Most of my beers have a funny flavor HELP!

[klamz]

This has been happening for quite some time now with most of my beers. It seems to always have this strange background flavor that's very faint. It's most definitely a flaw of some sort and i know for sure it's not an infection. It almost taste like hose water or a plastic taste.

I use food grade silicon hosing for the mash and HLT. They do smell strange even after cleaning them. Could this be the cause?
The tap water is filtered with a carbon filter and passes through a short washing machine hose to fill my tuns. When i taste the water coming from the tap it tastes perfect so i couldn't imagine that's the source of the problem. Although I do believe it could my water profile.

Calcium 19ppm
Magnesium 3ppm
Sodium 2ppm
Chloride 6
Sulfates 1

Alkilinity 51

Could this be why most of my pale beers with no salt additions have little to no malt character and possibly making this quirky background flavor?

My sanitation is very good and i use Starsan to sanitize.
Fermentation temps are dead on and I use yeast starters.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Yooper]

I wonder about chloramines in the brewing water, or chlorine?

 

[klamz]

It's untreated well water so it isn't chlorine or chloramines. I had that problem before when I lived in the city and used the tap water. I was getting burnt rubber bandaid flavors that were really strong. This is different and hard to detect. It's more like a strange malt flavor very hard to describe. All I know is that it shouldn't be there. Thanks for the post

 

[Scruffy1207]

Extract twang?

 

[DannyD]

What yeast are you using?

 

[Yooper]

Do you have any iron in your well water? Iron, even in small amounts, can cause a "funny" flavor.

One thing I've been suggesting to everyone who is trying to pinpoint a flavor is to use reverse osmosis water, just once. Brew one batch with strictly RO water. If the flavor is gone, it's the water. If it's not, it's something else. But usually, if there isn't any infection and there is good temperature control as well as yeast pitching rates, it's the water.

 

[klamz]

My water report shows hardly any traces of iron. < 0.01ppm

 

[klamz]

I usually use london ale 1968 and 1028 a lot.

 

[klamz]

Extract twang?

Sorry I should have said that before. These are all-grain recipes.

 

[klamz]

That's a better description. It's sorta like a twang flavor very mild in the background. I get my grains from northernbrewer.

 

[sean6247]

I would get rid of the washing machine hose. Go to home depot and buy some tubing and hose fittings and make your own hose.

 

[klamz]

I would get rid of the washing machine hose. Go to home depot and buy some tubing and hose fittings and make your own hose.

Ok, i will try that

Does anyone think it has to do with my water profile? I basically have no Sodium or sulfates. Could that be screwing up the malt profile??

 

[jrg42]

like Yooper suggested, try just using RO water and add brewing salts. That's one variable that you can control and then see what happens. Be sure to use the RO water for your starter as well.

Maybe check your concentration for your starsan mix? I know i tend to be a little overzealous with that stuff sometimes.

 

[klamz]

like Yooper suggested, try just using RO water and add brewing salts. That's one variable that you can control and then see what happens. Be sure to use the RO water for your starter as well.

Maybe check your concentration for your starsan mix? I know i tend to be a little overzealous with that stuff sometimes.

I actually use half the amount suggested for 5 gallons of water. I use 1/2oz per 5 gallons.

Isn't my carbon filter stripping almost everything out? i virtually have RO water if you look at my water profile.

 

[Yooper]

I actually use half the amount suggested for 5 gallons of water. I use 1/2oz per 5 gallons.

Isn't my carbon filter stripping almost everything out? i virtually have RO water if you look at my water profile.

Don't dilute your sanitizer! Use the correct amount. It's not going to be as effective at 1/2 the concentration!

It doesn't look like RO water to me, with an alkalinity of 51.

 

[wolfman_48442]

Are you using the carbon filter at the correct flow rate?
I know mine isn't very effective above 1 gallon/minute, I usually set it at about .5gal/min and practice my RDWHAHB.

 

[LVBen]

This has been happening for quite some time now with most of my beers. It seems to always have this strange background flavor that's very faint. It's most definitely a flaw of some sort and i know for sure it's not an infection. It almost taste like hose water or a plastic taste.

I use food grade silicon hosing for the mash and HLT. They do smell strange even after cleaning them. Could this be the cause?
The tap water is filtered with a carbon filter and passes through a short washing machine hose to fill my tuns. When i taste the water coming from the tap it tastes perfect so i couldn't imagine that's the source of the problem. Although I do believe it could my water profile.

Calcium 19ppm
Magnesium 3ppm
Sodium 2ppm
Chloride 6
Sulfates 1

Alkilinity 51

Could this be why most of my pale beers with no salt additions have little to no malt character and possibly making this quirky background flavor?

My sanitation is very good and i use Starsan to sanitize.
Fermentation temps are dead on and I use yeast starters.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a lot!

I'd recommend listening to the Brew Strong water pod casts.
They recommend that Calcium be at least 50 ppm for yeast health and flocculation. You can also use combinations of Calcium Chloride and gypsum to get your chloride and sulphate levels up. I'd aim for 100 ppm for both to start with for pale beers. That will get you good beer, and then you can change it on future beers if you need to adjust it the Chloride/Sulphate ratio.

