Burnt rubber flavor

[foghead]

Any idea what would cause a burnt rubber flavor? We brewed a kolsch, everything in the brew seemed to go well. We have brewed this twice before with great results. We did decide to try a no chill this time, trying to conserve water, could this be the cause? Any help is appreciated.



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[dkevinb]

The BJCP has some "off-flavor flashcards" that list various off-flavors and their possible causes. Burnt rubber falls under "sulfury/yeasty".

http://www.bjcp.org/docs/OffFlavorFlash.pdf

 

[jtratcliff]

What was your yeast? Did you use a starter?

The burnt rubber I had once, I attributed to a batch of harvested yeast that I kept a little too long before re-use.

 

[JonM]

Is it soy sauce like or more band-aid like? Sometimes people describe a rubbery taste as being like how band-aids smell - that's usually from chlorophenols resulting from tap water.

 

[BreezyBrew]

I have had some of that flavor before... but it wasn't real strong. I'm chalking it up to oxidation, as the batch became pretty oxidized as I transferred it to the keg.

 

[foghead]

I did some reading after I posted this and believe it is coming from autolyze. Apparently leaving the beer in primary to long can cause autolyze which produces off flavors including burnt rubber. This beer sat in primary for 4 weeks. Good lesson, I will be racking to secondary from now on if I don't have a empty keg.


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[foghead]

Is it soy sauce like or more band-aid like? Sometimes people describe a rubbery taste as being like how band-aids smell - that's usually from chlorophenols resulting from tap water.

It is more like how it smells after peeling out in a car and smoking the tires.


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[wonderbread23]

Highly unlikely that it is autolysis. Without really extreme mistreatment, autolsis is tough to achieve. Burnt rubber is a phenolic compound. This often occurs if you're using water with chlorphenols. It is also a compound thrown pretty typically by wild yeast. Given the no-chill method, my money would be on the infection.

 

[jtratcliff]

Yeah, autolysis is not usually an issue at the homebrew scale.

I'm guessing either chlorine/chloramines or yeast issues.

I've used no-chill many times without issue so it doesn't have to be the culprit necessarily.

 

[beergolf]

I did some reading after I posted this and believe it is coming from autolyze. Apparently leaving the beer in primary to long can cause autolyze which produces off flavors including burnt rubber. This beer sat in primary for 4 weeks. Good lesson, I will be racking to secondary from now on if I don't have a empty keg.


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Leaving the beer in the primary for 4 weeks will not cause off flavors. If it did every brew I make would have off flavors because I routinely leave them for that long in the primary. Bigger beers even longer with no off flavors.

It is probably a water problem or even severe underpitching.

Give us a litle more info so we can narrow it down.


Recipe? Type of water used? Yeast and if you did a starter? Fermentation temp?

 

[foghead]

Recipe for 12 gallons

Grain bill

17# Pilsen
2# 6 row
1# Vienna
8oz acidulated

Mash temp was 148 for 60 mins using tap water.

Hops:
1oz willamette at 60
1 oz mt hood at 45
1 oz mt hood at 30
1 oz willamette at 5

Used two viles of white labs German
kolsch yeast.

Didn't do a starter.

Fermented at 68 degrees.







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[foghead]

We have brewed this exact recipe twice before with not issues. The first time we the wort chiller and and second time we used a no chill.


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[JonM]

Do you know what the water profile is?

 

[jtratcliff]

hmm.. 2 vials for 12 gals might be a little underpitched... Do you run it through a pitching rate calculator?

Did you sniff the yeast before pitching?

If you brewed it the same way before (same water, same grist, same mash temp, same boil time, etc) it's either bum yeast or an infection.

How did you do the no-chill? Cube? in the kettle?

 

[foghead]

This was the first time we did the no chill method. We left it in the kettle. I have my doubts about doing it this way but we have no choice but to conserve as much water as possible. Any guidance on how to do a no chill method would be great.


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[cjgenever]

Four weeks is not too long unless you pitched a bunch of dead yeast. A healthy pitch will take much longer to Autolyse

 

[cjgenever]

Did you treat the plastic with boiling water a few times before dumping hot wort into it? Heat leaches out plastic compounds that can have plastic or rubber flavors.

 

[jtratcliff]

I no-chill in the kettle overnight all the time. I've only had burnt rubber once and I think that was from old yeast, not infection due to no-chill.

I do use binder clips on the lid to keep it tight overnight but otherwise don't do anything special....

Oh, I also perform a short cold water bath in the sink... I change out the water a couple of times, just until it's cool enough to carry a 10 gallon kettle full of 6-7 gallons of hot wort outside. Maybe 15-20 minutes? Can't see that the bath would make too much difference.

Maybe you just got unlucky? I wouldn't give up on no-chill yet. I find it very effective.

Where did you first notice the burnt rubber? In the hydrometer samples? Prior to bottling/? or after carbonation?

Mine was obvious before bottling and never really went away completely. I drank it all anyway, as a lesson to never do that again, but I'm not sure if the off flavor faded or if I just got used to it.