Help needed!

[Hemavol]

Hey all fellow brewmasters!

I am having an issue in my homebrews and I would kindly ask your help. I will try to give as much information as I can below about the issue and my brewing procedures.

Issue: I have made couple of NEIPAs lately which have been on point for the first few bottles (yes I bottle even Neipas, but I purge with CO2). But after a while there is a taste in the beer that gets overwhelming with time and it reminds me of brett. Or atleast brett that I have personally tasted myself... Could this be a taste of phenols? It is very hard to describe the taste, but it is there and it starts to piss me off. It ruins my perfectly polished recipes. I am personally thinking that could it be my brewing water that could include chlorine? And no oxidation is not the issue here.

Methods: I live in Finland and we should have very clean water here. I do BIAB brewing and I bottle. I use starsan and oxy for my sanitation and I also usually boil some water in the kettle to create layer on the aluminum pot so I usually use the same boiling water to sanitize my fermentation bucket.

So shortly, my equipment SHOULD NOT have anything extra living in them.. I always sanitize my equipment and bottles very well. BUT I have used different kind of yeasts during my brewing history.. also brett. I am doubting that I would have contamination issue.. I should be dealing with bottle bombs etc issues if that was the case, right? Or at least very over carbonated beer.

I also do sours but I have never had any issues at all before and it has only been my IPAs lately that has had this issue happening.

Thinking about adding campden tablets to my brewing process also.

Any thoughts? Has anyone had similar issues?

 

[Hemavol]

Maybe I need to renew my fermenter etc and add campden to the process.. I guess it could be brett living in somewhere. Weird thing is that first two weeks the taste was on point but now 4weeks after there is that bretty aftertaste..

 

[Dgallo]

Hey all fellow brewmasters!

I am having an issue in my homebrews and I would kindly ask your help. I will try to give as much information as I can below about the issue and my brewing procedures.

Issue: I have made couple of NEIPAs lately which have been on point for the first few bottles (yes I bottle even Neipas, but I purge with CO2). But after a while there is a taste in the beer that gets overwhelming with time and it reminds me of brett. Or atleast brett that I have personally tasted myself... Could this be a taste of phenols? It is very hard to describe the taste, but it is there and it starts to piss me off. It ruins my perfectly polished recipes. I am personally thinking that could it be my brewing water that could include chlorine? And no oxidation is not the issue here.

Methods: I live in Finland and we should have very clean water here. I do BIAB brewing and I bottle. I use starsan and oxy for my sanitation and I also usually boil some water in the kettle to create layer on the aluminum pot so I usually use the same boiling water to sanitize my fermentation bucket.

So shortly, my equipment SHOULD NOT have anything extra living in them.. I always sanitize my equipment and bottles very well. BUT I have used different kind of yeasts during my brewing history.. also brett. I am doubting that I would have contamination issue.. I should be dealing with bottle bombs etc issues if that was the case, right? Or at least very over carbonated beer.

I also do sours but I have never had any issues at all before and it has only been my IPAs lately that has had this issue happening.

Thinking about adding campden tablets to my brewing process also.

Any thoughts? Has anyone had similar issues?

Many Brett beers/farmhouses have a slight note of oxidation as they are specifically aged. So it is possible you are tasting that. Brett is just type of yeast, so as long as you’re practicing proper sanitation and sterilization you should be fine. That said if you have plastic equipment that may have micro scratches or you haven’t replaced gaskets or hosing, there is always the chance for infection.

I wish you could describe the flavor better as both Brett phenols/esters and oxidation take time to present themselves

 

[LarMoeCur]

Issue: I have made couple of NEIPAs lately which have been on point for the first few bottles (yes I bottle even Neipas, but I purge with CO2). But after a while there is a taste in the beer that gets overwhelming with time and it reminds me of brett. Or atleast brett that I have personally tasted myself... Could this be a taste of phenols? It is very hard to describe the taste, but it is there and it starts to piss me off. It ruins my perfectly polished recipes. I am personally thinking that could it be my brewing water that could include chlorine? And no oxidation is not the issue here.

Is there a way you can get a copy of your local water report? Your water could contain chlorine or chloramine or both. I'd for sure start using campden tablets to remove the chlorine/chloramine.

So shortly, my equipment SHOULD NOT have anything extra living in them.. I always sanitize my equipment and bottles very well. BUT I have used different kind of yeasts during my brewing history.. also brett. I am doubting that I would have contamination issue.. I should be dealing with bottle bombs etc issues if that was the case, right? Or at least very over carbonated beer.

I also do sours but I have never had any issues at all before and it has only been my IPAs lately that has had this issue happening.

Plastic buckets are very soft and even the smallest of scratches will hold unwanted contaminates. You can run your bucket through a Nuclear sanitizing machine and it will not be enough. If you are using the same bucket for sours and regular beers there lies your problem. Once you introduce brettanomyces or other critters into a plastic fermenter that fermenter should only be used for sours. This also includes any tubing that comes into contact with the beer, like syphon hoses or the plastic syphon itself. I've read studies where scientists have drilled into wood treated with brett and they found that the brett made it all through the entire piece of wood. I'm not saying that brett will go all the way through a plastic bucket, just saying you have no chance of sanitizing out all of the brett in a plastic bucket.

I'd start with a new bucket and transfer equipment. I'll bet the problem goes away.