Bottling temp

[robbo007]

Hi,
What's the recommended temperature for leaving your bottled beers for the carbonisation process?/ secondary fermentation?

Reason I ask is I brew a all grain pale ale and sometimes it comes out with this horrible chemical taste. I do the same process, same ingredientes every time but this only happens sometimes.

I think I might have narrowed it down to the room temperature. I primary ferment (in fermentation vessels) and bottle carbonate (secondary fermentation in bottle) in the same room. Temperature is around 24-25 degree's which allows the wort in my fermentation vessels to be at a steady 23 degrees.

Could this be the cause of the off taste?

 

[Nagorg]

~23 degrees Celsius seems a little warm for primary fermentation for most styles. I generally ferment between ~16- 18 degrees. I use the same temperature range for secondary fermentation too.

But for carbonating bottled beers, 23 degrees should be fine I'd say.

 

[robbo007]

hmmmm. Then not sure whats happening then... Could it be sometime its ferments fine at 23 and other times its too high?

Because I'm producing good batches too.

 

[Nagorg]

As to the temperature question specifically; I'd again consider that a bit higher the desired and I'd suggest cooler fermentation temps would produce cleaner beers generally speaking. That's not true for all styles or yeast strains though; Sasion is an example..

It's really hard to diagnose with out a little more info.

Are you brewing the same recipe each time with different results? Are you always using the same yeast? How consistent is the mash process? What type of water are you using? Are you checking/adjusting water profile etc..?

 

[robbo007]

I'm brewing the same Pale Ale recipe each time, with same grains, same hops and aways use SafAle 04 dry yeast.

The mash consistency its pretty close each time as I use same amount of grains and water. The mash temperature is a constant 67 degrees (60mins) and the water has high PH around 7.1. Could high PH water give random batches?

Out of 10 batches say 3 had this horrible smell/flavour. Did not taste/smell like butter scotch. A little more chemically. Hard to explain smells

I always cleanse things to avoid wort going bad. I use airlocks too.

Its a tough one but annoying as I don't know what I'm doing wrong to avoid it...

 

[Nagorg]

Your water PH probably isn't the cause; it most likely drops when grains are added to the mash though it wouldn't hurt to check it once in a while.

Is it possible that fermentation temp actually gets higher than you think? If the room's ambient temp is 23 degrees, the wort could be as much as ~28 degrees during peak activity.

Are you pitching enough yeast? Check mrmalty.com for a good pitching rate calculator.

I still would attribute high temps as a likely contributor to the off flavors you describe.

 

[unionrdr]

23C equals 73.4F,so the ferment temp is a little high. High ferment temps cause the fermenting wort to produce higher levels of the usual by-products that are perceived as off flavors in PPM (Parts Per Million). Also,if your brewing water has chlorine or chloromine in it,it can give medicinal or band-aid like flavors. Solvent-like off flavors come from high ferment temps & oxidation somewhere along the line. Read this for starters; http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

 

[Yooper]

Does your water supply vary? A "chemical" smell and taste tends to be water related, specifically chlorine in the brewing water.

Even though your fermenting temperature is a little high, that should give you fruity flavors (bananas or bubblegum flavors) and not chemical flavors. Chlorine in the brewing water, or a very high mash pH due to changes in the water supply, would make a plastic taste (chlorine) or medicinal taste, or a harsh dry flavor (high mash pH).

 

[robbo007]

Just found the water analysis my wife did for me. Does not vary that much.

PH: 8.2
Conductivity: 373
Chlorine: 0.23
Fe: >100 PPB
Cu: >0.5PPM
Pb > 1PPB

I'll be using RO water in the future but was curios to see what I was doing wrong as not to bring these mistakes to the micro brewery I'm building.

 

[Yooper]

Just found the water analysis my wife did for me. Does not vary that much.

PH: 8.2
Conductivity: 373
Chlorine: 0.23
Fe: >100 PPB
Cu: >0.5PPM
Pb > 1PPB

I'll be using RO water in the future but was curios to see what I was doing wrong as not to bring these mistakes to the micro brewery I'm building.

Chlorine, Iron, and Lead?

Those items must be removed from the water before brewing. Chlorine is easy, with campden tablets, but I have no idea what filters or other things are required to remove iron and lead.

