I made a pumpkin pie ale for the holidays and have quite a bit left. It's is a little sweet tasting not to malty though and when you burp kind of taste like plastic. Not sure what would cause this. I used a lb of brown sugar and butternut squash which I roasted other then that I have used every other ingredient and never had the plastic flavour and sweetness. It's not the greatest. Hard to drink. What flavours do brown sugar and pumpkin import. I have heard a few people say they don't like brown sugar. Is this a flavour it brings? I will post OG and fg in separate post. iPad won't let me exit app and save all typing to reference Brewers friend. The sweetness is a really weird over powering sweetness but my FG was lower then other ales I like and don't taste sweet at all.
Trying to put my finger on this
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tezcatlipoca
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Hmm, maybe two flavors are mixing to give off a plastic flavor...or maybe it is just the squash. Did you use any spices?
Yeah I used pumpkin pie spice. Very very little flavour from it. Used in secondary and 5 min boil about 1 tbs each. I did notice it contains sulphites. But learned anything with dried ginger does. So unless everyone's getting that taste I don't think it's that. It was a fresh brand new bottle.
I think next time I'll leave out the squash. It was a pita and that's what I suspected as well. I left the skin on when I roasted it thinking it would be fine then took the skin off. I'm wondering if maybe there was a wax on it.
I used RO water for the mash and half RO half tap water through a carbon filter for the sparge and boil. I have done this with all my beers and never had this off taste before
What about your yeast? I believe that stressed yeast can impart either a plastic or metallic taste. Also, letting your fermentation temps go too high can result in various off flavors.
Most of the dry yeasts seem to do alright without a starter unless its a cold fermenting lager or higher gravity.
Izzie, I still think it is your yeast. I'm saying that because I've had that same experience with old yeast pitched into an Oktoberfest without a starter. After 2-3 months cold conditioning, the plastic (and metallic) flavor was almost all gone. I re-pitched a healthy dose of slurry from the same yeast and had great results, with no plastic or metallic flavor.
