Hi all,
First, this is my first post here. I've used these forums for reference for a long time now and found them really valuable, but never registered until just now when I wanted to post something. So hi everyone.
So for a while now, every IPA (or pale ale, and almost every hoppy saison) I've brewed has had the same terrible flavor. I'm not sure how to describe it--chemical, or medicinal, or grassy, or something...it's not something I've ever tasted in a beer outside my own homebrews. And it's not a subtle off flavor; it takes over the whole flavor profile so much that aside from some generic bitterness/hoppiness, I usually can't even taste the hop character in these beers. I've tried to drink through some of them, they're not so disgusting as to be undrinkable, but mostly I've ended up giving them away to people who don't care.
This has ONLY been a problem in hoppy beers--I brew lots of other styles from brown ales to wheat beers to berlinerweisse to saisons to experimental brett beers and have had no such problems with any other styles, and have been extremely happy with most of my recent batches, so I don't feel like I have any general problem of process or sanitation. Anyway, sometimes the beers have tasted fine at bottling, and then had this problem after conditioning; other times they already tasted like **** at bottling time.
The only cleaning products I use are oxiclean for cleaning, Starsan for sanitizing. No soap or bleach ever.
I have officially exhausted every idea I had about what the problem might be:
*I first thought it might be an infection, so I started going overboard with sanitation, and at one point even bought an entirely new set of equipment (fermenter, siphon, tubing, bottling bucket, everything) which I used for the first time on an IPA...no dice. Also doesn't seem like an infection because a) the flavors aren't remotely similar to any infection I've experienced before, and b) they don't change at all with time, even after a few months. And no carbonation issues.
*Then I thought it might be a problem with chlorine/chloramine since the off flavors from chlorophenols sound similar to these, so I bought a filter for chlorine AND started treating all my water with campden. And I started using only distilled water to make sanitizer and so on.
*Then I thought maybe it was a problem from oxiclean residue, so I've started going overboard on rinsing, and also soaking everything in Starsan solution for forever to wash off an residue.
*Then I thought maybe it was a problem with fermentation temperature, so for the most recent batch I carefully controlled temp and it never went above 70. Still has the problem.
I even thought maybe it was a problem from overexposure to hops, so I started making sure I got little to no hop trub in fermenters when racking, and have made sure no batch stays on dry hops longer than 10 days. I even reduced my dry hopping amounts (I was using as much as 6 oz in some batches).
I'm also baffled because all my other, non-hoppy beers are fine. Even heavily hopped beers like imperial stouts have been fine. So there seems to be some association with dry hopping...? I have a pale ale in fermenter now that I might try bottling without any drop hops just to see, but I don't really understand how dry hopping could be causing this problem. I brewed earlier batches of IPAs, and more recent batches of really hoppy saisons, that have come out fine even with lots of dry hops. And my hops are stored in a freezer, in vaccuum sealed bags, and I haven't used any hops more than a couple months after opening them.
Worth noting: in some 1 gallon batches I brewed, I had a much worse problem that might be an extreme form of the same problem, or might have been an infection that's unrelated, but in those batches the beers were naaaaaasty, tasted like burned metal, and had purplish colored dregs. OH, and those beers were also bizarrely dark in color--like some of them were 100% base malt and came out looking almost like a brown ale. Some of them looked fine and very light when brewed and even when bottled, then came out dark after bottle conditioning. And I went CRAZY with sanitation on those, like leaving the siphon and fermenters soaking for days in sanitizer solution up until right when I used them, and doing the same with some of the bottles and with the bottling bucket. The full batch IPAs haven't been that dark, but look maybe slightly darker than they should be.
To be clear: this is not a matter of just not liking the grassy dry hop flavor--I've brewed earlier IPAs with as much as 5 oz of dry hops for 14 days that I loved. This is something way different.
So...what the actual ****. I don't even have a crazy theory left about what's going on, but I know I've wasted dozens of gallons of beer at this point and am ready to quit brewing IPAs (formerly my favorite thing to brew) if I can't figure this out very soon.
