Hot wort aeration tastes like s***

So I've read about oxygen binding to wort compounds if it is aerated when the wort is hot. But I am now experiencing the flavors firsthand. Many brewers are probably smart enough to avoid this without knowing what flavors they are avoiding. So, let me share:

My first all grain recipe was Edwort's haus pale which was brewed a couple of months ago. I had everything pre-planned and figured out according to so many HBTers advice. The one thing that escaped my practice was lautering with tubes. I simply opened the valve on my MT and let it pour a good four feet down to my brew pot. I didn't even realize what I did until after the brew day was done: Hot wort aeration

Now that I am drinking it, I realize to the full extent the problem this caused. The smell is the most appalling. It certainly isn't undrinkable but it smells like well seasoned football pads. If you ever played football, you know what I am talking about. The aroma is sweet and almost moldy. The flavor isn't affected that much. I like my beer served around 55F and it is just not possible with this one. The only escape, or masking, this aroma is to serve it ice cold.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I've read a lot around here and mostly (at least to me) it seems that HSA is the homebrewers boogeyman. Although the only other explanation for at s--t smell/taste is another tough thing to do, autolysis...
How long was it on the primary yeast?


In either case, i feel for ya, there's nothing like hoping for a good beer and ending up with a crappy one...

It is highly improbable that the flavors that you are describing can be attributed to HSA.

Take a gander at this video (featuring Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery) and see the large distance hot wort is falling. If HSA isn't an issue there, you can be pretty well assured that it won't be an issue for you in your brewery.

There's some other culprit responsible for the foul taste and aroma. Some details, please. How old is the beer? How long was it conditioning? Your process?

I thought aeration tasted like stale cardboard? It's possible you have some other form of infection.

GreenwoodRover said:

HSA is the homebrewers boogeyman.

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HSA is only one of our boogeymen.

flyangler18 said:

It is highly improbable that the flavors that you are describing can be attributed to HSA.

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+1

Recipe?
Process?
If we knew a little more about your beer we probably could help in getting that out of your future beers.

I thought of infection, but there were no visible signs and the beer is certainly drinkable. I was under the impression both these things wouldn't occur by infection. What else should I look for besides that aroma that could attribute this to autolysis?

Recipe is ed's haus pale
Process is exactly as states in recipe.
Fermented at 62F
Bottled after two weeks

Autolyis is also very difficuly to get, the only reason I mentioned it was because you said it was brewed a while ago. If you let it sit in primary too long then autolysis *could* be one possible explanation for the off flavor...
FTR I've never experienced autolysis myself and have left mid gravity beer in primary for 5weeks.

EDIT:
Bottling after 2 weeks would most likely rule autolysis out.
It must be some other infection/off flavor...

After reading Palmer's explanation of wet cardboard and sherry, I can't understand why this isn't it. It seems like this is Palmer's more eloquent way of describing the same thing in my beer.

I doubt it was HSA, Basic brewing radio did a nice side by side experiment and no one could tell the difference.

Palmers description of cardboard and sherry, edit:can also, refer to post fermentation oxidation. Did you have a lot of splashing when you racked/bottled?
Did you secondary to a vessel with a lot of head space and move it around a lot?
Has the problem been getting worse (oxidation off flavors are more pronoumced as the beer ages).

GreenwoodRover said:

Palmers description of cardboard and sherry, edit:can also, refer to post fermentation oxidation. Did you have a lot of splashing when you racked/bottled?
Did you secondary to a vessel with a lot of head space and move it around a lot?
Has the problem been getting worse (oxidation off flavors are more pronoumced as the beer ages).

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Hmmm, didn't realize that these things become more pronounced. They haven't decreased but they haven't gotten worse either. The aeration occurred preboil.

I was certain I had the problem nailed down. Since no one agrees, I wonder what it is. I'd hate to say it's sanitation issues, I take that very seriously. I am at a loss now

Were your hops nice and fresh? I've smelled some old, cheesy hops that remind me of football pads or old socks like you mentioned above.

Did you use Nottingham dry yeast? For some reason, I just don't like the smell or taste Nottingham gives to finished beer, and I won't use it again. Other English yeasts are fine, I just don't like Notty. Maybe you are like me?

