Frustrating

[Devin]

For a while now, I have been chasing down an off flavor in my lighter beers - it is sort of a salty/mineral flavor. I BIAB with distilled water and have been building a water profile (first from suggestions from the water chemistry primer on this forum, and now I am using Bru'n water). I also keg my beers.

I sort of got sick of chasing down the problem, so I recently decided to brew a couple of darker beers to enjoy this Holiday - a Milk Stout and a Red Ale. I couldn't detect the salty/mineral taste in the Stout (never have been able to in my Stouts), but I could detect it in the Red at first. About 5 glasses into the Red, the minerally taste seems to have subsided some (wondering if it is something in the sediment?). But, the real problem is that I have I guess what is known as the "band-aid burps" with this Red. After noticing this, I tried my Stout and it also has it - but it is much less noticeable.

My research into this gives several causes, but the front runner seems to be chlorephenols. My tap water is treated with the MIOX process, and it smells of chlorine significantly after leaving it sit for an evening. That is why I am using distilled water. I was planning on starting to treat my water with Campden, but I wanted to get the salty/mineral taste thing fixed before attempting to change something else. Anyway, I brew with distilled water, but I do clean, rinse, and sanitize with my tap water. I guess that I never thought the residual left from sanitizing could be a problem.

I have also read that the bandaid problem could be from fermenting too high (I have a temp. controlled fermenter and fermented both of these at 64F, so I am thinking that isn't it).

Another cause I have read is a possible infection of some type. I guess this could be. I fermented the stout in a glass carboy, and the red in a plastic bucket. My sanitization procedures are solid, I think. I don't see any signs of growth, no visible scratches in my equipment. I recently disassembled my entire keg system and thoroughly cleaned it (PBW) and sanitized it (Starsan). But, again - it was all done with the tap water.

I am really hoping that this is just the tap water issue. I am getting so sick of my stretch of bad brews here. The worst is that I currently have an IPA in the fermenter - one where I was really hoping to finally be rid of this "salty/mineral" issue. But, I still used the tap water for cleaning/sanitization. It is going to suck if this issue shows up in that beer. I am planning on bottling half of this batch to see if there is an issue with the kegging system.

The thing that makes me doubt the cleaning water being the culprit is that I have made plenty of beers in the past using this technique that didn't suffer from this problem. Maybe they are upping the effective chloramine levels or something. Maybe I need to just replace all of my keg lines and such.

Both the Stout and the Red also have zero head retention. The Red is not very clear, either. Frustrating.

Really getting tired of this. Ah well, this too shall pass.

 

[Quaker]

To eliminate the keg system from the equation, fill a couple of bottles with that IPA when it's complete and bottle condition them to compare later against the keg.

Does the rubber-band/band-aid flavor seem more prevalent with some yeast strains vs others? I was using WLP029 in my pale ales and also suffered from it. I switched to US05 for a batch and lost it. So something about my ferment conditions with the Brit strain caused it. Like you, my temps were not high enough to stand out as a cause.

Does the mineral character fade after time as well? Could it be an acrid character from husk particles which slowly drop out of suspension. I've heard Jamil Z speak of that on some BN show segments for dark beers.

 

[Yooper]

Salty/mineral flavors tend to come from- yep, minerals via the form of salts. But if you are using a tiny bit of calcium chloride (like in the primer), that is not the case. If you are using a lot more, that could be something to look at.

What is the source of your water? Is it really and truly distilled water, I guess is what I"m asking. Do you trust the source.

I use RO (reverse osmosis) water with great results. I started using that by buying jugs at the store from those big "water machines" but of course the machines must be maintained properly.

 

[hotspurdotus]

Sounds like you're taking all the right steps to fix your problem, Devin. I'm sure you'll get it fixed soon.

You mentioned it's a bad stretch; did off-flavor suddenly appear, or has it always been there and you're just now becoming sensitive to it?

Were you getting the off-flavors before you started building your water profiles? Any chance you're grabbing the wrong salt (calcium carbonate instead of calcium chloride) or something similar?

Good luck!

 

[Devin]

To eliminate the keg system from the equation, fill a couple of bottles with that IPA when it's complete and bottle condition them to compare later against the keg.

Does the rubber-band/band-aid flavor seem more prevalent with some yeast strains vs others? I was using WLP029 in my pale ales and also suffered from it. I switched to US05 for a batch and lost it. So something about my ferment conditions with the Brit strain caused it. Like you, my temps were not high enough to stand out as a cause.

Does the mineral character fade after time as well? Could it be an acrid character from husk particles which slowly drop out of suspension. I've heard Jamil Z speak of that on some BN show segments for dark beers.

I am planning on bottling half of my IPA to see if the keg system has something to do with it.

I haven't noticed the bandaid flavor before with either yeast. For the Stout, I used Windsor dry (they were out of WL's London ale yeast), and for the Red, I used my favorite - WLP007. I have used WLP007 many, many times before and not noticed this effect.

