Off flavor and water quality

Just as a generalization, if water quality were causing an off flavor to appear in a beer, would said water ALWAYS cause an off flavor or could it come and go from batch to batch and style to style?

I've brewed 7 beers and two have had a very foul flavor (possibly tannic?). 5 have been great. The two "bad" beers were a belgian wit and a brown ale. Now, this is the second brown ale I've done with the exact same recipe. The first one came out excellent, this one is borderline undrinkable. Can water quality be a potential cause (no water quality report available).

Thanks,
---Chris

Can you be more specific in describing the flavor you're experiencing?

Also, what makes you think it's water quality? In general, if the water tastes good it's probably good for brewing extract recipes (unless chloramine or chlorine is added, as is the case for some municipal sources.)

It's possible that it's your water, but in extract recipes there is very little/no enzymatic reactions that could be effected by water quality. If you were mashing, I would say yes water quality would have a huge effect on the process. Have you thought about the possibility of infection?

The flavor has been described by friends as "plastic-like." I'm not really looking to diagnose the cause of the flavor since from other threads, it's pretty much been narrowed down to fermentation temperature (74-76* at the middle of the bucket) but I was just hoping to exempt this final potential cause since my other brews have been excellent.

My municipal water does have chlorine in it. Also, I'm pretty sure it's not an infection from reading the infection posts on this board.

Why would most of my beer be great and a couple end up lousy?

---Chris

FireRescueFL said:

Why would most of my beer be great and a couple end up lousy?

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I think that can be said of most brewers. I've had a few clunkers along the way. Are you doing something to get rid of the Chlorine? Campden tabs, filtering, etc.?

I lived in Fl for a few years and the H20 from the tap would not have made a good beer. I couldn't drink it without filtration.

If the beer has a "Band aid" or plastic taste and aroma it sounds like bacteria have beat the yeast in the fermentation race and you are observing the effects of an infected batch rather than brewing water malfunction.

Low likelihood that its the water, more likely to be brewing process or sanitation related.

Chlorophenol

• Tastes/Smells Like: Plastic, Vinyl, Iodine

• Possible Causes: Using chlorinated tap water to brew
or rinse equipment is the most common cause for
plastic-like or medicinal flavors. Medicinal flavors
can also be the result of using cleanser or sanitizer
that is chlorine or iodine based. Some wild yeast will
contribute to a similar medicinal taste.

kladue said:

If the beer has a "Band aid" or plastic taste and aroma it sounds like bacteria have beat the yeast in the fermentation race and you are observing the effects of an infected batch rather than brewing water malfunction.

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+1 to this and the above post.
The "band aid" taste is also caused by chlorine/chloramine presence as indicated by Palmer in "How to Brew" and I believe Papazian also touches upon this.

In general, it's best not to brew with chlorine treated water. Either boil it ahead of time or let it evaporate for at least 24 hours prior to brewing.

Just make sure it's actually chlorine treatment and not chloramine: chloramine cannot be evaporated and requires a chemical additive to allow precipitation. Many municipal water sources are now using chloramine treatments instead (ie. my town.)

I buy bottled water for this reason.



However, if you feel you've narrowed it down to fermentation temps (yes, 74 - 76*F is quite high but I'm not sure this would cause a "plastic" taste,) hopefully all is good and brew away!

"Plastic" is classic chlorphenolic caused by chloramine in the water. The reason it may be variable is because of seasonal variability in the application of chloramine by the water authority. For example, the DC water authority gooses disinfection every spring. If your water authority does that to an appreciable extent they will usually send a flyer with their bill telling that they are doing so.

That's a possible source of 'chlor' variation. The other half is the phenolic part. Different grains are going to release more or less phenols than others. Low chloramine and low phenols and you could be OK. High chloramine and high phenols and you may have a problems.

The answer is to get rid of the chloramine. This is very simply done by adding 1 Campden tablet to each 20 gallons of water being treated. Do that and your problem should be solved.

You can also remove chloramine from water by the traditional means of allowing it to stand or boiling it. Problem is it has to stand for about 10 days and be boiled for a couple of hours. Campden tablets are much easier. You can also get rid of it by activated charcoal filtering.

Fortunately, Groveland gets their water from the Floridan Aquifer and doesn't vary their disinfection protocol during the year. Its more likely that the city uses chlorine unless the aquifer has elevated levels of organic compounds in it.

As AJ mentions, many water suppliers do change their disinfection method during the year if they: 1) use a surface water source and 2) use chloramination as their primary disinfection chemical. The goosing up that AJ mentions is not typically an increase in the chemical dosage rate but is a change from chloramine to just chlorine. Chlorine has a much higher disinfection effectiveness than chloramine and also costs less. This change is possible in the winter and spring when the surface water source has less organic compounds in it which reduces the level of trihalomethanes (carcinogenic) that are created from the reaction with chlorine.

Water companies typically notify the public that they are changing from chloramine to chlorine because the water will suddenly have a much higher chlorine odor than with chloramine. The companies don't typically tell the public when they go back to chloramination since few would notice that the odor diminished.

PS: I grew up in Haines City.

It's the water. Even using the campeden tablets I would end up with the flavors. It doesn't help that they use lime to soften our water causing the pH to be elevated. I gave up last batch and started building from RO.

SwampassJ said:

It's the water. Even using the campeden tablets I would end up with the flavors. It doesn't help that they use lime to soften our water causing the pH to be elevated. I gave up last batch and started building from RO.

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Your water is a different case. A lot of South Florida's water is surface water from the Everglades. It can have that pond scum flavor that originates from geosmin or methyl-isoborneal. That is fairly easy to remove by filtering slowly through an activated carbon filter. The elevated pH is easy to correct with minor acid addition. If you have the water report for your water supplier, a program like Bru'n Water will help you figure out how much acid is needed. Lime softened water is typically good brewing water.

mabrungard said:

Your water is a different case. A lot of South Florida's water is surface water from the Everglades. It can have that pond scum flavor that originates from geosmin or methyl-isoborneal. That is fairly easy to remove by filtering slowly through an activated carbon filter. The elevated pH is easy to correct with minor acid addition. If you have the water report for your water supplier, a program like Bru'n Water will help you figure out how much acid is needed. Lime softened water is typically good brewing water.

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Actually in this area it's from the Biscayne aquifer and the wells are a few hundred feet deep.

SwampassJ said:

Actually in this area it's from the Biscayne aquifer and the wells are a few hundred feet deep.

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You are correct, but the transmissivity of the Biscayne aquifer is one of the highest in the world and the connection between the surface water and the groundwater is very high.

All that water you see in the drainage canals is what you're drinking. There is no difference between the surface water quality and the water quality of the Biscayne in your water supplier's well field. Sorry for the news. But, that is what the water treatment process is for. The water is still OK to drink but can have that pond scum flavor on occassion.