As for HSA, I too doubt that could be it. I drain through a hose from my MLT into a bucket so I can measure wort volume, but then I just dump the wort from the bucket into my brew pot and it causes a lot of splashing. I've never experienced anything in my beers that resembles oxidation, and some of my beers have stuck around long enough for it to show up if it was there.

jmo88 said:

Now that I am drinking it, I realize to the full extent the problem this caused. The smell is the most appalling. It certainly isn't undrinkable but it smells like well seasoned football pads. If you ever played football, you know what I am talking about. The aroma is sweet and almost moldy.

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Sounds exactly how I would describe notty fermented warm

hops were whole cascade repacked from 07 stock. Brewcraft
I love notty and ferment around 62F

Oh yeah I used safale05

One dark evening when it was raining I heard a rustling in the closet... I could have sworn it was HSA, but it was just a nightmare.

Some one explain this to me:

If the wort gets aerated preboil, doesn't boiling remove the O2

dzlater, Supposedly HSA binds oxygen chemically instead of being in solution like when it's dissolved in water. Or, I could be talking out of my ass.

jmo88, when I'm putting wort into the boil pot, I unceremoniously dump it in from a bucket 3 feet up and I've never had oxidation off flavors.

I've experienced autolysis after finding a perry that'd been forgotten for over a year. It still had the pears in it and everything. There is nothing subtle about it. It smells just like the 2girls1cup audition trailer after baking in the hot sun.

EvilTOJ said:

dzlater, Supposedly HSA binds oxygen chemically instead of being in solution like when it's dissolved in water. Or, I could be talking out of my ass.

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No talking out of the ass. This is it but I just don't believe that a little jostling is going to cause the chemical reaction required to physically bond an O2 moelcule to anything. Maybe pressurized boiling solution with O2 injection might get some bonding going on.

EvilTOJ said:

I've experienced autolysis after finding a perry that'd been forgotten for over a year. It still had the pears in it and everything. There is nothing subtle about it. It smells just like the 2girls1cup audition trailer after baking in the hot sun.

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LOL! You do paint a picture.

Well now I have no idea where I picked up the funk. I've been hyperparanoid of aeration since that brew and maybe I don't need to be, but there hasn't been any similar issues since. I guess my 2007 cascades funked up the brew.I will still drink my swamp-ass pale ale regardless.

How long has it been in the bottles?

I bottled my first batch after about 2 weeks then let it sit in bottles for 2 more before I tried it and I had the same sort of taste (was also nottingham yeast, fermented a bit hot). It definitely mellowed out a LOT after another week or so, and I'm guessing it'll keep tasting better if I give it another couple weeks.

From everything I've read on here, my guess is time will heal that bad boy nicely.

jasonh said:

How long has it been in the bottles?

I bottled my first batch after about 2 weeks then let it sit in bottles for 2 more before I tried it and I had the same sort of taste (was also nottingham yeast, fermented a bit hot). It definitely mellowed out a LOT after another week or so, and I'm guessing it'll keep tasting better if I give it another couple weeks.

From everything I've read on here, my guess is time will heal that bad boy nicely.

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It's been in bottles for a month and a half. I used safale05 at 64F. I doubt it's yeast related. I'm starting to be sold on the cascade issue since it's only the aroma profile.

here you go...


Still worried about HSA? DOn't be

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3uyKjLTWJA]YouTube - Transferring from Mash Tun to Boil Kettle[/ame]

No I suppose I'm not worried anymore. Unless that's a swamp-ass pale their making. What brewery is that?

That's also them transferring from mash to boil...theoretically the boil would get rid of a lot of the oxygen. Isn't hot side aeration due to oxidation AFTER the boil, but before cooling?

That was my n00b understanding of it anyways.

jasonh said:

That's also them transferring from mash to boil...theoretically the boil would get rid of a lot of the oxygen. Isn't hot side aeration due to oxidation AFTER the boil, but before cooling?

That was my n00b understanding of it anyways.

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No it's my understanding that HSA is a chemical reaction between hot wort and oxygen, not just oxygen being present.

dontman said:

No talking out of the ass. This is it but I just don't believe that a little jostling is going to cause the chemical reaction required to physically bond an O2 moelcule to anything.

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Usually you need one of two things to encourage a chemical reaction. Agitation is one, can you guess the other?

remilard said:

Usually you need one of two things to encourage a chemical reaction. Agitation is one, can you guess the other?