The mineral character seems to fade for some of my beers, but not others. It usually doesn't show up at all in my darker beers. I have another thread here that talks more about it. But, it did show up in this red. Like I said, though, it does seem to be fading. I hadn't heard about the husk particle thing - thanks for the suggestion. I will look into that.

 

[Devin]

Salty/mineral flavors tend to come from- yep, minerals via the form of salts. But if you are using a tiny bit of calcium chloride (like in the primer), that is not the case. If you are using a lot more, that could be something to look at.

What is the source of your water? Is it really and truly distilled water, I guess is what I"m asking. Do you trust the source.

I use RO (reverse osmosis) water with great results. I started using that by buying jugs at the store from those big "water machines" but of course the machines must be maintained properly.

If you look in the thread I mention above, I was using store-bought RO water at first. Then HBT members suggested that the RO water might not be RO water after all. So, I went to buying distilled water. I still haven't tested the bottled distilled water with a TDS meter, but I believe that it is truly distilled water.

My tap water is pretty soft - but it is treated in a way that produces what I believe is chloramine. It fails the overnight sniff test.

I am using small amounts of CaCl, a little gypsum, and occasionally I add some lactic acid if Bru'n water indicates that I need it. I have considered that perhaps my CaCl just isn't any good - I get it from Austin Homebrew. I haven't "switched" vendors to see if that is an issue yet or not.

 

[Devin]

Sounds like you're taking all the right steps to fix your problem, Devin. I'm sure you'll get it fixed soon.

You mentioned it's a bad stretch; did off-flavor suddenly appear, or has it always been there and you're just now becoming sensitive to it?

Were you getting the off-flavors before you started building your water profiles? Any chance you're grabbing the wrong salt (calcium carbonate instead of calcium chloride) or something similar?

Good luck!

The minerally/salty taste did seem to coincide with when I started building my own water profiles. It doesn't seem to affect my really dark beers (stouts), and didn't used to affect the darker beers (ambers/reds), but it was always there in my pales. But, as I mentioned, it seemed to fade for some. One of my IPAs in the past had the salty/mineral flavor drop and it turned out to be just about the best beer I have ever had in my life.

Anyway, I have been chasing this salt thing for a while and now this stupid band-aid flavor pops up. Also, the complete lack of head retention is strange. I remember having similar band-aid things back with a couple of my first extract brews (which used my chloramine-laced tap water). It took me a while to hunt that down, but when I finally produced a couple of good extract brews using distilled water, I jumped into BIAB all-grain and decided to build my own profile instead of using my tap water.

So, I am hoping that the band-aid thing is a result of me cleaning/sanitizing my stuff with my tap water. I think that I am going to replace all of my plastic tubing and start using tap water treated with Campden to sanitize the equipment. Hopefully that will help.

One thing that I have noticed with my tap water is that there are times when it tastes/smells heavier of chlorine than others. Almost like they are "flushing" the system with the crap. Perhaps this last brew day with the red was a "heavy" day or something. I dunno.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[RmikeVT]

Just a thought, as I am guess as many are on the issue. I doubt it is your cleaning/sanitizing water.

Maybe try a small extract batch to see if the taste persists. That will at least help narrow down the problem and rule out grain/husk astringency issues that can come from mash and sparge. Also, I had a some issues issues a while back with the consequence being, every other beer I brewed was off. After doing some monitoring of my process, I realized that all the brews that were "off" were fermented in the same bucket. I stop using the bucket as a fermentation bucket and the problem went away. I also dialed in my cleaning process as I did a good job sanitizing, but not as much of a good job cleaning.

 

[RmikeVT]

I doubt it is your cleaning/sanitizing water. One thing I would recommend is seeking out a BJCP certified beer judge and getting him/her to taste or beer and give you some feedback on what the off-flavor is. This is how I figured out an issue I had with my beer. I had all these anecdotal, crap answers from homebrew store employees, homebrew club friends, etc. Then I got a BJCP judge to taste my beer and he told me exactly what was wrong with it (infection).

Maybe try a small extract batch to see if the taste persists. That will at least help narrow down the problem and rule out grain/husk astringency issues that can come from mash and sparge. Also, I had a some issues a while back with the consequence being, every other beer I brewed was off. After doing some monitoring of my process, I realized that all the brews that were "off" were fermented in the same bucket. I stop using the bucket as a fermentation bucket and the problem went away. I thought I was cleaning and sanitizing the bucket properly, I think something just got a hold in the bucket that was hardy enough to survive cleaning and sanitizing.

Just another thought after reading an article this morning. Have you thought about bleach bombing your equipment? I think the ratio is 1 TBS of bleach to 1 Gallon of water and 5 minute soak time (please research this, I am pulling from memory). The idea being that star-san is an acid sanitizer and is more of an anti-bacterial than it is an anti-mold/anti-fungal (yeast). Mold and Yeast with certain properties can survive star-san, but not chlorine bleach.

