I can't seem to find anything fitting my questions in the archives so I figure I'll ask. I make a "starter" with DME and L. plantarum probiotic pills, held at 100 deg, no stirring, for two days for a lacto base for goses and BWs. It works great...usually. After 48 hours it smells sweet, lemony, and breadlike. Perfect. Past two times it comes out smelling like band aids. Not overwhelming or gross, but definitely present. First time, I used it like normal hoping it would age out in a grapefruit gose. It did eventually subside enough to drink the beer. Just did another starter and it smells band aidy again. I hoped it was a fluke the first time. Wild yeast got in starter, etc..? Now I'm assuming it's something I'm doing wrong. Any ideas? Bad lacto pills, bad DME? I'm very experienced and sanitize religiously. I've used all the same equipment on other normal batches in between without problems so I'm ruling out an equipment infection.
L. Plantarum band aid smell
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L. plantarum can sometimes produce phenols of this type. Did you switch brand or use a new batch? The bacteria has to convert other chemicals to phenols, so if you changed your base ingredients in the recipe you may have added something that the bacteria can now more easily convert to phenolic compounds. Oxygen content high or low may also be a factor from what I've read.
Thanks. Nothing has changed. Same DME, same bottle of lacto pills I've been working through for a while. The only variable I can think of could be the water. I usually use untreated tap water for starters. I've read too much chlorine/chloromines can contribute to phenols. In fact, the word chlorophenols was used. A new one on me.
Morrey
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I use NB's "Fast Pitch" and distilled water. On occasion I make a 1.040 DME starter with distilled water. I use either OYL-605 or Swanson L Plantarum caps. Consistently I get a pleasant lemony odor kinda like one of those Arnold Palmer lemonade sweet tea drinks.
You say you are stoppering the flask no aeration or agitation. Assume your temps are in the "normal" range as always? I have great luck at 80F...is 100F too high? Maybe you could try distilled water and remove that variable as you narrow down your problem.
You say you are stoppering the flask no aeration or agitation. Assume your temps are in the "normal" range as always? I have great luck at 80F...is 100F too high? Maybe you could try distilled water and remove that variable as you narrow down your problem.
Sourz4life
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Lacto pills have a shelf life so if its the same bottle it could be they have reached that point. Also was there more exposure to oxygen this round? If so that is a common off flavor and smell that happens with oxygen exposure.
I would advise you to skip the starters altogether and just pitch the pills directly into your wort. Starters are absolutely not needed for this fermentation. Plus the pills are cheap enough. 1 per gallon. Works every time!
You can just chuck them straight in, or if you're concerned they won't dissolve for some reason, just open them up and dump in the contents.
You can just chuck them straight in, or if you're concerned they won't dissolve for some reason, just open them up and dump in the contents.
Morrey
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Hello friend! I have not had the nerve to try your "starterless" approach but you are slowly convincing me! Is your success rate pretty fool proof just tossing the caps into the wort for souring? Same typical 36-48 hours til 3.20 we see when using a starter?
Yes, I've brewed several sour beers this way and never ran into any issues at all. 1 pill per gallon, just chuck them straight in. I've posted lots of discussions around the techniques and results over in the Milk the Funk group.
I've also done experiments showing that the pills do actually dissolve in wort, contrary to the beliefs of some.
Honestly I would never consider making a starter for L. Plantarum.
Morrey
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I am also sitting on two pouches of OYL-605. No starter with this either?
I've read more recently that L. Plantarum does well at lower temps than other lacto strains but had consistent success for a while at 100 deg so I just kept the course. I'll definitely give lowering the temp a try.
Just toss them right in, huh? I didn't think that would work very fast. Just to make sure I'm comparing my apples to your apples... Chill post boil to 80 and transfer to fermenter, toss in 1 pill per gallon and hold at 80 for 2 days or so for PH to lower, crash to yeast temp, then pitch yeast. Or are you pitching yeast at the same time as lacto? How about oxygenation/aeration?
Just toss them right in, huh? I didn't think that would work very fast. Just to make sure I'm comparing my apples to your apples... Chill post boil to 80 and transfer to fermenter, toss in 1 pill per gallon and hold at 80 for 2 days or so for PH to lower, crash to yeast temp, then pitch yeast. Or are you pitching yeast at the same time as lacto? How about oxygenation/aeration?
5mooth0perator
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I think chlorine could be part of the problem. The phenols that produce that flavor have chlorine in them.
City water treatments may change depending on the time of year. Your supplier may have changed from bromine to chlorine, or something else. Try using distilled water and see if that makes a difference for you.
timdillon36
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I will also add my vote to it being clorine in the water. You dont have to buy water but make sure you remove the clorine from your tap water.
I have also heard of people using bottled carbonated water in a lacto starter to drive off any O2 if you dont have co2 for kegging.
