Yeast phenols

[Pugs13]

Hello,
I brewed up an English IPA and it fermented out nicely however, there seems to be some off flavors...The best way to describe the smell is like a belgian ale, rubber, clove-like...I am assuming ferm. Temps but not totally convinced. If I take old yeast off and pitch new yeast into this batch will this help get rid of the phenols or by-products with time? The beer is only 1wk old.
Thanks

 

[Pie_Man]

Fermentation looks weird and can smell weird. If you believe your fermentation practices were sound, I would not do anything. It seems like you are basing your decision on the aroma alone, I would give the beer another week and reevaluate the aroma and also taste the beer.

I have tasted rubbery, kind of burnt tire like tastes in Belgian lambics and guezes, but not in traditional Belgian ales. I believe the rubber taste is more from the bacterias than the beer yeast, but I could be wrong.

 

[Pugs13]

Yea...worst case scenario...The beer is infected...we'll see...

 

[jalmeida]

What yeast? What ferment temp? Also, letting the beer sit before serving never hurts. Even the lightest beers seem to benefit from a little aging.


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[Pugs13]

English Ale, 67-68F...I pitched 1000ml 3rd-Generation into a 85gallon batch (3BBL)...

 

[Yooper]

Phenols, in a "non phenol" yeast strain (ie not Belgian) generally mean contamination.

 

[Pugs13]

This is what I suspected...

 

[jalmeida]

I would let it sit a couple of weeks and let everything clean up before worrying. It is really easy to get worried about contamination for no reason especially when reading countless brew threads here about people being worried about contamination. My universal rule that has kept me from pulling my hair out so far is when in doubt, let it sit another week or two at room temp. At the end of the day keep in mind that yeast is a living thing. It is effected by a limitless list of variables. Don't sweat it until it is time to dump. It is just beer.


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[Pugs13]

I would let it sit a couple of weeks and let everything clean up before worrying. It is really easy to get worried about contamination for no reason especially when reading countless brew threads here about people being worried about contamination. My universal rule that has kept me from pulling my hair out so far is when in doubt, let it sit another week or two at room temp. At the end of the day keep in mind that yeast is a living thing. It is effected by a limitless list of variables. Don't sweat it until it is time to dump. It is just beer.


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So do you think taking the yeast off of it now...and pitching fresh yeast would help clean it up?

 

[jalmeida]

So do you think taking the yeast off of it now...and pitching fresh yeast would help clean it up?

I wouldn't repitch. Just because the gravity is solid doesn't mean the yeast is not cleaning up things. Rack to secondary and let it set for 2-4 weeks and see what you get.


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[Hopper5000]

Was that the proper pitching rate for 3BBL of beer? Stressed out yeast can produce lots of phenols too. Rubber/band aid aroma can be an infection, however, one week in this might just be a green beer smell that will dissipate.

 

[Pugs13]

I usually pitch 1000-1200ml when I am working with 2nd-5th generation yeast...haven't really gone past 5 generations.

 

[Hopper5000]

I understand that, I am just wondering if you based that off of anything e.g. a calculator or cell counts or something like that. It's possible that you are under pitching and it just happened to not work out this time and that's why you are getting the weird smell. However, I don't work with that large of a system so I dunno. I have worked with 120gal batches at a friends house but we pitched like 5gal or yeast slurry into that thing. That might have been a bit much though...

 

[Pie_Man]

+1 to Hopper5000's comment.

Plug your numbers into mr.malty.com/calc/calc.html and see what you get. There is some subjectivity regarding the concentration of your slurry and non-yeast percentage, but this should give you a good estimate.

I am calculating almost 1600ml needed for a 1.048 OG ale using yeast harvested a week ago and the default settings for concentration and non-yeast percentage.

 

[Yooper]

So do you think taking the yeast off of it now...and pitching fresh yeast would help clean it up?

No.

The yeast "clean up" is from the tail end of active fermentation until the beer reaches FG, or up to about 24 hours after that. Once that period of time is over, and there are no fermentables, it's not likely to change much. I know lots of people say to age off-flavors out, but I've never had good results with that.

I had one band-aid beer from a contaminated yeast repitch, and it got worse within a few weeks and got dumped. Phenols from chlorophenols or contamination don't go away and don't get better.

You can wait and see if this is some sort of intermediate compound you're picking up, but it's not likely.

 

[Hopper5000]

Something else that I was thinking about is that it could be chlorophenols which could mean that your water has chloromine in it, or that whatever chemicals you were using for cleaning have imparted some off flavors.

 

[Pugs13]

Something else that I was thinking about is that it could be chlorophenols which could mean that your water has chloromine in it, or that whatever chemicals you were using for cleaning have imparted some off flavors.

I was thinking this too...we use an RO unit here at the brewery since we take city water from the tap and it was the last batch right before I changed our membranes and filters...I tasted it today and tastes better...it also seems like the smell is fading a little too...I may leave it in the tank a couple more weeks to see if I get more changes.
Needless to say, lesson is learned and membranes/filters are now changed and collecting nice pure water again...but...I still do not know if this was the real cause...we'll see...thanks guys.

 

[Pie_Man]

Chlorine or chloromines certainly sounds like a likely culprit.

I started getting in the habit of tasting my brewing water prior to brewing, even with the RO water I purchase from the store. Being that you have an RO unit, you can probably learn when the water tastes "right" and when it's different. Of course, on city water, it's also likely that your water source changes throughout the year.