Odd plastic taste halfway through fermentation

So I purchased this recipe kit from Northern Brewer and took a gravity reading yesterday. My O.G was 1.045 (.007 below what I should have gotten) and my gravity when tested yesterday was 1.010.

I'm using wyeast 1214. My mash and sparging temps met the recipe criteria, 149 and 170, respectively.

I'm fermenting in a 6 gallon Better Bottle plastic carboy and I used bottled spring water for my mash and boil.

Fermentation temps have reached 72 F and may have gone a degree or two higher in the day (I work 8-5) and couldn't keep track of it.


My question/concern:
I sampled my gravity testing leftovers and the beer had a strange, plastic taste on the very back end. The taste lingered after drinking.

I know without providing smell/taste-o-vision over the internet, this will be very hard to diagnose. but do you think the high temps could attribute to this off taste?

In the mean time, I am getting a city water report, as I cleaned and sanitized (star-san) with city water.

I'd be more concerned with the bottled water and the worse - bottle then the cleaning water. But it's hard to tell anything for sure until it is carbed cooled and in a glass.
Best luck.

What temperature did you start fermentation at? 72 is pretty high for most ale yeasts and plus, its likely 2-3 deg warmer in the middle of the beer than the outside of the bucket. I've gotten plastic medicinal off flavors and it was always from fermenting too high

My starting temp was at 68F.
When I first started seeing temp spikes, I was going to put it in my unfinished basement.

Unfortunately right now in Maine, it can get to 75 in the day and around 40 at night. I didn't want to submit the beer to that fluctuation, nor did I want to jostle the carboy everyday bringing it upstairs into the warmth for the night.

yeah you gotta find a good spot in your house to get stable temps. One idea (which I use to keep beer warm, nto cool) is to buy a big rope tub (~$6 at lowes) and a 100-150Watt fish aquarium heater (~15 on amazon). Fill the tub and stick the heater in. Set it at whatever your target temp is. At room temperatures, I've found the water will stay a bit cooler than the air due to evaporation. Plus, it like doubles the thermal mass of your fermentor so its less prone to temp swings. If it gets too cool, the thermometer will kick on and keep it at the target temp

Thanks for the advice!
That sounds crazy simple to build and is an easy way to help with temps.

I'll go with DrJerryrigger's advice as well...sticking to town water for now. It's pretty good water and has made decent beer so far.

I'll go through with the batch, no sense dumping it. Maybe if I let it sit long enough it'll drop the taste.

Thanks guys and happy brewing

My bandaid tasting saison slowly got better over the course of 4 months or so. Just be patient...

Usually the cause of flavors like that are usually caused by one of three things (often in combination), high fermentation temperatures, oxidation or cheap plastic like PVC. Generally speaking the only solution is to either let it sit for months or dump it (I'm usually in the dump it crowd, personally). Make sure you have okay fermentation temperatures and that your plastic equipment that is subjected to warm wort is all "food grade" or better and you should be fine.

Fermenting beer can be wierd, wait until it's all done then check it. I'm also a dumper when it comes to bad beer.

Just sounds like the yeast aren't done yet. How long has it been in the primary?

Water report will be good to see about chlorine. Did anything plastic come in contact with hot wort?

Thanks for all the replies guys...
Just to answer a few questions I've seen so far:

-I'm still waiting on the full water report from my town
-Chlorine detection was 1.0 ppm (range of .09-1.8)

-Fermentation is in it's third week starting today. I plan on going another week and then bottling

- No plastic came in contact with the hot wort. I use a stainless steel spoon and copper wort chiller.

As I said before, I have no problem letting this brew sit to see if the weird flavor drops out of it, but if the consensus is that it's ruined, I'll most likely be dumping it :/

I concur on the warm temperatures. I had the same problem when I first started brewing. Once I started temperature controlling my fermentation, it went away.

Feedback on the temp problem is good to hear, I was fearing a more systemic issue.