | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5776583_care-aluminum-brew-pots.html#ixzz1EBC5N9YC

See, I've read that distilled water is just fine for extract since the grain has already been mashed, so the extract has all the needed minerals in it. I had the same flavor with tap water, by the way, though it was a bit more pronounced.

Daver77 said:

Place a new aluminum brew pot in an oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove the pot from oven and allow it to cool naturally. This will create a passive oxide layer inside your pot, which will prevent your pot from leaching any metals into your brew as you boil it.

2
Clean your pot with dish soap and a nonabrasive cleaning pad only. Do not scrub your aluminum pot with a metal scouring pad and do not use oxygen-based cleansers, as these can scratch your pot or they can break down the oxide layer you created in Step 1. Do not use harsh, caustic cleaners of any kind.



Read more: How to Care for Aluminum Brew Pots | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5776583_care-aluminum-brew-pots.html#ixzz1EBC5N9YC

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Isn't dish soap bad to use on anything brewing-related?

dandw12786 said:

Would it be intelligent to maybe eliminate grain for one batch and just do a simple extract and hops recipe to see if that's the problem (maybe my steeping or crushing is off)? Will beer made without any grain taste pretty good? Was going to brew a wheat this weekend, so maybe just use the recipe I was going to go with and eliminate the grain?

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Is the grain all from same batch? How are you crushing the grain? Using an electric drill? Don't want to be over cranking it(nothing over 300rpm ish) Have you opened and looked inside crushers? Everthing looks OK, no worn down parts in there. You've tried bottled water already. I know that alum. pots are fine but..........like I said about the numerous amounts of different types of stainless are out there, well there is about 1000 different coumpound types of aluminum. Do you know someone you can borrow a stainless pot from? That way you don't have to spend 40-50 bucks on a pot that you may not need.
Pete

dandw12786 said:

Isn't dish soap bad to use on anything brewing-related?

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Better use non fragrance dish soap

Peterock said:

Is the grain all from same batch? How are you crushing the grain? Using an electric drill? Don't want to be over cranking it(nothing over 300rpm ish) Have you opened and looked inside crushers? Everthing looks OK, no worn down parts in there. You've tried bottled water already. I know that alum. pots are fine but..........like I said about the numerous amounts of different types of stainless are out there, well there is about 1000 different coumpound types of aluminum. Do you know someone you can borrow a stainless pot from? That way you don't have to spend 40-50 bucks on a pot that you may not need.
Pete

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The grains have come from various sources... some brewer's best kits, some crushed in store, some was crushed when the store got it, and some I crushed myself with varying methods (most recently picked up a victoria mill). Nobody I know brews... or cooks lots of chili. I think I'll try heating the pot in the oven or boiling water in it (or both), and brewing something with only extract and hops... only RO water, no distilled or tap... get the least amount of variables and see if this flavor goes away. Wish I knew someone with a stainless pot, would like to buy one, but if I can't figure this taste thing out, would be $80-100 more on a hobby I'm most likely going to give up on...

Get a 1 gallon stainless steel pot and use that as a test? Plus you can use it for cooking later.

I am sensitive to "metallic" brews that I have decided was due to hops. Particularly hops used in traditional British pale ales. So, fuggles, galena, goldings . . . Are you brewing a consistent style? Does the flavor exist before bottling?

Styles have been different, first was a brown ale, then amber, pale, wheat, IPA, kind of a wheat style pale, and another pale. Hops have been mostly american style: cascade, amarillo, simcoe, but have used some chinook in the IPA, I think some cluster somewhere... don't even know what was in the Amber, but that one was awful. I think the flavor has been there before bottling, but not as much as after... the flavor seems to develop more in the bottles... Seems to get worse with time.

I really appreciate everyone's help with this.

I'm having the same problem with my first ever batch. It's an APA brewed in an aluminum boil pot from 3.3 lbs LME and 2 lbs DME and tap water. I boiled a couple of gallons of tap water in the pot and discarded them before I started boiling my wort. I taste tested it before bottling and there was a hint of metallic taste but not as bad as it was after carbonating in bottles for 2 weeks. As far as hops I used 1oz. Nugget at 60 mins and 1 oz. Cascade at 15 mins. I've seen it suggested to heat the boil pot in the oven at 250F for 6 hrs to build up an oxidizing layer. I think I'll try that just in case. I'm also going to test my water and see if that needs adjusted. From reading several threads on this I think the water might be the culprit as it seems to be in most situations.

dandw12786 said:

I think the flavor has been there before bottling, but not as much as after... the flavor seems to develop more in the bottles... Seems to get worse with time.

I really appreciate everyone's help with this.

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I think the off flavor worsening over time could be an indication of infection or oxidation.

if your planning on putting your stock pot in the oven you may need take the trays out and sit your stock pot on four tinfoil balls , make the tinfoil balls yourself, thats the only way i could fit my Aluminum stock pot in my oven and off the element , some sites said you only had to put it in for 10 mins at 350 f, i was extra cautious and boiled first then baked for 30 mins