All my beers have this overpowering off flavor after bottling

[Ali01]

Although I believe them off flavors might've been there even before bottling

 

[Ali01]

I pitched s04 at 24c
Didn't check my homemade mini fridge temps until now
I always had trouble keeping the fermentation temp below 21c with this fridge, now it's at 14C! Cause I had made some improvements before pitching, there's very little krausen, because of the low temp? I opened the lid of the fridge a little to ramp up the temp
I'll have less fruitiness with these temps right? The bubbling rate is about one bubble per 8 secs after 35 hours of pitching

 

[hotbeer]

I'll have less fruitiness with these temps right? The bubbling rate is about one bubble per 8 secs after 35 hours of pitching

Which temps, the 21°C or the 14°C? IIRC the higher end of the ideal temp range for S-04 gives more of the fruity notes.

But if it's gone through most of it's fermentation at the higher temperature then I wouldn't begin to have a guess what it might be. All but a few points of your fermentation happens in a day and a half or less. And that is also the time when you will have the most rise in temperature from the yeast activity. After that it usually is very close to the ambient temps of where you keep the FV.

Most of us don't pay any attention to bubbles in the airlock. They really only have entertainment value. The specific gravity is the only really good way to know. Before I had a raptPill and could monitor the beer constantly while in the FV, I usually just waited till the beer was at least two weeks in the FV before even taken a sample to see what it's SG was. If I saw any krausen on the sides at all, I knew if was or had fermented.

I'd also recommend you don't drop your temps too low from where you started for ale yeast. Stability is the key I think. If they go higher than your cooling can control from the yeast activity, then just try to keep it under the max ideal. In about a day or maybe another half day the yeast is going to have most of the fermenting done and the temps will go down on their own to near the ambient. 14°C is a lot lower temp than any ale I've ever fermented. Usually I'm right at 20° and let it coast up higher when it krausen's. But as I said it goes back to near ambient temps on it's own within 18 - 36 hours.

 

[Ali01]

Alright I took a sample today, while it's still fermenting, and this is odd, but the off flavor I explained is there, I know this is very green beer, but I've aged my last 5 batches for at least a month, I have a 2 months old batch with the same off flavor, I ruled out every possiblity by brewing with distilled water, fermenting cold and pitching a lot of yeast, except contamination, but how? So I've had contamination in my last 5 batches? I've tried
By the way, I've never used fining agents, and I can always see the chill haze in the bottles when they're cold even tho I always give my wort a protein rest and leave as much sediments as I can when collecting wort, so maybe I'll cold crash + gelatin it this time and see if that improves the flavor

 

[marc1]

Can you post pictures of your equipment used in the process from brew kettle through packaging? Then we can go through each piece and see what might have been missed.

 

[marc1]

And also ingredients and chemicals, maybe something isn't what it is supposed to be

 

[Ali01]

Can you post pictures of your equipment used in the process from brew kettle through packaging? Then we can go through each piece and see what might have been missed.

Had to leave home again, but I doubt that packaging is an issue here cause I'm yet to bottle and package this batch and the off flavor is there, could it be aluminum? I mash and boil in aluminum pots without oxidizing the layer inside before mashing, but it doesn't taste metallic, it's not malty, it's super fruity, and sometimes impossible to drink

 

[Ali01]

Nah I don't think there problem is with the mash cause I always get good efficiency and I cause the wort always tastes sweet and fine, no metallic flavor

 

[Ali01]

Finally found the culprit: autolysis! The symptoms I read on the internet best describe all my beers, but how?! I fermented cold this time
Around 16 degree c now it's at 24c for cleanup... Maybe the problem is I've never given my beers more than 3 weeks in the FV! Ok I'm so tired of this! Next time I'm just gonna go with voss kveik, maybe that will fix the issue! People say voss can be ready to bottle in a week! With no off flavors, can ferment at room temp

 

[Ali01]

It's yeasty taste I was trying to describe! Maybe it's because I always pitch twice as much yeast as needed? I've never used gelatin, will try and see if that fixes the issue

 

[Tiedye]

I had what I believe to be a similar issue for my first several (15+) batches. Best way I could describe it was medicinal, metallic, or cardboard (based on others description of oxidation). All of my these batches were dumpers. I posted questions here on HBT and saw many of the same recommendations I'm seeing here (including autolysis).

