Been reading this site for a while to help find ways to improve my brewing. It’s kind of been an obsession. I won’t go into details about my process until asked but will relay what I feel is my issue and what I have done on my last batch to try to correct it. It’s still in fermenter by the way. The problem I feel like I been having is a slight medicinal taste on the back of my tongue. I can’t can’t detect by smell.
This last batch improvements made where water chemistry and fermentation temp control. I hit all my numbers including ph.
So after reading a bunch lately on this site I have 2 concerns now.
1. Boil kettle
2. Immersion chiller.
My boil kettle is stainless steel with riveted handles. I’m sure the rivets are aluminum. At end of brew day I fill the kettle with PBW to soak all my equipment in to do a cleaning, including my copper IC. I notice on the rivets a corrosive build up on them but I clean them off real good or at least I think I do. When I boil the wort, the wort level is above the rivets. Also the IC will end up looking brand spanking new.
After reading this site, I’m thinking that the IC should have a patina on it to keep the copper from leaching into the wort.
Could the aluminum rivets and or the shiny clean IC be creating this perceived metallic flavor?
This last batch improvements made where water chemistry and fermentation temp control. I hit all my numbers including ph.
So after reading a bunch lately on this site I have 2 concerns now.
1. Boil kettle
2. Immersion chiller.
My boil kettle is stainless steel with riveted handles. I’m sure the rivets are aluminum. At end of brew day I fill the kettle with PBW to soak all my equipment in to do a cleaning, including my copper IC. I notice on the rivets a corrosive build up on them but I clean them off real good or at least I think I do. When I boil the wort, the wort level is above the rivets. Also the IC will end up looking brand spanking new.
After reading this site, I’m thinking that the IC should have a patina on it to keep the copper from leaching into the wort.
Could the aluminum rivets and or the shiny clean IC be creating this perceived metallic flavor?