Also, make sure you are pitching the correct amount of healthy yeast and keeping your fermentation at the correct temperatures. You could even try adding some yeast nutrient (though,it is definitely possible to make good beers without yeast nutrient.)

 

[klamz]

I'd recommend listening to the Brew Strong water pod casts.
They recommend that Calcium be at least 50 ppm for yeast health and flocculation. You can also use combinations of Calcium Chloride and gypsum to get your chloride and sulphate levels up. I'd aim for 100 ppm for both to start with for pale beers. That will get you good beer, and then you can change it on future beers if you need to adjust it the Chloride/Sulphate ratio.

Also, make sure you are pitching the correct amount of healthy yeast and keeping your fermentation at the correct temperatures. You could even try adding some yeast nutrient (though,it is definitely possible to make good beers without yeast nutrient.)

Hmmmm so maybe the yeast is stressed with the lack of Calcium at 19ppm causing this flavor. Should I worry that I hardly have sodium? Is adding some Non-Iodized salt a good idea? not too much of course.
This is all good info thanks everyone!!!

 

[LVBen]

Hmmmm so maybe the yeast is stressed with the lack of Calcium at 19ppm causing this flavor. Should I worry that I hardly have sodium? Is adding some Non-Iodized salt a good idea? not too much of course.
This is all good info thanks everyone!!!

From what I've heard sodium is unimportant. You do not want high levels of sodium, but at low levels, sodium won't have any noticeable effect. Usually you would only add sodium if you are trying to increase the levels of something else like chloride. If you have low sodium, you can add non-iodized salt in small amounts to get your chloride levels up. In that case, sodium would really only be coming along for the ride.

However, if you can get the Cl, Ca, and Sulfate levels where you want them with just calcium chloride and gypsum, then that is the preferred method, in my opinion.

 

[klamz]

From what I've heard sodium is unimportant. You do not want high levels of sodium, but at low levels, sodium is unimportant. Usually you would only add sodium if you are trying to increase the levels of something else like chloride. If you have low sodium, you can add non-iodized salt in small amounts to get your chloride levels up. In that case, sodium would really only be coming along for the ride.

However, if you can get the Cl, Ca, and Sulfate levels where you want them with just calcium chloride and gypsum, then that is the preferred method, in my opinion.

Thanks, now this is off topic but say for instance I am doing a Stout at 30srm what would you recommend as far as additions.

 

[70Cuda383]

can you brew with RO water? I thought I read somewhere that it was advised to NOT use RO water?

I'm on a well with super high iron. we use iron out salts, and our drinking water goes through a reverse osmosis filter.

that'd be great if I can use the RO water, it'll save me $5 per batch having to buy spring water from the store.

 

[klamz]

can you brew with RO water? I thought I read somewhere that it was advised to NOT use RO water?

I'm on a well with super high iron. we use iron out salts, and our drinking water goes through a reverse osmosis filter.

that'd be great if I can use the RO water, it'll save me $5 per batch having to buy spring water from the store.

Well from what I heard you can use RO with malt extract brews since they have their own minerals to add to your RO water. But you cant use 100% RO with All-grain brewing.

 

[Acoma]

Funny how? Funny like a clown funny?

 

[birvine]

Funny how? Funny like a clown funny?

Sorry, but that almost made me spit out my beer laughing. No disrespect to OP.

B

 

[LVBen]

You can get good pale/light beers doing all-grain with pure RO, but you'll need to add water treatments to get great beers with RO water.

 

[LVBen]

Thanks, now this is off topic but say for instance I am doing a Stout at 30srm what would you recommend as far as additions.

You'd probably need to add some chalk in order to increase the alkalinity if you want to make good dark beers.

You can use John Palmer's chart to help determine how much you would need:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html

 

[Yooper]

Well from what I heard you can use RO with malt extract brews since they have their own minerals to add to your RO water. But you cant use 100% RO with All-grain brewing.

Of course you can! And you can make fine beer although it might be beneficial to add some calcium chloride for some beers. That is actually preferred over many tap waters.

My Bohemian pilsner is 100% RO water with no additions, though.

 

[Yooper]

We're going off-topic here, but don't add alkalinity to your water unless you positively absolutely know what you're doing! It's not true that you want to add base to your water due to beer color- please see the "water chemistry" primer in the "brew science" forum for more on water chemistry. In short, the color nomograph is seriously flawed.

 

[overflow]

We're going off-topic here, but don't add alkalinity to your water unless you positively absolutely know what you're doing! It's not true that you want to add base to your water due to beer color- please see the "water chemistry" primer in the "brew science" forum for more on water chemistry. In short, the color nomograph is seriously flawed.

This. I think in general, people worry way too much about water chemistry. Don't mess with it unless you really know what you're doing! I am on well water and have an very complex filtration system from Culligan. My water still sucks. I would never drink it, let alone brew with it. It isn't the most economical or environmentally sound thing to do, but I simply buy spring water for every batch. For 5-6 gallon batches I always get 10 gallons, usually $10. So, the well water could be the source of your off flavor... but I would definitely swap out any hoses that aren't food grade as others have noted.