Medicinal Smell

[Kanthalion]

Or maybe similar to a cleaning solution. I'm brewing my first non-Mr. Beer batch and I just tasted my specific gravity sample after one week in secondary. I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes (which would have been avoided had I perused the fora before starting this brew) but I don't think any of them would kill my beer. At any rate, it had an off medicinal/cleaning solution smell and a slight burnt plastic taste. I'm still not giving up on bottling and waiting, but I am a bit concerned. If I did do anything that might have caused an infection, I suspect it was adding ice to my cold water in the carboy before I added the wort (I thought I was being clever till I read on the fora not to do that) What follows is my recipe and my notes--oh yeah, and i don't know if it makes a difference, but I added the malt extract to the cool water at the same time I turned on the burner:

My Special Bitter Ale


Brew date: 3/5/12 Expected bottling date: 3/28/12 Expected first tasting: 4/18/12
5 Gallon batch
1.042 sp. gr.
Potential ABV: 5.5%

6# Amber Extract
1 oz Cascade, .5 oz Styrian Goldings (bittering)
0.5 oz Styrian Goldings (finishing)
2 tsp Gypsum
1 Packet Nottingham Yeast

Add gypsum and extract to 2 gallons of water. Bring to boil and add bittering hops after first break. boil for 1 hour, adding finishing hops in last minute of boil. strain and sparge wort into fermenter with 2.5 gallons of cold water waiting in it. When wort is down to 70 degrees, add bloomed yeast.

3/5/12 Added yeast at 85 degrees. Hopefully I won’t regret it. Tastes super hoppy. lots of hop residue in bottom of tank.

3/6/12 24 Hours later and still no visible fermentation.

3/7/12 Checked at 40 hours and finally seeing solid signs of fermentation.

3/8/12 Krausen has finally risen.

3/9/12 Foam no longer visibly moving through blow off tube, but krausen has not subsided.

3/12/12 1 week. Krausen is lower but not yet subsided and still actively fermenting.

3/14/12 1.021 sp. gr. (2.7% abv) Krausen has subsided enough to rack to secondary. Taste impressions: Nice hop bitterness: Assertive but not overpowering. Good underlying malt taste. A bit grassy, kinda burnt plastic undertone. Odd barnyard (methane?) and medicinal smell.

3/21/12 1 Week in secondary. 1.015 sp. gr. (3.5% abv) barnyard smell is gone, still has strong medicinal smell and odd burnt plastic undertone. Aside from that, it seems to be shaping up well. I hope it will mellow.

 

[Faseel]

Hello my friend
Welcome to homebrewing. Off the hip your thread starts out describing two different styles of infection, however your Brewer's notes seem to indicated a mellowing of these notes. I would get my butt kicked if I were to even suggest you're beer was done for. I too would make a mistake at pitch, racking you name it and I would start looking for all the warning signs just knowing it was over. Don't do this. Let it play out as you planned. After it is bottled and had time to carbonate and mellow try it then and you will have a much better idea.

 

[Yooper]

Nottingham gets fusel flavors when it's fermented above 72 degrees, so pitching at 85 degrees could be a part of it. Chlorinated water can also be an issue, and causes some flavors called "chlorophenols" during fermentation that smell and taste of band-aids or solvent.

I'd suggest never adding yeast to a fermenter until the wort is under 70 degrees, and to use nonchlorinated water.

 

[microbusbrewery]

If it's medicinal similar to plastic band-aids, that's usually chlorophenols. One cause of this is chlorine and/or chloramines in your brew water. There are a couple ways to ensure these don't make it into your brew including pre-boiling all your water, carbon filtering, and campden tablets. If this is what you have, based on my experience it won't age out. But don't go tossing it yet, give it a couple weeks.

I'd also recommend pitching your yeast at a lower temp. 85F pretty warm to pitch or ferment at unless you're making a funky Belgian brew. Yeast does better starting out on the cool side then warming up. If they start warm and then cool off, they tend to go asleep.