First, this is my first post here. I've used these forums for reference for a long time now and found them really valuable, but never registered until just now when I wanted to post something. So hi everyone.
So for a while now, every IPA (or pale ale, and almost every hoppy saison) I've brewed has had the same terrible flavor. I'm not sure how to describe it--chemical, or medicinal, or grassy, or something...it's not something I've ever tasted in a beer outside my own homebrews. And it's not a subtle off flavor; it takes over the whole flavor profile so much that aside from some generic bitterness/hoppiness, I usually can't even taste the hop character in these beers. I've tried to drink through some of them, they're not so disgusting as to be undrinkable, but mostly I've ended up giving them away to people who don't care.
This has ONLY been a problem in hoppy beers--I brew lots of other styles from brown ales to wheat beers to berlinerweisse to saisons to experimental brett beers and have had no such problems with any other styles, and have been extremely happy with most of my recent batches, so I don't feel like I have any general problem of process or sanitation. Anyway, sometimes the beers have tasted fine at bottling, and then had this problem after conditioning; other times they already tasted like **** at bottling time.
The only cleaning products I use are oxiclean for cleaning, Starsan for sanitizing. No soap or bleach ever.
I have officially exhausted every idea I had about what the problem might be:
*I first thought it might be an infection, so I started going overboard with sanitation, and at one point even bought an entirely new set of equipment (fermenter, siphon, tubing, bottling bucket, everything) which I used for the first time on an IPA...no dice. Also doesn't seem like an infection because a) the flavors aren't remotely similar to any infection I've experienced before, and b) they don't change at all with time, even after a few months. And no carbonation issues.
*Then I thought it might be a problem with chlorine/chloramine since the off flavors from chlorophenols sound similar to these, so I bought a filter for chlorine AND started treating all my water with campden. And I started using only distilled water to make sanitizer and so on.
*Then I thought maybe it was a problem from oxiclean residue, so I've started going overboard on rinsing, and also soaking everything in Starsan solution for forever to wash off an residue.
*Then I thought maybe it was a problem with fermentation temperature, so for the most recent batch I carefully controlled temp and it never went above 70. Still has the problem.
I even thought maybe it was a problem from overexposure to hops, so I started making sure I got little to no hop trub in fermenters when racking, and have made sure no batch stays on dry hops longer than 10 days. I even reduced my dry hopping amounts (I was using as much as 6 oz in some batches).
I'm also baffled because all my other, non-hoppy beers are fine. Even heavily hopped beers like imperial stouts have been fine. So there seems to be some association with dry hopping...? I have a pale ale in fermenter now that I might try bottling without any drop hops just to see, but I don't really understand how dry hopping could be causing this problem. I brewed earlier batches of IPAs, and more recent batches of really hoppy saisons, that have come out fine even with lots of dry hops. And my hops are stored in a freezer, in vaccuum sealed bags, and I haven't used any hops more than a couple months after opening them.
Worth noting: in some 1 gallon batches I brewed, I had a much worse problem that might be an extreme form of the same problem, or might have been an infection that's unrelated, but in those batches the beers were naaaaaasty, tasted like burned metal, and had purplish colored dregs. OH, and those beers were also bizarrely dark in color--like some of them were 100% base malt and came out looking almost like a brown ale. Some of them looked fine and very light when brewed and even when bottled, then came out dark after bottle conditioning. And I went CRAZY with sanitation on those, like leaving the siphon and fermenters soaking for days in sanitizer solution up until right when I used them, and doing the same with some of the bottles and with the bottling bucket. The full batch IPAs haven't been that dark, but look maybe slightly darker than they should be.
To be clear: this is not a matter of just not liking the grassy dry hop flavor--I've brewed earlier IPAs with as much as 5 oz of dry hops for 14 days that I loved. This is something way different.
So...what the actual ****. I don't even have a crazy theory left about what's going on, but I know I've wasted dozens of gallons of beer at this point and am ready to quit brewing IPAs (formerly my favorite thing to brew) if I can't figure this out very soon.