Momma didn't raise no quitter! So I tried...using campden tablets, store bought filtered water, set up a temp controlled fermentation fridge, left beers in secondary for extended periods, stopped using a secondary, deep dive into water chemistry, switched from bottles to kegs, extract, all grain, different yeast strains, light beer, dark beer, lager, ale, even a sour - all had that SAME awful taste. Sometimes faint, sometimes overpowering, sometimes I could smell it - all times undrinkable.

The culprit...infection. With all the time (over a year), gallons of beer, and $$$ dumped down the drain for some reason, even with basically all new equipment I continued to transferred from the boil kettle to my fermenter(s) using an old big plastic funnel I inherited from my Dad's wine making days. Not sure why it never crossed my mine but one day I was in my LHBS and was looking at the funnels and the light bulb went off. I replaced the funnel and...have never had that issue since and have brewed over 100 batches.

Bright side for me was I had spent so much time researching brewing techniques and working through the details of my process (and buying new stuff) that when I finally figured out the issue I was able to go from undrinkable beer to really great beer (my opinion only) pretty quickly.

A great piece of advise I got on HBT that I never took was to enter some of the beer in compition or find a BJCP judge to taste it and give you their assessment. I feel like this would have saved me some serious headaches.

So my three suggestions would be to focus your efforts on making sure everything on the cold side is sanitized, find a qualified taster to provide some feedback based on the beer vs. your description of the beer and DO NOT GIVE UP!

Beer is fun! Good luck!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

old big plastic funnel​

When Josh Weikert (currently writing at CB&B) wrote the Beer:Simple blog, there was an article titled "The Disposable Brewery: When in Doubt, Throw it Out" (Mar 22, 2016).
One of the ideas was to recycle plastic items periodically.

The idea could be modified to use "at first sign of infection", etc.

I won't try to direct link, as the Internet Archives didn't capture the site cleanly. But for those interested, navigate to summary 2016 for this URL:

www(dot)beer-simple(dot)com(slash)brewing​

then user web browser search to find the title.

 

[beren]

Autolysis. Interesting. I have a keg I think of Yuengling that’s the last of the 3 from transferring from a 1/2 bbl keg and it has off flavors. Could be from some chlorine sanitizer but I don’t normally use that. There was a lot of yeast in the first bunch pints which confused me, maybe it autolyzed since it’s been sitting for 4 or 5 months with a lot of yeast.

 

[Ali01]

I had what I believe to be a similar issue for my first several (15+) batches. Best way I could describe it was medicinal, metallic, or cardboard (based on others description of oxidation). All of my these batches were dumpers. I posted questions here on HBT and saw many of the same recommendations I'm seeing here (including autolysis).

Momma didn't raise no quitter! So I tried...using campden tablets, store bought filtered water, set up a temp controlled fermentation fridge, left beers in secondary for extended periods, stopped using a secondary, deep dive into water chemistry, switched from bottles to kegs, extract, all grain, different yeast strains, light beer, dark beer, lager, ale, even a sour - all had that SAME awful taste. Sometimes faint, sometimes overpowering, sometimes I could smell it - all times undrinkable.

The culprit...infection. With all the time (over a year), gallons of beer, and $$$ dumped down the drain for some reason, even with basically all new equipment I continued to transferred from the boil kettle to my fermenter(s) using an old big plastic funnel I inherited from my Dad's wine making days. Not sure why it never crossed my mine but one day I was in my LHBS and was looking at the funnels and the light bulb went off. I replaced the funnel and...have never had that issue since and have brewed over 100 batches.

Bright side for me was I had spent so much time researching brewing techniques and working through the details of my process (and buying new stuff) that when I finally figured out the issue I was able to go from undrinkable beer to really great beer (my opinion only) pretty quickly.

A great piece of advise I got on HBT that I never took was to enter some of the beer in compition or find a BJCP judge to taste it and give you their assessment. I feel like this would have saved me some serious headaches.

So my three suggestions would be to focus your efforts on making sure everything on the cold side is sanitized, find a qualified taster to provide some feedback based on the beer vs. your description of the beer and DO NOT GIVE UP!

Beer is fun! Good luck!

