Help: dish soap in beer

todd49401 · Mar 9, 2014

I brewed a blonde ale tonight and washed the fermentation bucket with dish soap. I thoroughly rinsed several times, but when I got the water level to five gallons I noticed soapy bubbles. I tasted them and in fact they tasted soapy. I also tried a little wort and that tasted soapy too. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want my beer to taste like dish soap obviously.

Recipe:
6 lbs extra light lme
1 lb extra light dme
1 lb corn sugar
1 oz US Goldings
1 oz Cascade

Thanks for your help in advance everyone.

flars · Mar 9, 2014

Unfortunately if you can taste the soap, the soap is there. The only advice I can offer is switch to PBW for cleaning and Starsan for sanitizing.

max384 · Mar 9, 2014

There's no way to remove the soap now that it's in there. I certainly wouldn't toss the batch just yet. Maybe try dry-hopping it to cover up some of the soapy taste? A blonde ale is a tougher style for off-flavors since there isn't a strong taste to cover up the off-flavors.

todd49401 · Mar 9, 2014

Will the taste of dish soap ever go away with aging? 6 months? A year? 5 years?

kirbcheck · Mar 9, 2014

You don't want to age a blonde ale for 5 years... I agree with
Max, use some "In your face" hops for dry-hopping. You can try to ad artificial flavoring at bottling too, like cherry, but I don't think that will be as effective... good luck!

todd49401 · Mar 9, 2014

What type is an "in your face" hop?

jmcquesten · Mar 9, 2014

An oz of Cascade is a lot of dish soap...

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kirbcheck · Mar 9, 2014

Whatd you hop it with originally?

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Epimetheus · Mar 9, 2014

Todd, that was an interesting error. Learning experience and all that. If tossing one batch is the worst that happens, then you are doing pretty good.

I was just lucky the LHBS warned me never to use soap on any brewing equipment. It seemed a little too cautious, I thought soap could be rinsed out sufficiently. Guess not.

CanadianBacon · Mar 9, 2014

I use sunlight and dawn and have not noticed an off taste.

TallDan · Mar 9, 2014

I've had some wort taste and look soapy to me before, but turn out just fine. I've never used dish soap to wash my fermenters or brew pots. It may not actually be from cleaning the fermenter with soap. Definitely let it ride and see how the finished beer tastes.

bja · Mar 10, 2014

I'd be willing to bet that the soapy taste is your imagination. When you saw the bubbles you became paranoid and thought that the wort tasted like soap. In reality after rinsing a couple times the amount of soap left would be so minute that it could never be noticed.

todd49401 · Mar 11, 2014

The original boil used 1 oz. Cascade and 1 oz. US Goldings. I don't think either of those would give off a soapy flavor.

I've been brewing for over 5 years and have never had this issue with dish soap. I've used it more than anything else to initially clean before sanitizing. I've never had head retention issues with my beers, except for a coffee porter that I brewed.

I'd rather just wait it out- dry hop it and then let it age for a couple months to see if the taste of soap goes away. If it doesn't then I'll dump the batch. The problem must have been not rinsing it out enough. I was certain that there was no soap residue left over :/

kirbcheck · Mar 11, 2014

Cascade is good enough. Dump two ounces in, leave for two weeks, bottle and drink up.

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Jklisiewicz · Mar 12, 2014

I have this same issue! I cleaned out a bucket with dish soap to use as a secondary for my limeaid wheat. Its been hanging out in the chamber for almost a week now after adding the simply limeaid. Just went and pulled a gravity sample, 1.008 BTW, and it tastes exactly like the dish soap I had used. So depressing! Has anyone dry hopped a wheat beer? My recipie was:
6lb 4oz 2 row
4lb white wheat
1lb Vienna
.5oz saaz 60 min
.5oz saaz. 20 min
.6oz cascade 20 min
.75oz cascade 7min
.5oz lime zest 5min

glass carboy Primary for 1 week
Secondary (stupid soapy bucket) added 1.75L simply limeaid during transfer.

