Off flavor question

[Nummey]

Made an all grain English pale ale beginning of August. Recipe consisted of 9 lbs of Maris otter, .5 lb of English crystal medium and 3 oz of kent goldings. Sprinkled Nottingham yeast and held fermentation at 64-65. One issue I had during the process was the hose clamp on my chiller broke so there was a slow leak of tap water leaking into the cooling wort for about 20 minutes. Another issue was my OG came in low at 1.044 rarer than 1.050. Fermentation took off within 12 hours and went fine. About a week in though there was a strong sulfur smell coming from the airlock. It faded with time a bit but never really went away. It was definitely noticeable when I bottled. After 4-5 weeks in the bottle the beer has a salty almost sweat like taste. Its tough to drink at times. Could the tap water leaking into my wort have caused this odor/taste?

Thanks


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[jekeane]

It is unlikely that the flavor is from the chiller leak unless during that leak a wild yeast was washed in. Missing you OG could certainly be in part do to you leak though. You'de be surprised how much water could come out of a small leak in 20 minutes.

The off flavor is likely from stressed / mutating yeast. The sulfur smell you describe is a tell tale sign of stressed yeast. Depending on the age and viability of your yeast, pitching temperature, sanitation, etc... you could have stressed the yeast out. I am a firm believer that dry yeast should always be rehydrated to check viability and increase cell count.

Another option is old hops. Hops that are old / spoiled can have too much isoveric acid in them, which cause that off flavor.

However that flavor couple with the sulfur smell would make me guess stressed yeast first. It is a possibility some random wild yeast got in there and caused mutation as well.

 

[Nummey]

Thanks... good to know that it's likely not from the chiller. I cooled wort down to 63 and then pitched the yeast and fermentation was held at 65-66 for 3 weeks. I did everything the same as normal regarding sanitation etc. All of the ingredients were fresh. Is this the type of flavor that can age out over time or am I stuck with it?

thanks

 

[jekeane]

If its is from bad yeast or yeast mutation my guess is it's there for good... I would just put it away for a month and see what happens.

 

[BlackGoat]

Nottingham is known for sometimes spitting out sulphur smells. Check out this post among others: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/nottingham-sulfur-aroma-documenting-my-journey-294600/

Did you use any additives to adjust for PH or anything like that? I'm wondering whether "sweat like taste" might be oxidation.