Continued strange taste

[Kais]

Hello all,

So i've made a few beers now and I have always found they have a weak strange taste on the back end. Its not contamination, the beer is clean, but its always present. I ferment in food grade plastic buckets and my thought is that it could be coming from that. Has anyone else experienced funny flavors with plastic fermentors?

I also use StarSan for santitizing, do people get off flavors with that?

 

[tictoc43064]

How long in the primary and how long in the bottle? Not even close to an expert here, but I came across a similar phenomenon. I did 3 weeks in primary, then two for bottle conditioning. threw it in the fridge for 24 hours, the first one and had something nasty on the back end. kinda disappointed. left the rest of the 6 pack in the fridge for another week before trying. So 3 weeks in the primary, 2 weeks conditioning, 1 week in the fridge. Totally different beer!!! Pleasant and delicious. am now staggering 6 packs in the fridge to test the best timeframe to drink this beer so i know when i brew it again. my two cents

 

[Sdiddy84]

I had a similar issue it seems. I would describe it as a faint aspirin like taste after the fact. My beer tasted great then a bitter after taste appeared. It went away after a couple weeks in the keg. Or I got used to it.
Anyway, I contributed the off taste to my mash ph. Where I am, we have really crappy hard water. I brewed a black IPA which was great and no off flavour, but apparently dark beers lower mash ph. Last brew I used distilled and added minerals to match a specific water profile and boom. Great taste.

Basically check your water chemistry. Mash ph is important.

 

[indymedic]

Can you describe the taste? Also it will help if you can give us the recipe and your brewing/fermenting process.

 

[day_trippr]

So i've made a few beers now and I have always found they have a weak strange taste on the back end. Its not contamination, the beer is clean, but its always present. I ferment in food grade plastic buckets and my thought is that it could be coming from that. Has anyone else experienced funny flavors with plastic fermentors?

I also use StarSan for santitizing, do people get off flavors with that?

You can rule out the Star San, I've been using it for years and even fully wetted carboys don't cause any off notes.

Given you're associating the off note with plastics, I would start with the water situation: are you on a public water supply, and if so do you do anything to mitigate chloramine/chlorine that is likely in the water?

Cheers!

 

[Sammy86]

Hello all,



So i've made a few beers now and I have always found they have a weak strange taste on the back end. Its not contamination, the beer is clean, but its always present. I ferment in food grade plastic buckets and my thought is that it could be coming from that. Has anyone else experienced funny flavors with plastic fermentors?



I also use StarSan for santitizing, do people get off flavors with that?

Never had a problem with Star San or my plastic fermenters...how soon after bottling/kegging are you tasting?

Could it just be green beer taste? I'm sure a more experienced brewer will chime in but it could be that the beer hasn't had time to develop its taste...I know for me personally my beer really hits its stride 2 full weeks carbed so three weeks in the keg.

 

[brick_haus]

What day_tripper said.

 

[Kais]

Hi all,

Thanks for the really great replies. I definitely think it mellows out with time, but not entirely. I tend to do 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, 4 weeks bottle (at least, but sometimes you just can't resist cracking them open early right ). I really only do extract brews, but i want to ramp up to all grain.

I hadn't thought of attributing it to my water chemistry. I tend to buy spring water for my brews cos i just dont trust my tap water, but i've never tested the water chemistry. I could get distilled water and try and match a particular water profile with added minerals.?

 

[Homercidal]

Spring water may still have an unacceptable amount of flavor ions, though you won't need to worry much about alkalinity because you aren't worried about enzymatic activity during the mash you aren't doing. I'd discount tannins since you are brewing extract.

You may wish to try Distilled water. The extract should have enough mineral content to satisfy the yeast's needs and might help determine if the water is the issue.

As far as the original question, I fermented for years in plastic buckets. I never though I had a problem with them. Lately I've switched to a Stainless Bucket. It was more $$, but I know I am in the hobby for the long term and this thing is easier to clean and can be baked to sterilize if there is ever a problem with bacteria. I tossed it up between the Fast Ferment and the SS bucket and I chose the bucket as the conical doesn't fit my space well and I don't have need to harvest yeast. If you still believe your bucket may be the problem I'd say go buy another and test it. Surely a fresh bucket won't give this flavor and they are only a few dollars.

 

[filthyastronaut]

How long in the primary and how long in the bottle? Not even close to an expert here, but I came across a similar phenomenon. I did 3 weeks in primary, then two for bottle conditioning. threw it in the fridge for 24 hours, the first one and had something nasty on the back end. kinda disappointed. left the rest of the 6 pack in the fridge for another week before trying. So 3 weeks in the primary, 2 weeks conditioning, 1 week in the fridge. Totally different beer!!! Pleasant and delicious. am now staggering 6 packs in the fridge to test the best timeframe to drink this beer so i know when i brew it again. my two cents

This. If you're bottling, I would look at how long you're conditioning. I find most of my beers have a strange, hard to describe off-flavor before they're done conditioning, and I've never tasted it when sampling during bottling. It does go away and it's nothing to worry about. I always try one at 2 weeks and it's great, but more often than not it's a 3 week minimum.

 

[Kais]

It seems like there are two tests for me to do: (1) Test completely mineral free water versus mineral containing water, and (2) do a taste test time course of the beer as it ages.

I have supplies in for a second brew in (it'll be a bit of a thrown together beer but i'd rather use it up to test this). I'll do two lots, one distilled water and one spring water, and just see how they taste afterwards. I'll also taste my most recent brew as it goes. like I said i've noticed this taste lessen as time goes on but it never quite leaves, so i'm not compltely convinced it's an aging thing.

thanks again for all the great thoughts!

 

[MrBJones]

All but one of my first several brews had what I think you're describing (all but a sweet stout)....an aftertaste, or finish, that's just bitterly bland. Over time it would lessen but never go away completely. I tried everything to figure out what caused it....even took a bottle to LHBS; the owner - who is BJCP certified - said there was essentially nothing wrong with it. Everything up to that point had been extract; but the next three were all grain. And guess what? Not a hint of that taste in the AG. Maybe a coincidence, but maybe not. To me, it's one more reason to make the jump to AG....the beer is just better.