baking soda flavor

[soupfist]

I just brewed a Centennial Blonde ale that started at .038 and stopped bubbling three days later (yeast was Nottingham). I cracked the bucket open to take a sample. The beer was clearly on the tail end of primary activity, still cloudy, fizzy and a bit churned up. It measured .009, and when I tasted it, it tasted like I'd mixed a tablespoon of baking soda in with a flat Miller High Life. In fact, I'm still trying to get the taste out of my mouth...(a bit of my homebrew Brown Ale would do the trick, but I'm at work...).

I'm just experienced enough to know not to expect anything pleasant-tasting to come out of a fermenter after only three days. So this is not a n00b "Is My Beer Ruined?" question. I'm just scientifically curious. What's causing that flavor? Is that what active yeast tastes like when it's doing its thing? It's a bit mystifying because the flavor is so unmistakeably HCO3 and yet my tap water is extremely soft, so I can't figure out how I could get such a strong flavor of it in so small a sample.

 

[Bmorebrew]

By baking soda taste, do you mean like kind of salty? You say you have extremely soft water, is it softened water?

 

[soupfist]

Yeah, salty and alkaline, like baking soda.

My water's not softened, just naturally of a very low alkalinity (33 ppm HCO3). Nothing was added to the water before brewing except a Campden tablet.

 

[helibrewer]

Could it just be the dissolved CO2 from fermentation? Try taking a sample out, give it a quick boil in the microwave to degas it, cool it and taste again...

 

[KayaBrew]

What did you expect a 3 day old beer to taste like? Seriously, leave it alone for another 2 weeks, then see if it tastes like Arm and Hammer. Sorry, I don't mean to sound so douchy!

 

[soupfist]

What did you expect a 3 day old beer to taste like? Seriously, leave it alone for another 2 weeks, then see if it tastes like Arm and Hammer. Sorry, I don't mean to sound so douchy!

You failed. Don't think I could have been clearer that I was asking out of curiosity, not concern. Or did you bother to read that far?

 

[PoppinCaps]

You failed. Don't think I could have been clearer that I was asking out of curiosity, not concern. Or did you bother to read that far?

Yeah, people just love to jump on folks taking a taste before the 3 month long primary is over. So much for science.

At least he apologized for being a ******?

 

[samuryan]

i have this same taste on a light pale with nottingham after 3 weeks ferment 5 days in keg . . . salty. Not clear so maybe yeast in suspension still

 

[Hermit]

Yeast bite?