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flars · Mar 12, 2014

Jklisiewicz said:
I have this same issue! I cleaned out a bucket with dish soap to use as a secondary for my limeaid wheat. Its been hanging out in the chamber for almost a week now after adding the simply limeaid. Just went and pulled a gravity sample, 1.008 BTW, and it tastes exactly like the dish soap I had used. So depressing! Has anyone dry hopped a wheat beer? My recipie was:
6lb 4oz 2 row
4lb white wheat
1lb Vienna
.5oz saaz 60 min
.5oz saaz. 20 min
.6oz cascade 20 min
.75oz cascade 7min
.5oz lime zest 5min

glass carboy Primary for 1 week
Secondary (stupid soapy bucket) added 1.75L simply limeaid during transfer.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Home Brew mobile app

This may apply to OP also. How long was the soap/soap solution in the bucket before it was rinsed?

Jklisiewicz · Mar 13, 2014

Just a minute. It was a normal wash, scrub, with a soft sponge and heavy rinse. And I'm a rinseaholic. I rinse the crap out of everything.

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todd49401 · Mar 25, 2014

So hops just "cover up" any soap flavor? Will the acid in the hops help break down the soap at all?

There has to be some chemical or powder that is safe for beer but kills off the active ingredients in soap. Is anyone aware of anything?

kirbcheck · Mar 25, 2014

You're correct. Dry hopping just masks the soap flavor. Soap is not a living organism so you can't kill it. It won't hurt you either. You're not going to "break it down". Even if you did, you would compromise the integrity of the beer itself. What's the acronym? RDWHAHB

dyqik · Mar 26, 2014

Jklisiewicz said:
I have this same issue! I cleaned out a bucket with dish soap to use as a secondary for my limeaid wheat. Its been hanging out in the chamber for almost a week now after adding the simply limeaid. Just went and pulled a gravity sample, 1.008 BTW, and it tastes exactly like the dish soap I had used. So depressing! Has anyone dry hopped a wheat beer? My recipie was:
6lb 4oz 2 row
4lb white wheat
1lb Vienna
.5oz saaz 60 min
.5oz saaz. 20 min
.6oz cascade 20 min
.75oz cascade 7min
.5oz lime zest 5min

glass carboy Primary for 1 week
Secondary (stupid soapy bucket) added 1.75L simply limeaid during transfer.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Home Brew mobile app

What dish soap was it? Was it a citrus smelling one? You may just be tasting the limeaid and various wheat beer yeast type flavors. Warm flat beer can sometimes taste a little soapy all by itself (I've had not so good pints from cask in pubs that have a definite dish soap quality to them), and if you add a citrus type flavor to it, it's going to trigger the "dish soap" sensor. Wait until it's cold and carbonated for the final opinion, and give it to someone who doesn't know about the dish soap for tasting...

todd49401 · Mar 30, 2014

I just put the blonde ale in the keg after 1 week of dry hopping with 4 oz. hops (2 cascade, 2 goldings). There is a faint bite to it due to the soap, but after carbing for a week in the keg I hope it goes away. I probably lost at least 1.5 gallons due to the hops soaking it up or the transfer being stopped because I didn't want too much yeast and/or loose hops in the keg.

flars · Mar 31, 2014

When your beer is fully carbed you will be able to do a soap test. Scrub a glass with salt and distilled water or other water that is not treated. This will remove soap residue and dishwasher spot remover if it was present.

If you pour a beer into this glass and it holds a good head, there is no soap in the beer. The soap taste was due to something else.

cgoldberg3 · Mar 26, 2021

bja said:
I'd be willing to bet that the soapy taste is your imagination. When you saw the bubbles you became paranoid and thought that the wort tasted like soap. In reality after rinsing a couple times the amount of soap left would be so minute that it could never be noticed.

I am definitely prone to this. Once I start worrying that something is contaminated with soap, I can taste it even if it's not there. I've pitched drinks before because of this, and then when the next drink that I know for 100% sure isn't contaminated tastes the same I feel stupid.

TallDan · Mar 27, 2021

cgoldberg3 said:
I am definitely prone to this. Once I start worrying that something is contaminated with soap, I can taste it even if it's not there. I've pitched drinks before because of this, and then when the next drink that I know for 100% sure isn't contaminated tastes the same I feel stupid.

Would you still worry about it 7 years later?

cgoldberg3 · Mar 29, 2021

TallDan said:
Would you still worry about it 7 years later?

lol I'm relatively new here and have a lot of old threads to browse through

Help: dish soap in beer

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