Plastic Aroma and Taste

I tried my first batch of beer and...uugghhh. There is a heavy plastic aroma as well as a plastic like taste. I use a plastic bucket to ferment in but it seems that many people do this without any sort of problem. What stages, or problems could have caused this? I was not present when they were put into bottles, is there anything in the bottling stage that could have caused this? I used an all extract recipe with only 1 kind of DME and Saaz Hops, with a nottingham yeast packet. I used bleach as a sanitizer, but I recently purchased enough Iodopher to sanitize a small country. Any ideas?

EDIT: I only used a primary and the recipe said to leave it in for 5-8 days but I left it in for about 14, it said let the bottles sit for 7 days I tried it on the 13th just because I was curious. Also the beer is not very carbonated, my roommate did the bottling but hes not around so I cant ask him what he did.

If the bucket is food grade, it won't be that. I had the same problem with my first few batches. In my case it turned out that the hoses were not food grade, so when I was moving hot wort through through through the hose it was leaching plastic flavor into the beer. As soon as I changed to high temp, silicone food grade hoses the problem disappeared.

When were you moving hot wort through the tubes though? When I put the wort into my primary I just dumped it in so it could get some oxygen into it. I think the only time the hose was used was to siphon it into another bucket right before it was bottled.

BrewRI said:

When were you moving hot wort through the tubes though? When I put the wort into my primary I just dumped it in so it could get some oxygen into it. I think the only time the hose was used was to siphon it into another bucket right before it was bottled.

Click to expand...

I just realized that you're doing it extract, so my experience is probably not relevant. I would check that your bucket is food grade. Also you may be experiencing a medicinal / 'bandaid' off flavor (I noticed you're using bleach; you might not have rinsed thoroughly enough):

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

I'm no expert though.

I had this same problem when using a chlorine based cleaner (like the chlorine in bleach). When I would burp my beer it tasted like I had swallowed rubber. Once I switched to star-san my beer tasted great. Chlorine lingers and is hard to rinse clean, causes a lot of problems if residue is left behind.

feedbag said:

I had this same problem when using a chlorine based cleaner (like the chlorine in bleach). When I would burp my beer it tasted like I had swallowed rubber. Once I switched to star-san my beer tasted great. Chlorine lingers and is hard to rinse clean, causes a lot of problems if residue is left behind.

Click to expand...

I started using campden tablets recently to mitigate risk of Chlorine spoiling things. Definitely recommended; one less thing to stress about.

Have any of you used Iodophor BTF Solution, I picked up a bottle online but I'm skeptical of starting a next batch before I can figure out what happened with this first one. I didn't let it sit in the bottled properly (2 weeks at 60 instead of 3 at 70ish) so I'm thinking of waiting 2-3 more weeks to see what changes take place.

BrewRI said:

Have any of you used Iodophor BTF Solution, I picked up a bottle online but I'm skeptical of starting a next batch before I can figure out what happened with this first one. I didn't let it sit in the bottled properly (2 weeks at 60 instead of 3 at 70ish) so I'm thinking of waiting 2-3 more weeks to see what changes take place.

Click to expand...

I use Iodophor for sanitizing my equipment and the wife does too for her mead equipment. So far no issues with her batches and my first with it.

BrewRI said:

Have any of you used Iodophor BTF Solution, I picked up a bottle online but I'm skeptical of starting a next batch before I can figure out what happened with this first one. I didn't let it sit in the bottled properly (2 weeks at 60 instead of 3 at 70ish) so I'm thinking of waiting 2-3 more weeks to see what changes take place.

Click to expand...

I love Idophor. I use Oxyclean for cleaning, and Idophor for sanitizing. Just 1 cap full per 5 gallons, it goes a long way. And it's a no-rinse solution. I mostly keg now, but when bottling I sanitize with Idophor for a few minutes and then sanitize again in the dish washer (no soap, obviously) and never had any problems.

+1 on campden tabs. Had same prob with a couple of batches. Local water supply can vary in amount of chlorine/chloramines, especially during warmer summer months. Since i used, haven't had the problem again. hopefully this nipped it.

BrewRI said:

I tried my first batch of beer and...uugghhh. There is a heavy plastic aroma as well as a plastic like taste. I use a plastic bucket to ferment in but it seems that many people do this without any sort of problem. What stages, or problems could have caused this? I was not present when they were put into bottles, is there anything in the bottling stage that could have caused this? I used an all extract recipe with only 1 kind of DME and Saaz Hops, with a nottingham yeast packet. I used bleach as a sanitizer, but I recently purchased enough Iodopher to sanitize a small country. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

You are describing the classic, bad homebrew flavor of phenolics. This is most often caused by fermenting at too high a temperature, poor sanitation which allowed an infection or a combination of the two.