 

[MichaelBrock]

I had a similar odor/flavor with my own first brew. The issue for me was the chloramine in my tap water. Through the activity of the yeast you end up with chloraphenols which have a flavor often described as "band aid". It was quite strong in my first batch and I almost dumped it. I ended up letting it set for a few more weeks and in the end it was palatable. Since that batch I have been using RO water.

Edited: Doh, too slow. So, count this as a "third vote" for what Yooper said above.

 

[microbusbrewery]

Since that batch I have been using RO water.

Kinda off topic of the original post, but if you're using RO water make sure you're adding some brewing salts back in. You can run into other issues using straight RO water.

 

[Kanthalion]

Yeah, I kinda lost patience with waiting for it to cool (since then I bought a wort chiller) hence the 85 degree pitching. Now that y'all mention it, my Mr. Beer batch did have a similar thing going on, just not as pronounced. I just looked up my water and it has 4ppm chloramine. So which is better campden tablets or vitamin C? I've read both.

 

[JonK331]

BTW - great job keeping notes. It will make it a lot easier to fine tune your process and recipes if you continue to take notes like that.

 

[microbusbrewery]

BTW - great job keeping notes. It will make it a lot easier to fine tune your process and recipes if you continue to take notes like that.

Exactly what I was thinking too. I wish I'd taken notes like this when I first started brewing.

Re chloramine, I think campden tabs are what most people use but I'm not 100% certain. My water only contains chlorine (at least as of the last time I emailed the water company) so I haven't personally had to deal with it. Hopefully someone with first hand experience with both can provide feedback.

 

[maltoftheearth]

In line water filters are easy to install, relatively inexpensive and will filter out much of the chlorine if I recall correctly. I have used one regularly without any issues from chlorine. OTHER issues to be sure but chlorine is not one of them.

 

[Ramitt]

In line water filters are easy to install, relatively inexpensive and will filter out much of the chlorine if I recall correctly. I have used one regularly without any issues from chlorine. OTHER issues to be sure but chlorine is not one of them.

Most filters alone will not help with chloramine. I had a similar problem and even switching to the water machine at Kroger did not fully help. Using campden tabs on filtered water fixed my issues.

 

[Kanthalion]

Thanks for the compliments on my notes. It makes me feel like I'm doing something other than waiting on the yeasties.

I've decided to use campden tablets on my next batch. and to go ahead with my plans to leave this batch in secondary for at least 2 more weeks (maybe 3) and when I do bottle, wait at least 3 weeks before tasting. If it's still really pronounced, I'll just box em up and forget about them in the back of the closet for a while.

 

[Kanthalion]

No new question or problem. I'm just excited to see a "sunrise" color grade showing up in my carboy--presumably cause it's starting to clear--and I felt like sharing with people who'd care and share my excitement. (I told my mom and she was like "that's nice, dear.")

 

[Kanthalion]

Three weeks in secondary, I took a sample: 1.014 sg (3.6% abv) it still has that medicinal smell/taste. I'm gonna take a sample by the LHBS to get a more experienced opinion on what I'm tasting. It still isn't clear so I'm not gonna bottle yet. I'll check again in a week.

 

[markk308]

Three weeks in secondary, I took a sample: 1.014 sg (3.6% abv) it still has that medicinal smell/taste. I'm gonna take a sample by the LHBS to get a more experienced opinion on what I'm tasting. It still isn't clear so I'm not gonna bottle yet. I'll check again in a week.

You figure out what the off flavors came from?

 

[Vintage Iron]

...If I did do anything that might have caused an infection, I suspect it was adding ice to my cold water in the carboy before I added the wort (I thought I was being clever till I read on the fora not to do that)

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but can anyone give a quick explanation on how/why this is bad? (I may know someone who just did this to their first brew a couple weeks ago.. LOL)