High Sulfate Concentration Causing Off-Flavors?

Trying to pinpoint an unfortunate aftertaste for my most recent Belgian pale ale.

Just bottled my first batch where I altered the ions in my water to fit the correct style. Just made two batches three weeks ago. Same TYB Dry Belgian yeast, used a starter. One batch was a "quick sour", with acid and pilsner malts, that turned out pretty darn good.

Now for the worse one. Belgian pale ale. All cascade hops. The aroma and initial taste are great. But there's a lingering something-is-off flavor. Terrible at pinpointing, but medicinal/plastic/metallic? Tasted reminiscent of a friend's infected cold brewed coffee batch. His had the bacterial "oil slick" in the bottles though, which I don't have. I also just started adjusting water on this batch. 250 ppm sulfate making it taste that way? I don't think it's yeast because the other batch tastes ok.

I used Pale Ale Profile in Bru'n Water and ended up close with actual values of:

Calcium: 155 ppm
Magnesium: 25 ppm
Sodium: 24 ppm
Sulfate: 263 ppm
Chloride: 62 ppm

Mash pH: 5.35.

The calculated IBUs from Beersmith are 37. Is this sulfate too high for that level of IBU?

I also split the water 50:50 with tap and Glacier Water. I never had any issues with the tap water and off flavors. Could it be chlorine or chloramines in the Glacier Water?

 

Those words are the usual descriptors for chlorphenoilics. Do you use Campden tablets? Does your water supplier chloraminate?

Probably not. High levels of sulfate might be responsible for the metallic component as part of the drying harsh astringency it imparts.

If there were any it would be listed in the analysis. I don't think bottled water is chlorinated/chloraminated (why would anyone buy it?) but I guess quite a bit of it is just taken from the bottling plant's city mains and put into bottles. Does it smell of chlorine? How about the other water?

 

I'm terrible at pinpointing the exact aftertaste. Medicinal, metallic, astringent? Maybe 1, maybe all. Hope this is the problem, learn, and move on.

 

I don't use them. Made 15 batches with tap water. No problems with that. They use chlorine, not any organic chlorine derivatives.

Mentioned above, I'm not the best at trying to pinpoint flavors. It very well could be astringent/metallic.

Glacier Water (http://glacierwater.com/) is one of the machines that you fill up at a grocery store. I emailed them to ask about chlorine or chloramines. It takes very neutral, as I'd expect from a DI or RO water.

 

Chloramine is made at the plant by bubbling ammonia through water that has been chlorinated in the usual way. See http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=361073 for more info and on how to test to see if chloramines are present. An assertion from the plant that "We do not chloraminate" will, of course, serve to demonstrate that there is no chloramine. Many places do not chloraminate. I think about half of US plants do. I was at a mechoui (Quebec barbecue) last week at which I sat across from a retired guy who built and operated water plants in the Province for a large portion of his career. He explained that in La Belle Province all water, bottled or mains, must be chlorinated. When I asked about chloramines he didn't know what I was talking about. When I asked about ammonia he said he had never heard of ammonia being used and patiently explained again that water is disinfected with chlorine. So it may not be chloramine but in a word association test 'medicinal', 'plastic' and 'chloramine' go together.

 

AJ, I am not surprised that a plant operator was unaware that other forms of disinfection are used elsewhere. Chlorine is the first disinfectant and it wasn't until 1917 that chloramination was commercially applied. Interestingly enough, one of the first cities using chloramination was Ottawa, Canada. I guess your acquaintance is strictly in the French areas?

Chloramination is typically applied on water supplies with high organic carbon content and other contaminants that form carcinogenic trihalomethanes when chlorine is used. The combination with ammonia reduces that trihalomethane formation potential, but it also reduces the disinfection power of the chlorine. The only good thing about chloramination is that it has a much longer lifespan in the water distribution system since it's less volatile (of course, that is a bad thing for those of us wanting to remove that disinfectant from the water).