Glad you finally managed to make it work for you, i use starsan for sanitation,ph below 3.5, but i feel in its ineffective in killing the lactobacillus since they are super resistant to acid, i only use a foodgrade silicon hose for my transfers, i have a small water pump i let it run some starsan solution inside the tube for like 30 minutes, next time im gonna use a clean yeast that finishes very fast, voss kveik, and for sanitation, i will use a solution of betadine, the red stuff they use on wounds to prevent infection, i believe they are far more effective than starsan, i will use my own RO water again because the distilled water didnt seem to make any difference

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Occasionally, brewers will report success when switching to a different sanitizer.

As a reminder, if it's not clean, the type of sanitizer (or duration of it's use) doesn't mater.

 

[WouldBeBrewmaster]

Thanks, yes pucker was not the word I was looking for, it's not really that sour, just a tiny bit, that off flavor I don't know how to describe is overpowering everything else, it's bitter and medical tasting, that's the best way I can describe it, I haven't measured that, had to left home again

Sounds like acetaldehyde. Probably caused by contamination. Sanitize anything glass or plastic that touches your beer on the cold side with bleach, then rinse thoroughly with cold water.

If you’re fermenting in stainless, give your fermenter a hot alkaline wash (PBW or similar), then sanitize with NEW no-rinse sanitizer.

Disassemble any valves or spigots. Clean and sanitize those separately.

 

[WesBrew]

Take everything apart and soak it all in bucket of sanitizer as noted above. Cold side tubing might need to be replaced. Aluminum kettle could be an issue particularly in the mash but you said there’s no metallic taste. Best to get stainless if you can.

 

[Broomfleet Brewery]

Nearly all my homebrews taste the same! I've been brewing here's, porters and pale ales with different yeasts such as s04, us05 and t58 and they all have this weird off flavor I don't know how to describe but from what I've read it's phenols, my last two homebrews were phenolic before bottling, this time I used s04 and fermented below 22c, there's a thermometer inside the carboy, it tasted fine before bottling, fruity, sweet, now there's no more of that drinkable beer, it's been in the bottle for 12 days at room temp, I sterlized the priming sugar, I use star san at a ph below 3.5 and I'm so careful with oxygen, maybe it's the water, then again, if that was the case, why did the beer taste fine before bottling? Could it be chlorine? I add metabisulfate putassium powder to my RO water right before mashing to make sure there's no chlorine, but maybe that powder is just fake stuff? Should I let my water sit overnight? I don't know, my wort is always at the right ph, I usually hit my og, the wort is sweet...
Maybe it's not phenols? Theres a harsh bitterness different from that of hops, despite being 3 percent abv, the beer gives you a headache

Good evening.. Just wondering if you have managed to bottom the issue...? I have exactly the same problem, it doesn't seem to matter how careful I am, it still has a sharp taste at the back of the pallet (very different to the bitterness of hops)

 

[dmtaylor]

Good evening.. Just wondering if you have managed to bottom the issue...? I have exactly the same problem, it doesn't seem to matter how careful I am, it still has a sharp taste at the back of the pallet (very different to the bitterness of hops)

We may never know...

 

[Beermeister32]

Good evening.. Just wondering if you have managed to bottom the issue...? I have exactly the same problem, it doesn't seem to matter how careful I am, it still has a sharp taste at the back of the pallet (very different to the bitterness of hops)

Try brewing the next batch with bottled spring water. Once I got off the public water supply, no more phenolic issues from chloramine.

 

[jerrylotto]

Try brewing the next batch with bottled spring water. Once I got off the public water supply, no more phenolic issues from chloramine.

You can get a whole house filter, I have two in row - 50 micron sediment filter followed by a carbon filter. You need large ones 4 and 1/2 by 10 in or bigger but the carbon filter takes enough chlorine and chloramine out that you can use tap water. After I installed my filters I sent my water sample to Ward labs and got a report, and the result was excellent. Alternatively, you can get a countertop RO unit and remove everything from your tap water.

 

[Beermeister32]

No doubt you can make a top quality filtration system if that’s your interest.

My suggestion would be to easily run a test batch using the bottled spring water to see if that doesn’t take care of the issue. My favorite is Crystal Geyser. Makes many styles without water processing or additions.

 

[IslandLizard]

No doubt you can make a top quality filtration system if that’s your interest.

My suggestion would be to easily run a test batch using the bottled spring water to see if that doesn’t take care of the issue. My favorite is Crystal Geyser. Makes many styles without water processing or additions.

View attachment 856056

Or find a store that has one of those RO machines. Bring and fill your own jugs for 39 cents a gallon.