I have also heard of people using bottled carbonated water in a lacto starter to drive off any O2 if you dont have co2 for kegging.
Can't really offer much advice with 605 as I've never used it.
Here is some advice from Lance, the owner of Omega.
Honestly though, if you're familiar with the Plantarum probiotic pills, I can't imagine why you'd ever buy something like 605. You can get the Swanson's 100% pure L. Plantarum pills for as little as 17 cents each.
That puts your total cost for a 5 gallon batch at 85 cents. Compare that to about 10 bucks for a package of 605.
Not truly apples to apples but more or less..
1st, I don't boil my quick sour beers. I heat them up to 180 where I add whirlfloc and then chill down to 100. Then it goes into the fermenter where I pitch in the pills. No CO2 purging needed as you're using a pure strain of Lacto here.
2nd, no reason to hold the temp on Plantarum. It does pretty well, pretty quickly even at room temp. I just stick mine in my chest freezer fermentation chamber and let it free fall while it sours.
From there I just check the pH about ever 12 hours.
Once it gets down to about the 3.4 range I kick in the temperature control to get it down to my yeast pitching temp (it'll keep souring as you're chilling down to 68 or whatever you're shooting for).
Once it's at pitching temp I put in my yeast starter and hit it with pure oxygen for 60 seconds.
Here is a fairly detailed write up of my dry hopped golden sour, Three Question Marks, that took 1st place in American Sours and Best of Show at this year's Walk on the Wild Side competition.
I'm thinking chlorine is my problem here too. The water in my town is notoriously bad for brewing. Lots of chlorine, unusable mineral profile. I don't want to wait until next time I brew a gose to figure this out so I'm going to set up an experimental batch tonight with 100% distilled water and report back in a few days.
drgonzo2k2, I'm intrigued by your methods and will be giving it a try. Thank you. Do you ever detect any DMS taste doing no-boil? I use a lot of pils malt and have personally never tasted it in a beer of mine, although I've never done a short or no-boil beer. I'm beginning to wonder if DMS is an obsolete problem people just like to still talk about. (ie. undermodified malts and protein rests)
drgonzo2k2, I'm intrigued by your methods and will be giving it a try. Thank you. Do you ever detect any DMS taste doing no-boil? I use a lot of pils malt and have personally never tasted it in a beer of mine, although I've never done a short or no-boil beer. I'm beginning to wonder if DMS is an obsolete problem people just like to still talk about. (ie. undermodified malts and protein rests)
Actually I don't believe in DMS at the homebrew scale. Well, okay, I know that it exists, but with the highly modified malts we use these days I just don't think it creeps into noticeable levels very often at all if you have good brewing processes.
For no boil beers I'm even less concerned about DMS. SMM, the precursor to DMS starts to decompose to DMS at about 176F. Once it has decomposed you need about 30 minutes of boiling at typical wort pH levels to drive it off.
Since I'm only going to 180 before I kick in the chiller I'm not in the danger zone very long.
If you do boil though, and you're worried about DMS, you should go for at least 30 minutes.
So I did a few small test batches last week with distilled and untreated (by me) tap water. I'm fully convinced chlorine is the culprit. Band aids in the tap water batch and sweet, lemony, lactic tartness in the distilled. Same in every way except for water. I'll never use my untreated tap water again, even a starter.
coypoo
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Thanks for the update, glad you figured it out
noisycm
Member
I had the same band aid smell/flavor. A crushed Campden tablet of potassium metabisulfite per 10 gallons of tap water solved the issue. Costs about 5 cents per tablet.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=campden+tablets
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=campden+tablets
Certainly the very first reaction to band-aid character in fermented beer should be to investigate the chlorine/chloramine possibility in the raw water used.
When I was on a commercial water system the operators would only periodically sanitize the distribution system with chlorine - with no warning - otherwise it was raw well water. It was around my third or fourth brew (this is back ~15 years ago now) that a brew day coincided with a sanitation "event" and the band-aid aroma post-fermentation was distinctive.
Got on the intertubes and found out about chlorine, switched to bought spring water for a few years, then the water company went tits up so we drilled a deep well, installed a whole house water system, then an RO system dedicated to the brewery, and the rest is awesome history
Cheers!
When I was on a commercial water system the operators would only periodically sanitize the distribution system with chlorine - with no warning - otherwise it was raw well water. It was around my third or fourth brew (this is back ~15 years ago now) that a brew day coincided with a sanitation "event" and the band-aid aroma post-fermentation was distinctive.
Got on the intertubes and found out about chlorine, switched to bought spring water for a few years, then the water company went tits up so we drilled a deep well, installed a whole house water system, then an RO system dedicated to the brewery, and the rest is awesome history
Cheers!
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