Tea ball resulted in metallic flavor?

I used a tea ball for dry hopping in secondary and the finished beer has a distinct metal characteristic. It is only 3 weeks after bottling but this usually isn't something that goes away. I did add a small amount of gypsum to increase hop utilization and I'm worried that metallic ions were pulled off the tea ball.

It's supposed to be stainless steel, but maybe the clasp or chain is not stainless steel? I think in the future I'll replace the chain with fishing line or steel wire.

It's too bad, because even though I miscalculated the bittering hops and it's not as bitter as I wanted it, it tastes strongly of apricots which came as a bit of a pleasant surprise to me. The only hops are palisade. It's drinkable, but I'd prefer it to be delicious!

Any insight into this issue?

did the ball have a protective oxide layer on it before you used it? if not that could be the source of your metallic flavor. i'm no expert on this by any means so keep that in mind. but i don't think you got toxic levels of metal in your brew. just don't get drunk off your .. well ... and you should be ok.

On a lot of the tea balls the hinge and chain can end up not being stainless. I've not had any issues with the one that I dropped inside my English IPA keg yet. What does the tea ball look like now?

I have four tea balls since I don't put more than 1/2 oz of hops in one. Never noticed any off flavors from using them, but I have never used them for dry hopping, always in the boil.

These are the $2 tea balls from Wally World.

Gremlyn1 said:

On a lot of the tea balls the hinge and chain can end up not being stainless. I've not had any issues with the one that I dropped inside my English IPA keg yet. What does the tea ball look like now?

Click to expand...

No rust or anything, it looks the same as when I got it. It's a smaller 2" diameter round tea ball with a clasp.



I have a bunch of the larger herb infusers (4"x3") for boils that I haven't tried yet... I think I'll remove the chains on everything as a precaution.



They don't have a clasp, they twist to lock them in place.