 

[Beermeister32]

Great thing about Crystal Geyser is they have a water report pdf available online. The water has a pretty close (or acceptably close) profile that you can brew many styles without adding minerals/salts.

 

[Broomfleet Brewery]

Thanks for the reply, I've been to Lidl and bought a copious amounts of their bottled water.. I'll check the pH during the brew and maybe add some lactic acid if necessary, other than that I'm not going to touch it

 

[whoaru99]

Y'all still talking to the OP who mentioned RO water up front, or has there been a hijack?

Edit: I now see it's the latter.

 

[daggers_nz]

We all run into this from time to time. Beer tastes good at bottlng, tastes phenolic after 2 weeks in the bottle. I’ve had this ongoing most of last year. Phenolic bottles after a couple weeks, but anything I keg is fine even after months. I haven’t figured it out, but it has to be something in the bottling line. If keg beers are fine then it can’t be siphon cane/tubing either, I’m using the same one.

I’ve cleaned everything with pbw, taken bottle bucket and bottle faucet apart, scrubbed, soaked everything in pbw, then star san, replaced hoses. Been through 3 bottling wands. Boiled sugar, stirred in with sanitized spoon. Sanitized bottle bucket with star san. I’ve soaked bottles in bleach, followed by pbw overnight, scrubbed with bottle brush. visually inspected clean, throw away ones that won’t. I’ve tried star san on some bottles, iodophor on others in an avinator right before filling. I sanitize caps in star san. Same results - kegs good, bottles suck. I’ve even tried priming with dme instead of corn sugar to see if that made a difference. I’m still trying to figure it out.

any luck my guy?

I have the same issue, although darker beers seem to mask the off-flavours better. I'm really considering bottling the next batch straight from the fermenter and adding dry dextrose (in measured quantities) to each bottle in case it's my bottling bucket/wand - it would be expensive to replace these and have the same issue. I'm also considering trying half a campden tablet in the mash and sparge water as we're using tap water

 

[DuncB]

any luck my guy?

I have the same issue, although darker beers seem to mask the off-flavours better. I'm really considering bottling the next batch straight from the fermenter and adding dry dextrose (in measured quantities) to each bottle in case it's my bottling bucket/wand - it would be expensive to replace these and have the same issue. I'm also considering trying half a campden tablet in the mash and sparge water as we're using tap waterd

Where are you based?
I'm in Wellington region and always add some sodium met to the mash and sparge water.
I use the tap water as well.
I mix my weight of priming sugar into a pan of boiling water, then turn it off, cool it and put in a volume measure with a syringe to each bottle.
I've had phenolic with one brew and it was definitely related to contaminated yeast I span up a big pitch from previous brew in a flask. It smelled phenolic before use, I assumed it was just because quite warm during the culture.
It was not something that got better.
I now smell and taste my starters before use.

 

[daggers_nz]

Where are you based?
I'm in Wellington region and always add some sodium met to the mash and sparge water.
I use the tap water as well.
I mix my weight of priming sugar into a pan of boiling water, then turn it off, cool it and put in a volume measure with a syringe to each bottle.
I've had phenolic with one brew and it was definitely related to contaminated yeast I span up a big pitch from previous brew in a flask. It smelled phenolic before use, I assumed it was just because quite warm during the culture.
It was not something that got better.
I now smell and taste my starters before use.

hi
I'm in Auckland. Are you using pure SM or campden? I was going to get campden and add half a tablet to mash and the other half to sparge.
Do you prime straight from primary? if so, how do you deal with all the krausen/trub/other gubbins? I'm thinking about getting a filter or dip tube which should help.
we don't use starters, always dry yeast due to cost and just rehydrate before pitch. I'm convinced it's something to do with the bottling procedure because the beer tastes good at all other points of the process

 

[DuncB]

Well yo
u are lucky with the water in that you get a fantastic report from your water company.
Wellington water report is very limited.
I just use sodium metabisulphite, 0.3mg in the mash water and 0.2mg in the sparge.

I use fermentasaurus most of the time so can drop the yeast and trub out with that.
For my barley wines and brett beers done in an airlocked fermenter I just siphon off the top into the bottles.

Dry yeast won't be your problem then, unless you are really stressing it ie underpitch, swings of temp.

I've built up quite a yeast bank now so the starters and yeast just cost the malt extract really.

What does the beer taste like before you bottle it?