It Needs To Be Tossed.....Just Say It.

So, I'm hanging onto my last shred of hope here.....

About a month ago I brewed one of Austin Homebrews Session Ales, their Scotch Ale.

It started pretty well. I put it in my basement and after a week it was at 1.020 and remained there for awhile. During this time we had our usual cold snap and the temp dropped and all activity just stopped.

I consulted with AHB and my LHBS and added a brewbelt and re-pitched yeast. After a week it finally hit 1.014.

I kegged and let it carb up. The taste has a strong band-aid flavor to it.

The only thing I can think of was that the beer was advertised as being a 10-day turn-around. Since it ended up fermenting in colder conditions than it probably should I was forced to use a brew belt and re-pitch after a few days of the belt. It was about a month in total to get it where it needed to be to keg.

I'm assuming that the yeast was stressed and this is the result. Does this sound correct?

Thanks.

I never advise throwing a beer away.

That said. I have thrown beer away. Beer that tasted like band aids. Held on to it with hopes of improvement but it eventually tasted like band aids that were ripped off of a batch of hemorrhoids. That's when I tossed it.

Not that I'm advocating dumping your beer.

Did the water you brewed with have chlorine in it? tap water will usually contain chlorine or chloride, both of which can cause a band aid off flavor.

"Band-aid" means phenols from either stressed yeast or an infection. Either way, I've had bandaid clear up to be drinkable. Not great, but drinkable. I certainly wouldn't recommend dumping any sort of beer only one month after brewing.

Edit: or as azscoob pointed out, chloramines in the water can give a medicinal bandaidy off flavor. If you've brewed with the same water previously and not experienced it, though, I'd lean more on the side of stressed yeast or contamination.

dwarven_stout said:

"Band-aid" means phenols from either stressed yeast or an infection. Either way, I've had bandaid clear up to be drinkable. Not great, but drinkable. I certainly wouldn't recommend dumping any sort of beer only one month after brewing.

Edit: or as azscoob pointed out, chloramines in the water can give a medicinal bandaidy off flavor. If you've brewed with the same water previously and not experienced it, though, I'd lean more on the side of stressed yeast or contamination.

Click to expand...

It's not the water. I've used the same tap water for all my beers and none of them has this taste to it.

So, as far as "clearing up" is concerned. Is this just something I need to sit on for a month or two or a decade for it to subside?

If I didn't need to use that keg again I'd just stick it in the corner and hope it clears up.

That said, I had band-aid flavor on one batch that I traced back to chlorophenols, that simply never went away. I kept the bottles for about 6-8 months and tried them every once in a while, but man they were nasty. In a last gasp effort I brought the rest to a party where they got consumed by a bunch of drunk people who normally drink BMC and thought they tasted great.

I changed my whole brewing process based on that experience so that I wouldn't get chlorophenols again.

Never throw out beer...although I too have been guilty of this in my past.

Revvy has a great story for why you should never throw it out. Do a quick search.

If it is due to yeast stress, they will re-absorb most of the nasties they dump...just give them some time to do it.

Good luck.

Pikledbill

BTW: remember this and taste it periodically...when it turns out fine, you will have a story to tell some day.

Did it contain Smoked Peat malt? I discovered that this can sometimes throw what can be interpreted as bandaid flavors.

weirdboy said:

In a last gasp effort I brought the rest to a party where they got consumed by a bunch of drunk people who normally drink BMC and thought they tasted great. .

Click to expand...

thats how I get rid of my bad ones - never dump beer

Some people just cant let go, at best your beer will probably only be slightly drinkable after many many months, I personally would throw away my beer to make space to brew new, really awesome beer

but if you have the space and bottles, I guess it cant hurt to hold on.

Ive dumped 10gal before

Yeah, that's kind of the issue. It's kegged so the longer it sits the longer I have a keg out of service.

Ironic that it ends this way since AHB advertised the beer as being easy to brew and with a quick turn-around.

pikledbill said:

Revvy has a great story for why you should never throw it out. Do a quick search.

If it is due to yeast stress, they will re-absorb most of the nasties they dump...just give them some time to do it.

