Chesty1019
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- Joined
- Aug 26, 2014
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Fellow brewers: This is going to be a long post so thank you in advance for taking the ime to read. I'm at a loss with trying to find the reason for a specific off flavor. While it's very hard to describe its somewhere along the lines of an astringent, metallic or somewhat medicinal, maybe even plastic like. Its very subtle and like I said hard to describe.
So here's a little history of my recent experiences; after going all grain (around 5 or so batches ago) my first all grain batch was an IPA, which was heavily hopped and this taste wasn't present, although there is a possibility it was and the hops just covered it up. My second batch was a brown porter, where I had an efficiency loss, did the wrong thing and added dextrose to make up for the loss and it turned out like a dry wine so it got dumped. (Trust me, I never waste beer but this one was terrible). I include this statement to say it could have been present here as well the dryness may have covered it up.
So onto the third batch; this was a hefeweizen, where I again experienced poor effeciency bit boiled it down to hit my numbers this time and was excited for a good All grain beer, however, after fermentation the taste was there and due to the lightness of a hefe, it's overwhelming.
Having poor efficiency along with this taste, I considered it was my water, so I did as much research on water as possible. I have read a vast array of information the past few months and am very comfortable answering any question on water now. My water report came back terrible, and I realized I was done with my tap water.
Onto batch four, where I used RO water and treated it by myself. This again was a hefe, while I could tell a complete difference in the beer due to the water, this strange flavor was still present. I would consider This a great beer, but this darned thing is still there.
I always use starters, pitching plenty of yeast. I treat my yeast similar to how I did my daughter's when they were babies. (Yeah, they're that important to me, sort of adopted children).
My fermentation temps are steady; I keep them stored accordingly to White Labs.
I have multiple plastic fermenter buckets and have considered an infection, but feel it awkward to have all three of them with the same exact infection causing the same taste.
As far as my process; I heat strike water in my kettle, transfer in to the mash tun and mash in. Heat sparge water for a batch sparge transfer it to an HLT (5 gal pot), drain the mash and sparge, then boil of course.
I am usually hospital clean with my sanitary process.
Could there be anything else causing these flavors? I'm fairly sure I'm not drawing tannins as I am generally spot on woth my target temps.
The last possibility, and I left this last to see if there are other conclusions and not draw the attention to it. After that first IPA I got pretty trashed afterwards. While cleaning the ALUMINUM boil kettle, I dumped PBW in and of course forgot about it. This left it pitted and I believe this could be it. Although, I read many debated topics of aluminum or PBW giving off flavors.
Thanks for the attention, and I appreciate any ideas or comments.
So here's a little history of my recent experiences; after going all grain (around 5 or so batches ago) my first all grain batch was an IPA, which was heavily hopped and this taste wasn't present, although there is a possibility it was and the hops just covered it up. My second batch was a brown porter, where I had an efficiency loss, did the wrong thing and added dextrose to make up for the loss and it turned out like a dry wine so it got dumped. (Trust me, I never waste beer but this one was terrible). I include this statement to say it could have been present here as well the dryness may have covered it up.
So onto the third batch; this was a hefeweizen, where I again experienced poor effeciency bit boiled it down to hit my numbers this time and was excited for a good All grain beer, however, after fermentation the taste was there and due to the lightness of a hefe, it's overwhelming.
Having poor efficiency along with this taste, I considered it was my water, so I did as much research on water as possible. I have read a vast array of information the past few months and am very comfortable answering any question on water now. My water report came back terrible, and I realized I was done with my tap water.
Onto batch four, where I used RO water and treated it by myself. This again was a hefe, while I could tell a complete difference in the beer due to the water, this strange flavor was still present. I would consider This a great beer, but this darned thing is still there.
I always use starters, pitching plenty of yeast. I treat my yeast similar to how I did my daughter's when they were babies. (Yeah, they're that important to me, sort of adopted children).
My fermentation temps are steady; I keep them stored accordingly to White Labs.
I have multiple plastic fermenter buckets and have considered an infection, but feel it awkward to have all three of them with the same exact infection causing the same taste.
As far as my process; I heat strike water in my kettle, transfer in to the mash tun and mash in. Heat sparge water for a batch sparge transfer it to an HLT (5 gal pot), drain the mash and sparge, then boil of course.
I am usually hospital clean with my sanitary process.
Could there be anything else causing these flavors? I'm fairly sure I'm not drawing tannins as I am generally spot on woth my target temps.
The last possibility, and I left this last to see if there are other conclusions and not draw the attention to it. After that first IPA I got pretty trashed afterwards. While cleaning the ALUMINUM boil kettle, I dumped PBW in and of course forgot about it. This left it pitted and I believe this could be it. Although, I read many debated topics of aluminum or PBW giving off flavors.
Thanks for the attention, and I appreciate any ideas or comments.