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Exactly the point of my post. The "little jostling" and the relatively little heat associated with mashing and sparging are almost certainly not enough to incite a chemical bonding between molecules. Maybe if you are aerosolizing the wort under pressure at +boiling temps you can experience the non-joy of HSA but otherwise no worries.

dontman said:

Exactly the point of my post. The "little jostling" and the relatively little heat associated with mashing and sparging are almost certainly not enough to incite a chemical bonding between molecules. Maybe if you are aerosolizing the wort under pressure at +boiling temps you can experience the non-joy of HSA but otherwise no worries.

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Lautering/sparging works precisely because the heat involved is enough to dissolve sugar into water, which is a chemical reaction.

Oxidative reactions clearly occur at much lower temperatures than used in sparging, the question is whether or not they happen very rapidly at those temperatures.

It seems that HSA is believed to be a practical problem generally by the people funding and carrying out research into the question.

There are a lot of references to Narziss on HSA but I can not get the articles and don't read German anyway. I did find this:

HOMEBREW Digest #3045 Tue 01 June 1999

Which indicates that Dave Radzanowski at Siebel believes that HSA is an issue in beers stored for an extended time under adverse circumstances. This doesn't apply to most homebrew since the people who brew enough to have beer on hand for 6 months or more tend to also have cold storage and all homebrewers at least keep the beer in a reasonably dark and cool place. However, when Gordon Strong was interviewed on brewing network he said he drove his beers to the second round of NHC because he believes in his extensive judging experience there that a lot of the beers are off due to having been shipped in the summer. Either he or someone else on the show mentioned tracking down a bottle of one of their own beers that was shipped and it was clearly worse than it had been before it left home.

So I am more or less convinced HSA is not a myth but I am willing to agree that it is not a practical problem for beer that will be stored well at all times.

In order to speed up cooling of my wort after boiling, I have been stirring it with a sanitized thermometer. My thought process was that since I was relying primarily on conduction to cool the wort (ice --> stainless steel pot --> hot wort), stirring the wort would help it cool faster.


It worked. 3 Gallons of boiling wort down to 95* F (where I dump in 2 gallons of cold water which brings the 5 gallons to 70*F) all in 35 minutes.



But then I started reading about HSA in Palmer and now this thread...I guess I'll see in a few weeks when my first batch utilizing the stir-technique is RTD.

Did you smell the hops before using? Couple of brews ago I was going to use a half-bag of hops that were taped back up and stored in fridge. I ALWAYS smell my hops (several times) before putting in, and the first whiff was like?? Cheese??

I gave to a friend and after a sniff or two he agreed. I looked it up and is was old hops. Not that old, but going bad anyway.

Now I can tell you that they were nowhere near 1 year old. Just got left out and poorly stored after opening.

Also, it could be an infection.

The aroma is sweet and almost moldy.

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That does sound like HSA.

Autolysis smells like a badly contaminated cesspool. No idea what it tastes like.

Hey All,
My two cents worth, after talking with some of our fermentation experts in the lab is that here is you answer!

if you are aerosolizing the wort under pressure at +boiling temps you can experience the non-joy of HSA but otherwise no worries.

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They main thing they stressed was that it is a temp vs pressure issue and that the atomization of the oxygen present wanting to bond with the wort would be caused by the temp, pressure and aerolization (sp?). The best example I can think of would be imagine taking your hot wort and putting it into a hudson sprayer (One of those 5 gallon bug sprayers) pumping it up with pressure and then spraying/misting that mixture into your fermenter or brew kettle. I really think it is a non issue as most of us use gravity to transfer and the pumped systems are not aerosolizing the wort enough to do any damage!

Great HSA article. A little too in depth for some, but science geeks should enjoy it.

Brew Strong Podcast on HSA. The Brewing Network.com - :
very enlightening, albeit a little too technical in some parts.

Hi.

Just dribbled a porter mash into the kettle. Forgot to use a hose. I should be okay though, right. It was falling about 2/3 of a foot into the kettle.

remilard said:

Lautering/sparging works precisely because the heat involved is enough to dissolve sugar into water, which is a chemical reaction.

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It's not a chemical reaction. Sugar is not chemically "bonding" with the water to create a new molecule in the same way as oxygen might bond with wort compounds during supposed HSA, it's just dissolving.