Good luck.

Pikledbill

BTW: remember this and taste it periodically...when it turns out fine, you will have a story to tell some day.

Click to expand...

Then he can add it here with the rest of the stories.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/


I vote for time before you decide to dump.....you may be surprised like many of the folks in the thread.....If you dump now it's 100% failure, if you hold of your odds jump to 50/50....

Skarekrough said:

Yeah, that's kind of the issue. It's kegged so the longer it sits the longer I have a keg out of service.

Click to expand...

you can always bottle it to free up the keg

I know folks say "Don't dump! Look at Revvy's posts!", but I have dumped 3 batches before; 1 from an infection (the yeast apparently was bad before I pitched it) and 2 that tasted horrid because of a heat wave. For the bad tasting ones it was taking up storage space and bottles that I could be using for a good batch. It is not an ego killer if I need to ditch a batch, and if you have something you can brew up, keg/bottle, and enjoy in the time it would take you to "let the bad beer age out a bit" I would say start anew.

From what I have heard, this flavor may fade but never go away. You have to ask yourself this; if the flavor fades but is still slightly there, are you seeing yourself reaching for one rather than a different brew?

As a home brewer, I feel no need to hold onto a batch that is just "drinkable" rather than "enjoyable". This is supposed to be beer I am proud to share with my friends, so take as you will.

Band aid NEVER goes away, you just get used to it.

Dump it.

Why suffer through it when you could have something simple brewed and kegged in the mean time.

Also, kegged means COLD. Right?

Even if the yeast could magically clean up the horrible flavor, they don't do ANYTHING below 45F or so.

Dump it if and when you NEED the keg. Otherwise why not let it sit for a bit?

I've dumped a blonde ale that fermented in 85 degree heat. After 3 months it never tasted good. Trust me, I drank my share waiting for it to get good.

Another option is to keep adding sugar until the yeast give out for good, then boil that batch and collect the condensation. I'm still a bit fuzzy on the details, but from what I gather, this is one way to salvage a bad batch...

Tall_Yotie said:

As a home brewer, I feel no need to hold onto a batch that is just "drinkable" rather than "enjoyable". This is supposed to be beer I am proud to share with my friends, so take as you will.

Click to expand...

+1 to that, I agree. I've tossed one (actually about 1/2 of a 5 gal) batch. A wheat beer with a definite band-aid/phenol character. Because I am not a heavy drinker, I was able to let them age for quite some time, almost a year, periodically sampling them to monitor any change. The band-aid taste only faded slightly. Drinkable, yes, enjoyable, not really. I never drank more than 1 per sitting and usually never finished a whole bottle. Just wasn't worth it to me to hang onto it any longer.

If Sam Calagione dumps thousands of gallons, as seen on Brewmasters, I really don't feel so bad about tossing a case.

Scotch and Scottish Ales generally improve with conditioning. I say give it at least a month

Improve? Sure, but from absolutely horrible, to just plain sucky isn't really worth the wait.

i vote dump and move on.

I'm surprised they advertised a Scotch Ale as a quick turnaround session beer. Scotch Ale takes a long time to condition and is certainly not a session beer. Even Scottish Ale needs a rather long lager-like conditioning phase. Band-Aid is never a good description of beer though. It means bad things and unhappy yeast.

Unhappy yeast? I have abused the PHUCK out of yeast. They never reacted like that.

Leftover cleanser? Flouride or chlorine in the water? WAAAAAAAAY more likely.

cheezydemon3 said:

Unhappy yeast? I have abused the PHUCK out of yeast. They never reacted like that.

Leftover cleanser? Flouride or chlorine in the water? WAAAAAAAAY more likely.

Click to expand...

That Ale was brewed during a span of about three weeks where I had brewed another 5 batches with the same gear. If it were something to do with my gear then it would have been a one-off problem and not something like the water.

As I'd said, the batch is sitting in a keg. I started kegging to get away from bottling so the only thing this beer will get transferred to is my gut or the sink. If I can't stand to dump it down my gullet because I hate the flavor then it will go down the sink.