Iron in the brewing water leaves a metallic flavor in the beer. Lead of course is poisonous.

 

[robbo007]

Those levels are so low its pretty much not noticeable. Its what you would find in most normal tap water.

But I agree. In the microbrewery setup I'm using a rever osmosis system which will take out 95% of all that and leave a water around 5.5 PH. I'll then add the standard minerals like gypsum etc to my mash.

Its just strange how I had so many good brews which tasted pretty good. It must be the combination of those harsh minerals and maybe high primary fermentation temperature?

 

[Yooper]

Those levels are so low its pretty much not noticeable. Its what you would find in most normal tap water.

But I agree. In the microbrewery setup I'm using a rever osmosis system which will take out 95% of all that and leave a water around 5.5 PH. I'll then add the standard minerals like gypsum etc to my mash.

Its just strange how I had so many good brews which tasted pretty good. It must be the combination of those harsh minerals and maybe high primary fermentation temperature?

Greater than 100 ppm (Iron) isn't exactly low........................
Greater than 1 ppb (lead) is not exactly low........................
etc.

Anyway, an RO system is important and should be used for brewing in cases like this.

 

[robbo007]

Sorry it should read less than not greater than

Thanks for the help guys...

 

[Zandrello]

Does your water supply vary? A "chemical" smell and taste tends to be water related, specifically chlorine in the brewing water.

Even though your fermenting temperature is a little high, that should give you fruity flavors (bananas or bubblegum flavors) and not chemical flavors. Chlorine in the brewing water, or a very high mash pH due to changes in the water supply, would make a plastic taste (chlorine) or medicinal taste, or a harsh dry flavor (high mash pH).

I agree with this for sure. I was gonna say, higher fermentation temps would not cause a nasty chemical taste. I would blame that either on your water OR possibly bad sanitation?? I'm not calling you dirty I promise, LoL, it happens to the best of us every once in a while. But perhaps if everything was not properly cleaned, rinsed, and sanitized, it could cause these random bad chemical flavors??

I've heard of people using oxy-clean (which is a fantastic cleaner), but they did not THOROUGHLY rinse out all of their bottles with a proper bottle-jet-sprayer or whatever. So some bottles turned out good, others tasted like oxy-clean / bleach.

 

[Nagorg]

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Solvent-like
This group of flavors is very similar to the alcohol and ester flavors, but are harsher to the tongue. These flavors often result from a combination of high fermentation temperatures and oxidation. They can also be leached from cheap plastic brewing equipment or if PVC tubing is used as a lautering manifold material. The solvents in some plastics like PVC can be leached by high temperatures.

Estery / Fruity
Ales are supposed to be slightly fruity, and Belgian and German wheat beers are expected to have banana flavor components, but sometimes a beer comes along that could flag down a troop of monkeys. Esters are produced by the yeast and different yeast strains will produce different amounts and types. In general, higher fermentation temperatures produce more esters. Next batch, contrive to lower the fermentation temperature by a few degrees.

 

[robbo007]

Could be the Solvent-like.... Which makes sense as I was fermenting a little high and I use use plastic FV.

 

[satph]

Here's a thread where similar off-flavors are discussed and blamed on S-04 and high temperature fermentation. Also, look at the comments following this blog post, where users had issues with S-04. When using S-04, I'd be extra careful to make sure there's no Chlorine in the water, and I'd make sure the fermentation temp is at or below 20°C (68°F).

You can make great beers with S-04. If you're relying on ambient temperature, I think you'd need the room at 15°C. You might want to give S-05 yeast a try, as I believe it's more forgiving. Still most ales will benefit from fermenting below 20°C, like Nagorg pointed out, the beer can be 5°C warmer than the ambient temperature during fermentation. You might want to build a swamp cooler to keep your primary fermentations cooler.

 

[robbo007]

We could be onto something.. Only one anomaly. I was brewing both a Pale Ale and a Dark Ale (which contained, Carafa Special III malt, Chocolate, etc) Both ales used the S04 and both were in the same room. All lots from the Pale ale seemed to be affected but the Dark Ale seemed fine. Could darker malts affect the outcome too? Making it a little more robust?