Band aid taste.

Ok I gotta ask a stupid ? who ever came up with this flavor description? In the 37 years I have been on this earth i honestly dont ever remember eating a band aid. nor can i even think of what is being described as that taste. Help me understand this off flavor.

tchuklobrau said:

Ok I gotta ask a stupid ? who ever came up with this flavor description? In the 37 years I have been on this earth i honestly dont ever remember eating a band aid. nor can i even think of what is being described as that taste. Help me understand this off flavor.

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Smell a band-aid... Taste is very similar... Of course, you could always lick a fresh/clean one to get a solid point of reference... :cross:

If you ever get this flavor in your beer, you'll be going "I'll be damned, it does taste like bandaids", and if you do happen to ever get it rest assured it doesn't go away, it doesn't even fade. That beer is farked and will never be drinkable. Unless of course you like bandaids.

Some people are also overly sensitive to smokey flavors or peated malt flavors in something like a single malt scotch and experience them as a slightly band-aid like flavor.

cclloyd said:

If you ever get this flavor in your beer, you'll be going "I'll be damned, it does taste like bandaids", and if you do happen to ever get it rest assured it doesn't go away, it doesn't even fade. That beer is farked and will never be drinkable. Unless of course you like bandaids.

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Yeah, exactly!

It sounds crazy, but I tell everybody that fuggles hops taste like dirt. I've never eaten dirt that I can recall, but when I taste a beer with late addition hops, I say, "Oh, dirt!" Trust me.

Like the "wet cardboard" flavor description of severe oxidation. I've never eaten wet cardboard either, but that's exactly the taste.

kinda of like "gun metal" - if you ever had to taste band aids or gun metal, i'm really sorry...

I didnt know what that tasted like until this weekend. I went a beer festival and tried a brown ale from a local brewery and it had a very strong band-aid taste. As soon as i took the first sip it clicked. Maybe you've just been lucky enough not to taste it... its not good

IMHO sometimes band aid taste is caused by too much suspended yeast...so, if you smell a smack pack before you dump it in the wort, it might give you a better idea of what people are talking about.

Spence said:

IMHO sometimes band aid taste is caused by too much suspended yeast....

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This flavor is associated with chlorophenols which are usually do to either the presence of chlorine / chloramines in your water, or in the experience that I had, due to very stressed yeast that are either old or underpitched or what happened in my case - both.

Dry hopping with bandaids will also give you a bandaid flavor. And it won't help keep infections at bay...

Homercidal said:

Dry hopping with bandaids will also give you a bandaid flavor. And it won't help keep infections at bay...

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I've had goo luck with the little circular ones. And, if they are pre-medicated it does a great job of stopping infections.

Aroma/smell is between 70 and 90% of taste (depending upon which infallible internet source you're citing). If you're ever smelled a fresh bandaid straight out of the box, you know the taste that's being described.

I doubt very many people have tasted poo, but I can almost guarantee that if you tasted something that did taste like it, you would know because you know the smell....