Tinny, Metallic flavor - Hefeweizen

[MWM777]

Just cracked open my first bottle of Hefeweizen from my very first brew. While it has the typical banana nose, I'm detecting a strong "tinny" or "metallic" flavor and scent. What's the typical (if any) cause of this undesired flavor?

Brewer's Best "Weizenbier" kit:

6.6lbs German Wheat LME
1.5 oz Hallertau (40 mins, 15 mins)
WL 300 liquid yeast (70° pitch temp, 66-68° fermentation temp)

Anyone else have this issue?

 

[flars]

A few questions.
How old is your Hefe?
Time in primary?
What was your brewing water?
What was your sanitizer?
What was used for priming?

 

[MWM777]

A few questions.

How old is your Hefe?

Time in primary?

What was your brewing water?

What was your sanitizer?

What was used for priming?

Hefeweizen is almost a month old now. Brewed on December 7th. 2 weeks in primary. Regular tap water was used. Star-San sanitizer for sanitizing. 5oz of standard priming sugar, dissolved in boiling water and brought to room temp.

 

[flars]

Your beer is still very young. Less than two weeks for bottle conditioning and chilling for attaining full carbonation. This could be part of the problem. Usually not enough conditioning time usually results in a flat flavorless beer.

The sanitizer is not the source.

The water may be the problem. Are you using city supplied water that may have chlorine or chloramine added to it?
If you are using your own well water, does it have a high mineral content?

 

[MWM777]

Your beer is still very young. Less than two weeks for bottle conditioning and chilling for attaining full carbonation. This could be part of the problem. Usually not enough conditioning time usually results in a flat flavorless beer.



The sanitizer is not the source.



The water may be the problem. Are you using city supplied water that may have chlorine or chloramine added to it?

If you are using your own well water, does it have a high mineral content?

I am using city-supplied water, yes. There is a small chlorine taste to our tap water. Perhaps that's what's coming through? Can this be remedied in future brews? Or should I just buy filtered water (or a filter)!?

I know the beer is young, but I kept reading hefeweizens are best drank when they're young. Perhaps more time is needed to work the off flavors out with conditioning.

 

[Brew-Jay]

I just recently experienced a problem where several batches kept tasting metallic as you described. I posted here on a thread named "Bad Tasting Batches." For me it turned out that the problem was the way I cleaned my brew kettle. I used oxy-clean which removed the oxide layer from the inside of my aluminum pot. Is your pot aluminum by any chance?

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

I am using city-supplied water, yes. There is a small chlorine taste to our tap water. Perhaps that's what's coming through? Can this be remedied in future brews? Or should I just buy filtered water (or a filter)!?

I know the beer is young, but I kept reading hefeweizens are best drank when they're young. Perhaps more time is needed to work the off flavors out with conditioning.

If theres enough Chlorine in the water that you can smell it than yes, thats likely the problem. To double check this you can go to your Cities water department website and they usually have water surveys and reports atleast once a year that list how many ppm of various minerals and chemicals that they add in your water.

In the future buy some Campden tablets. Crush Half a tablet for 10 gallons of water. I usually let it sit for 5-10 minutes and stir it in but the water is ready pretty much immediately. Their super cheap, i think i can get a bag of 50 tablets to last me forever for like $4 or something stupid, their also great to have around for killing yeast in freshly pressed fruit juice for ciders, or if you are pressing your own grapes for wine you can add I think 1 tablet per gallon to kill off wild yeast and bacteria and wait 24-48 hours then pitch your own yeast.

Overdoing it cant really hurt as long as you dont go crazy and throw 3 tablets in or something.

Another solution if its Chlorine and not chloramine is to just leave your water out overnight, 12-24 hours will cause the chlorine to evaporate out of the water....figure out how much water you'll need and get it all in a bucket or your pot or something with the lid off.

Hefe's are best young, right as soon as their carb'd...it may fade a bit with time but now that you know its there you'll always taste it regardless of if it is or not

 

[unionrdr]

I got that metallic taste in my PM wheat beers using a SS kettle & local spring water. I was just trying to remember if maybe I left the cake cooling rack in the bottom of the kettle that keeps the grain bag off the bottom when heating mash water though.

 

[MWM777]

For anyone who cares to know, the metallic taste all but went away after another week in the bottle. Just had to wait it out. RDWHAHB!

 

[flars]

For anyone who cares to know, the metallic taste all but went away after another week in the bottle. Just had to wait it out. RDWHAHB!

It is nice when bad goes to good. Congratulations.