Contamination question

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ESPY

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I think I've encountered my first dose of contaminated homebrew. I did a clone of Pete's Wicked that I initially thought turned out pretty good. I kegged most of it and bottled about 12. I gave a couple each to some friends and they both liked it. After that it really went down hill. It got a medicinal/chemical flavor that must have been contamination. I dumped the keg and tasted one of the remaining bottles and it was bad too. So it seems to me that it must be something I did during the bottling/kegging process.

Is it common for contamination to get worse with time? I'm surprised that the first samples were OK. And does contamination develop even in cold temp?

Thanks,
SP
 
I thought chlorophenols were from chlorine reactions with the phenols produved by the yeast. Perhaps you didn't rinse your containers enough after sanitizing?
 
I use the One Step no-rinse sanitizer, so it's probably not that. I do soak my carboys in bleach water before use but always do a thorough rinse followed by a soak in One Step. But if the problem came from my carboys I wouldn't expect the original samples to have turned out OK. So I'm wondering if maybe I didn't sanitize the bottling bucket well enough.

Probably a long shot: I know One Step is supposed to be no rinse, but I wonder what happens if you don't thoroughly dissolve all of the powder and end up racking on top of some undissolved One Step. White powder in a white bucket...I could have missed it.
 
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