Off Flavors in Recent Brew Medicinal Band-Aid

I recently made a Mr. Beer Winter Lager that I got very cheap. My fermenter is 6 gallons and the Mr. Beer batch was a 2 gallon batch, so I had a lot of head space. I sanatized with Star San and prior to that I cleaned the fermenter with Oxi-Clean free.

I did two weeks in the fermenter, and two weeks bottle conditioning.

I opened a bottle and it has a taste like a very mediciney band-aid like flavor. I couldn't even finish one glass. I thought it could have been the water but I mostly used bottled water. The only tap water (5 cups) that was used to boil and dissolve the DME.

According to John Palmer, this could be caused by reaction of chlorine-based sanitizers.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

I want to try an prevent this for my next brew. I'm wondering could any residual that didn't rinse out completely Oxi-Clean be the culprit?

In any event, sadly I may have to dump this batch.

Don't Dump it. it is still a very young beer. I would never dump a beer unless it still tasted bad after over 6 months in the bottle. As for the oxiclean it is a bleach alternative and does not contain any chlorine. If you didn't get all of it out then you could still have an off flavor. Id advise clean better next time and set the beer away for a month and see how it is then.

I don't know if 5 cups--about 2 pints?--of chlorinated water in 2 gallons could be enough to cause off flavors.

I've had only one batch with this problem and never did pin-point the source. Some types of infection can supposedly cause chemical flavors as well as the usual culprits.

My batch never did improve. But giving it some conditioning time is definitely worth a try.

So... You're reading Palmer and brewing Mr. Beer? The off flavors are probably from the poor Mr. Beer. Extract. If you have a carboy and a kettle, don't mess with the Mr. Beer. It's not the water. Most likely the extract.

JonK331 said:

So... You're reading Palmer and brewing Mr. Beer? The off flavors are probably from the poor Mr. Beer. Extract. If you have a carboy and a kettle, don't mess with the Mr. Beer. It's not the water. Most likely the extract.

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Thanks. Mr. Beer is not my norm. The main reason I did the Mr. Beer was that I got it really cheap and figured I could customize it and do the Winter Lager.

I may let it age longer as the previous poster suggested. At this point I have nothing to loose as its already bottled and its only about a case's worth of bottles.

Thanks to all for all of the replies!

If your tap water is treated with chloramine then that could be the problem as well. Chlorine will boil off, chloramine will not.

JonK331 said:

So... You're reading Palmer and brewing Mr. Beer? The off flavors are probably from the poor Mr. Beer. Extract. If you have a carboy and a kettle, don't mess with the Mr. Beer. It's not the water. Most likely the extract.

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My Mr BEer was still way better than budweiser. A cheap kit won't cause bandaid, nor will it go away with time.

BrookdaleBrew said:

If your tap water is treated with chloramine then that could be the problem as well. Chlorine will boil off, chloramine will not.

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I doubt your tap water could be that chlorinated.

Sanitizer, or traces of bleach are the culprits.

It NEVER goes away.

One additional thing I should note that the can of Mr. Beer HME was dented on the front but there was no leakage or seams on the can broken.

Could the denting have caused anything bacteria wise to happen to the HME?

Go over your cleaning procedures. How many times have you used your Mr. Beer now? What type of bottles are you using? How many times have they had beer in them? Do you use a bottling wand and/or racking cane? How would you rate your cleaning regiment?

2 pints in 2 gallons probably wouldn't do it, but I know I have used tap water and gotten band aid results before. Even after boiling; I assume Central PA water just has a high concentration of Chloromines ( for me, maybe NJ has the same issue). Switching to bottled water solved my problems (and added a few dollars to brew day).

Dropping a camden tablet into the water pre-boil should treat it for that, right?

could it be diacethyl? if it was a lager yeast, it could have made those smells.

in any case, I would not dump the brew but gave it another taste in 2 weeks.

How did you ferment this batch, what temps, what yeast?
Fermenting at highers temps than recommended for the yeast strain can drive to production of phenols that taste just like you describe.

Could it have been all the air in the head space?

Cellarbrau said:

Go over your cleaning procedures. How many times have you used your Mr. Beer now? What type of bottles are you using? How many times have they had beer in them? Do you use a bottling wand and/or racking cane? How would you rate your cleaning regiment?

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-This is my third home brew. First time trying Mr. Beer HME.

-Bottles are reclaimed glass bottles soaked overnight in Oxi-clean free and thouroughly rinsed. Prior to bottling they are all sanitized with Star-San though a spray bottle.

-My sanitizer is Star-San mixed in 1 gallon of distilled water. I did use the same Star San to sanitize the fermenting vessel as I did for the bottles. All other equipment, i.e. bottling wand, spigot, caps, were all sanitized in Star San.

Andy_LV said:

could it be diacethyl? if it was a lager yeast, it could have made those smells.

in any case, I would not dump the brew but gave it another taste in 2 weeks.

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Wil def give it another month or two. I used the Mr. Beer yeast that was under the cap of the Mr. Beer HME (High Country Canadian Draft).

nilo said:

How did you ferment this batch, what temps, what yeast?
Fermenting at highers temps than recommended for the yeast strain can drive to production of phenols that taste just like you describe.

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I pitched the yeast at around 22C / 71F . Batch fermeted for 14 days and was at an average temp of +/- 20C. Thanks.

Sounds like you are doing very well considering you are only 3 batches young.

I would recommend ditching the spigot and bottling wand and just use a single length of hose with a clip.

To me your problem sounds like infection. Try it and see if you get a clean beer next time.