Chlorophenol aroma in primary

I brewed a CDA (using US-05 yeast and fermenting at about 67*F) about 10 days ago and it's still in the primary fermenter/carboy.

Today I took off the airlock and smelled it and the only way I think I can describe it is medicinal/bandaid/adhesive (chlorophenol). (http://www.flavoractiv.com/products/beer-flavour-standards-chlorophenol/)

I'm planning on racking to secondary tomorrow, but was wondering if it's normal to smell something like this in the primary, or if this is really going to stick around in the final product...

Phenol can come from sani residue, early ferm, or contamination. This will produce that medicinal character you mentioned. I would still bottle and check it because you never know, but chances are if you taste it now you will taste it later.

I used Idophor for that batch, and have now purchased a bottle of StarSan for the breakfast stout I will be brewing tomorrow (I like the idea of the quick sanitizing ability of StarSan better).

Would it be possible for this aroma to come up because of the Idophor? Maybe I didn't let the carboy dry enough first?

all I use is iodophor and I have never run into that problem. And for the record its as fast and easy as star san but it doesn't hold as long. I mix up a one quart spray bottle at a time and spray and drip all my tools. .75ml per qt is 12.5ppm. That's almost nothing! get a syringe that measures a max of 3ml and .75ml should be no problem to get. DISCARD THE NEEDLE SAFELY and save the body to use over and over! With a quart I can sani my carboy and still have 2/3 of my solution left for my hands and tools on brew day (the next day). Just spray everything in and out and shake it off for 15 sec or so. The dry time will make up for the minute contact time and this small amount WILL NOT contaminate beer. Brew well and save money by mixing a quart at time instead of 2.5 or 5 gal like many of us did for so long...

If that's the case, then I really don't know where this off-flavor has come from.

What are some other possibilities? I don't really know where to start. This isn't my first All Grain batch, but it is the first one with this strange aroma...

The only difference would be that this time I used a carboy, and in the past I have used buckets for fermenting All Grain batches. This carboy was last used in a batch that I let sit around for a really long time with a bad batch of beer that got infected. I cleaned with PBW (I think that's what it was? It was a white powder in a plastic baggy) and then sanitized with Idophor...

Chlorophenols come from chlorine or infection.

I've had an infected batch taste phenolic. I know it was infection because I made a 10 gallon batch, and fermented them side by side. One fermenter's results were awesome, and one was phenolic. I had split a batch in half, using the same hoses and the same ingredients, so it must have been the fermenter itself although I sanitized. It was very disappointing!

The other time I noticed some phenols was when I used tap water that must have had chlorine/chloramines.

Ya I would filter or boil tap water pretty good before brewing with it to make sure! Infection sucks. Not very common when we sanitize like we do but its not always perfect. Thats why I started using a spray bottle. when you spray it on its easy to reapply and spray your hands so you can re sani and re sani while working with your beer. Don't forget the mouth of your carboy. Maybe the pbw was mixed strong and left a film in your fermentor.

Okay, I have to admit that I've often tasted what I thought was horrible band-aid like flavors when I used too much roasted barley. Can you post your recipe? I suspect you used it in fairly high quantities. I had this exact same flavor (and I thought it was an infection) in a single batch of a beer when I used WAY too much roasted barley.

This is one of the reasons I'm a bigger fan of black patent to darken beers.

Interesting. You have to love trying to chase down brewing problems.. Some are fun to fix others cost money...

http://hopville.com/recipe/1084104/home-brew/cascadian-dark-ale-2012-01-11-version

That is the recipe I used. I didn't use roasted barley.

I think I may have found the problem though... The bung that I was using was the same one that I used in the last batch that was in this same carboy that got infected. The bung was cleaned and sanitized, but still has some spots on the inside hole apparently, that when I smelled, gave me a strong aroma of what I think is like chlorophenol. Even though it was already cleaned and sanitized, I think the smell stuck around in the bung, so I tossed it and transferred my beer to a secondary fermenter in a bucket that used a new bung. From the sample I took, it doesn't seem to have the chlorophenol flavor, and actually tastes quite good.

I am going to take a small sample down to my LHBS and have a BJCP person tell me if he senses any off flavors or aromas in the beer, but I have a feeling that it is alright now that I removed the infected/smelly bung.

Not really sure but I suppose there is a chance it never touched your beer. Maybe it would develop after a year in the bottle? Just theorizing

Nyxator, saw your post about roasted barley and was wondering how much stock you put in that theory. I've brewed four batches total in my tenure as a home brewer (if you can call that a tenure): 3 Irish Reds and one Hefeweizen. The first was an IR and it turned out amazing. I've attempted to duplicate the brew twice, but the subsequent batches had the medicinal flavor of chlorophenol. The recipe includes 4oz of roasted barley. Is that enough to cause the issue you're describing? No one seems to have a sure answer for this chlorophenol problem and I don't have the money or patience to keep brewing and tweaking to figure it out (all the while brewing bad batches). Where would be a good place to start? Anyone, please feel free to weigh in.

thornton33 said:

Nyxator, saw your post about roasted barley and was wondering how much stock you put in that theory. I've brewed four batches total in my tenure as a home brewer (if you can call that a tenure): 3 Irish Reds and one Hefeweizen. The first was an IR and it turned out amazing. I've attempted to duplicate the brew twice, but the subsequent batches had the medicinal flavor of chlorophenol. The recipe includes 4oz of roasted barley. Is that enough to cause the issue you're describing? No one seems to have a sure answer for this chlorophenol problem and I don't have the money or patience to keep brewing and tweaking to figure it out (all the while brewing bad batches). Where would be a good place to start? Anyone, please feel free to weigh in.

Click to expand...

My first thought goes to the water. sometimes municipal water supplies change, and add chloramines in the summer or spring when they may use chlorine or less chloramine in dry times.

Did you try the same Irish red batch with reverse osmosis or bottled water? That would nail down whether it's water or not. Low level infections also result in phenolic flavors, like I mentioned earlier. I had a definite "medicinal band-aid" flavor in that one fermenter. Stressed yeast is also a factor, so that could be a possibility. To rule that out, try a batch with one package of dry S04 yeast and ferment it at 64 degrees.

sometimes a combination of things cause that phenolic off flavor- stressed yeast, too-high of a fermentation temperature, and/or water. If you can limit all of those factors, then the odds are the batch will come out fine.

four ounces of roasted barley, in and of itself will NOT cause that flavor.