I would attack this problem from multiple angles: Replace the cheap stuff, bleach bomb the expensive stuff, maybe try an extract batch to rule out mash issues, use fresh store bought yeast, make sure all your instruments are calibrated and accurate (i.e. thermometer, ferm chamber thermostat, etc.) ... I don't know what else to say.

I hope you issue gets worked out. I know how frustrating it is, I have been there. Don't lose the persistence and keep getting it dialed in. When you get it figured out you will come out a better brewer/taster on the other end.

 

[soupfist]

Well I doubt it's your water and I'd be very surprised if it were your salts. I guess it's time to ask the dumb questions like, give us a recipe you've done recently, and then the volume of water you treated & the measurements of salts you're adding.

I think it's you're either unwittingly adding too much CaCl and/or gypsum, or it really is the tap water you use for cleaning. The latter seems unlikely but eh, I don't know what else it could be.

 

[Devin]

Well I doubt it's your water and I'd be very surprised if it were your salts. I guess it's time to ask the dumb questions like, give us a recipe you've done recently, and then the volume of water you treated & the measurements of salts you're adding.

I think it's you're either unwittingly adding too much CaCl and/or gypsum, or it really is the tap water you use for cleaning. The latter seems unlikely but eh, I don't know what else it could be.

I can post the red recipe when I get home, but I guarantee that I am not adding too much CaCl. For the red, I only added CaCl - nothing else. I added 3.1 g to treat ~8 gallons of water used for the BIAB. No gypsum nor acid were added. This was done based on suggestions from Bru'n water. A while back, I purchased a small digital scale so that I could actually measure salt additions out to the hundreth of a gram instead of using a teaspoon to do it.

So, I guess that I am saying that I have ruled out that it is me adding too much CaCl. I switched from buying RO water from the store to buying bottled distilled water because people told me that it might not be truly stripping the minerals out in the RO machine. I didn't think it would matter much anyway, though - my local water source, which feeds the store's RO machine, is pretty soft:

Constituent Average (mg/L)
Calcium 24.25
Magnesium 7.19
Bicarbonate 115.0
Sulfate 5.16
Sodium 18.35
Chloride 6.55
Hardness as CaCO3(grains/gal) 3.31

ph = 8.01

So, as you can see - the local water doesn't start out with much Ca nor Cl, so unless the RO machine was "adding" minerals, I don't think that was the problem. It is sort of a moot point anyway, since I have been using bottled distilled water for the last few brews (unless the bottled distilled water isn't really distilled).

I will post my red recipe tonight when I get home from work.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[Devin]

Ok, good news. I came home tonight and sampled the Stout again. I can't detect any band-aid flavor in it (nor band-aid burps). I must have sampled the Stout the other night too close to the Red and had some residual band-aid flavor in my system/palate.

The Red still has the flavor for sure. I got to thinking about it - and the Red was fermented in a plastic bucket. The Stout was in a glass carboy. As I mentioned before, I frequently sanitize in my buckets with Star-San and tap water. When I sanitize, I tend to let the buckets sit full for quite a while. I read on this site in a couple of different posts that plastic can sort of "absorb" the chloramine and build up over time and eventually give you problems. So, perhaps that is the culprit. Or, maybe there is some hidden infection in that bucket. I have brewed this Red in the past and it has been a really good beer - but it has always been fermented in my glass carboy.

Anyway, if anybody is interested, here is the recipe:

Hopped up Red:

5 gallon batch, 60 min boil, mash at 152 for 60 min.

8 lbs 2 row
1 lb Aromatic
1 lb Biscuit
1 lb Melanoidan
1 lb White Wheat
8 oz C40
8 oz Rye
8 oz Coffee Malt


Hops:

0.6 oz Columbus @ 60 min
0.25 oz Cascade @ 20 min
0.25 oz Cascade @ 20 min
0.25 oz Amarillo @ Flameout
0.25 oz Cascade @ Flameout
1 oz Amarillo Dry Hop
1 oz Cascade Dry Hop

WLP007 Yeast
Fermented for 2 weeks at 64F, then 1 week at 68F.

 

[Quaker]

I think an infected bucket is you culprit.

 

[grathan]

That is quite a funky recipe. I would be hard-pressed to pick out off flavors in something so flavorful.

Another thought would be to just add acid to all your beers. I use RO water and add 0.4ml acid to every mash regardless of what Bru'n water says.


Also 3 grams doesn't seem like enough Calcium, which could explain your cloudy beers.

Try 2 tsp gypsum in the strike water, then another 2 tsp in the boil.

 

[Devin]

Yeah, the CaCl was low intentionally because I was trying to isolate that stupid salty/mineral problem. I hadn't heard of the cloudiness because of low Calcium before. Thanks for the suggestion.

And yes, it is a funky recipe. It isn't mine, though. My father-in-law use to brew it and gave me the recipe. It is quite good, though (when not plagued by bandaidness)