Looking for help to diagnose an off flavor in my first IPA

[MTMuggs]

This is my first extract brew that I put together myself, after doing some Mr.Beer recipes. The Mr.Beer brews, 3 of them, never had any off-flavors. I'm getting some sort of off flavor that seems to best match phenolic, sort of a plasticky, medicinal flavor. Right out of the bottle, it didn't seem that bad, but became more noticeable and cloying as I drank the glass. After about 6 ounces, I couldn't drink any more. As I'm on untreated well water, I am free of the treatment compounds that I read typically cause the problem. My water analysis showed 3mg/L Chloride. Beer has been bottle conditioning for about a month.

Thus far, I can think of a few things that may have caused the problem. Fermentation was at the high end, roughly 75 degrees (steady 70 degree basement) with Wyeast British Ale II yeast. Fermentation took off like a rocket, and bubbled steadily, so it would not appear to be a weak fermentation. After two weeks, I racked to secondary and let set for another two weeks before bottling (not planning to secondary in the future). This brew was before I had my patio stove, and was barely able to boil on the kitchen stove. I had read that a poor hot break can cause phenols, could this be the case with an all-extract brew or just grain? I also didn't separate the chilled wort from the break material. Lastly, about 6 ounces of One-Step solution went from my siphon into my bottling bucket by accident (yeah, still getting used to this ), so I don't know what kind of taste that amount could give 2.5 gallons of beer.

I'm hoping it will become drinkable with some more aging. I know the owner of a local brewpub and he volunteered to give me some feedback on my brews, so I figure I'll try to see him with a bottle in another month or so.

Here is the recipe:

2.5 gallon batch

2 lb 8 oz Briess Sparkling Amber DME
1 8 Briess Golden Light DME

.5 oz Nugget 30 minutes
.25 oz Kent Goldings 15 minutes
.25 oz Kent Goldings flame out

Wyeast British Ale II liquid yeast (1L starter I believe)

 

[Germelli1]

You sound 100% like me after my first brews. EVERY one of my extract brews had a taste very similar to what you are describing.

I changed two things between batches that made it go away:

1. I learned and instituted the swamp cooler method. I can get my temps to the 50s if I want this way, but by swapping frozen bottles 2-3 times a day I can keep it at a steady 62 degrees. It is easier to show you how to do it than explain haha.

2. I started making yeast starters when using liquid yeast. This cut down on the stress the little guys deal with.

These two things made my beer chemical taste free and great. The good news for you is at 4 months aging, the flavors were gone.

The bad news is that it took mine 2-4 months for the taste to be gone

 

[MTMuggs]

Yep, the past two brews I've had in a tub of water, no shirt, and the water was around 66-68 without any ice. I got to thinking, whatever the dry ale yeast is that Mr. Beer gives you, 2-4 grams of that at 70 degrees room temp gave me no problems. Maybe I was just leading a charmed life.

 

[BenS]

Fermentation was at the high end, roughly 75 degrees (steady 70 degree basement) with Wyeast British Ale II yeast.

2 lb 8 oz Briess Sparkling Amber DME
1 8 Briess Golden Light DME

This is what suck out to me the most. I've learned that british yeast can create nice esters at high temps when making a british ale(low hopped, low carbed) but make some not so nice phenolics when it doesn't have more malt character to 'layer' flavors.