My keezer holds 4 kegs and I have one extra to rotate in. There's three Stouts and one Ale in there now which is fine for the cold months, but not so much once things warm up. I'd like to have something on deck and ready to swap in when the time is right.

I'll give it a little time but if I'm not in love with it by Valentines Day then it goes down the drain. I'm kind of doing this against my better judgement but would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

I get that you don't think it is the water. "leftover cleanser" is where I offered my best guess.

I am the guy with the "19 batch yeast cake", the "4 month old" yeast cake, and I have used plenty of "expired" yeast packs.

If someone would have seen "stressed" yeast it is me.

My only band aid brews came from brand new liquid yeast in ideal conditions. Either my water (which has been fine on all 80 of my other brews, but I don't make the water) or sanitizer left in the fermenter.

I count infection and chemicals as "unhappy yeast" because the yeast doesn't like to share it's sugar or fight chemicals. My post was actually about the type of beer, it seemed to me that everyone else had already narrowed down the usual suspects and I didn't feel that I needed to say anything more about that.

Skarekrough said:

It's not the water. I've used the same tap water for all my beers and none of them has this taste to it.

Click to expand...

Probably not the case here, but just thought I'd throw this out.

Depending on where your water comes from, it CAN change. I'm on a community well and the water association tests the water regularly to see if it needs to be treated. So far they haven't found anything in it so they've never had to add chlorine or chloramines in the year I've been here. But I know that they could be added at any time if they find anything in their tests. The same can happen in municipal water supplies.

Not saying this is what happened to your batch, but it's something for folks who use tap water to keep in mind. Unless you're on your own well, you aren't guaranteed that the water you get this week is the water you'll get next week.

.....I stand corrected!

My point was that unhappy yeast (less than ideal environment, not unhappy due to contamination) don't make "band aid" on their own, or it would be rampant.

Also (thanks chshr) my point as well, that "I don't make the tap water" (implied: NEITHER DO YOU) is also valid.

ChshreCat said:

Probably not the case here, but just thought I'd throw this out.

Depending on where your water comes from, it CAN change. I'm on a community well and the water association tests the water regularly to see if it needs to be treated. So far they haven't found anything in it so they've never had to add chlorine or chloramines in the year I've been here. But I know that they could be added at any time if they find anything in their tests. The same can happen in municipal water supplies.

Not saying this is what happened to your batch, but it's something for folks who use tap water to keep in mind. Unless you're on your own well, you aren't guaranteed that the water you get this week is the water you'll get next week.

Click to expand...

Well, sure.

But in great part it seems like an unlikely culprit.

If were going to throw everything out there it could have been that gnomes broke in and took a dump in the fermenter while I was asleep.

I can't NOT prove it was gnomes, but it still seems pretty unlikely.

The only thing I can come up with as proof that it wasn't the water was that I had done several other batches around that time span without issue. And I've done other beers over a span of years and not have had this issue.

Lacking a time machine the only thing I can really do is consider testing my water next time and perhaps installing a gnome detector.

It is possible the water caused the problem. Any time the temperature changes or precipitation changes it affects the minerals in the water, which tend to have an effect on your beer, and it can cause growth in bacteria which causes the water treatment folks to add chlorine/chloramine, which tends to also have an effect on your beer.

On the other hand, could have just been a crappy kit.

Which sanitizer did you use? Over the past 10 years at the store the problem is rarely the water. Someone used bleach, starsan, or Iodophor, and didn't use the right concentration and/or didn't rinse well enough.

PM me and I will straighten it all out.

Forrest

That's unfortunate. I am drinking a beer from that recipe as I write this and it is damn good. Definitely give it a try again in the future if it doesn't clear up.

I'm dealing with the exact same dilemma and have decided that I'll likely toss it this week. Mine was also from Austin Home Brew in the same timeframe and it took an unusually long time for any visible fermentation to take place. It has gotten slightly better over time, but far from good. I brewed another batch a week later from the same AHS order and it came out great. I had characterized it as a strong yeast taste because it was pretty similar to what some yeast smells like, but the 'band aid' description is much more accurate. Oh well, not the end of the world.