What Did I Botch

[robertus]

Okay so my technically second All Grain brew day, made a half batch of Edwort's Bee Cave Pale Ale. Used tap water treated with a campden tablet, since bottled was hard to come by due to the coronavirus.

Brew day went great - hit my mash volumes and temperatures, boil and final volumes looked good. Pitched a full packet of Notty at around 70 degrees. Fermentation proceeded apace, had it in the primary for three weeks - didn't pay as close attention to the swamp cooler as maybe I should have, but it wasn't particularly warm down there.

Kegged it last week, no signs of infection or anything. I left it sitting on the gas at around 8 PSI if I'm reading the gauge right. Tapped it and pulled a sample after lunch.

The beer's awful. I'm getting sharp alcohol and medicinal flavors, my wife's getting alcoholy with almost butterscotch finish. It's nigh undrinkable, and I've made some swill in my day.

My guesses as to what went wrong:

• I overpitched
• I pitched warm
• Fermentation secretly ran hot
• Something to do with the tap water/campden tab

Anything else I ought to take a look at?

 

[VikeMan]

Sharp Alcohol: Maybe fusels or maybe high Ethyl Acetate. Either way, look at temperatures early in the fermentation.
Medicinal: Can you be more specific?
Butterscotch: possibly Diacetyl. Make sure it's cleaned up by the yeast before packaging.

 

[Jag75]

Bandaidish ?

 

[robertus]

Yeah I think it's fair to say it's Band-Aid-ish. There's a sharp bitterness to it that also tastes kinda synthetic. Reminds me of some oil or another a former lady friend introduced me to. Tasted like hell, so had to mix it in with your smoothie or whatever.

 

[Jag75]

Sounds like a water issue , chlorophenols. As Vikeman stated your fermentation temps are too high. Once the fermentation kicks in the temp rises . So if your pitching on the high side it may push it over the edge. Imo it's best to pitch and ferment on the lower side .

 

[VikeMan]

Bandaid sounds like chlorophenols (from chlorine/chloramines).

You used campden, so if chlorine/chloramines were the cause, then either the water had higher levels of chlorine/chloramines than could be neutralized by the amount of metabisulfite used, or maybe you used something other than campden?

ETA: chlorophenols can also be caused by infection. I don't know off hand which bugs can make them though.

 

[robertus]

Good, glad it sounds like a fermentation problem rather than a process problem. I can control for that (I didn't, but I can).

Bag from the LHBS says campden tabs. Used half a tab for 5 gallons of water in the keg - may have had an extra untreated gallon in there, but I don't recall having needed extra. It was only a 2.5 gallon batch.

 

[seatazzz]

I've had "bandaidy" beers from pitching/fermenting too hot, I think that may be your issue. It would also explain the "hot" alcohol flavor. Fusels can fade, but the bandaid flavor won't.

 

[Snuffy]

Half a campden tab for 5 gals seems light. I haven’t used em in a while but the bag I have sez 1 or 2 per 5 gals. I always used 1.