Medicinal problem

I started brewing this fall and I've pretty much decided that the majority of my batches have come out with a medicinal flavor. One didn't have it too much but I can't really place what I did differently.

At first I thought it was the one-step, so I switched to Iodophor. Then I thought it was temperature, so I started wrapping my fermenters in wet towels and put a fan on them.

Then I thought maybe it was chlorine so I started boiling water and using bottled spring water (usually using the boiled water for the boil, and the 2 gal of spring water direct to the primary for 3+2).

My latest batch incorporated all of this and still tastes medicinal. It's still young (about 2-3 weeks since brewing it) but I don't know if it'll go away. I had one wheat beer batch that was so super medicinal and banana-y it was unreal. And that one never got better.

So... someone else suggested a chloramine problem which won't go away with boiling. Will sodium metabisulfite fix it? If so, how much? And would it only fix the boil water or would tap water straight to the primary be fixable as well?

Any ideas here are much appreciated... can't seem to shake this one problem even though I feel like I've gotten everything down to a science, otherwise.

I answered your "how much sodium metabisulfite" question on the Water and sanitizer question thread.

I don't know what might be causing the medicine flavor or what you do about it. Hopefully someone else can help you with that.

Call your water source and ask if they use chloramine. If they do, I'd recommend using all spring water or an activated charcoal filter. Sodium metabisulfite works, you just need to treat all of the water you use. Including your rinse water & top-off water.

wowzers. okay. talked to some local homebrewers and apparently the water here is so full of chloramine that you can actually smell it. i always wondered why it smelled like that. sigh. well at least now i know!

maybe i will just go with bottled spring water even for the boil... guess i could use the campden tabs but even then who knows what else in the water here would taste bad. thanks for the replies.

You might save money in the long run if you buy a nice water filtering system.

G. Cretin said:

You might save money in the long run if you buy a nice water filtering system.

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can you recommend anything, or point me in the right direction? I currently have a (faucet-connected) PUR filter, but I've read that those in reality don't reduce chloramine at all. I would need something that can work in an apartment (as opposed to outside of a house on the main water line or something).

Thanks.

I think anything with activated charcoal would be a step in the right direction also do a seach in the equipment section on water filtering, tons of good ideas in that section on everything.

Not any iron utensils near your beer, I hope? Or a chipped enamel pot?

I did several batchs that i thought were metalic. I was using a piece of perforated stainless for a false bottom when sparging. It had some white corrosion on it after I had left it soak in chlorine, so I soaked it in phosphoric acid to get rid of the oxidation. But then I went to a braided hose and left the stainless lay around. It RUSTED! Case closed...

casebrew said:

Not any iron utensils near your beer, I hope? Or a chipped enamel pot?

I did several batchs that i thought were metalic. I was using a piece of perforated stainless for a false bottom when sparging. It had some white corrosion on it after I had left it soak in chlorine, so I soaked it in phosphoric acid to get rid of the oxidation. But then I went to a braided hose and left the stainless lay around. It RUSTED! Case closed...

Click to expand...

hmm... i'm not using an enamel pot. I'm using a steel pot. It's a very old pot though (same one my uncle used for a very long time). There are lots of scratches, etc, on the inside. Could this have anything to do with it? Can steel cause problems if old enough or in poor enough condition?