Old yeast band-aid taste, neverending fermentation

[Whippy]

Ok, it's my obligatory noob "my beer tastes bad" thread.

I brewed 3 weeks ago, was careful with cleaning and sanitization, everything there went relatively well.

Here is the 5 gallon recipe that was put together by my LHBS which I now understand is not a great recipe....but oh well. I wanted simple and that is what I got

1.5 kg dark LME
2 lb dark DME
1 oz Cascade
8 oz maltodextrine
Muntons cheap yeast

OG was 1.050 (a bit high) on the "brown ale," after a week it was at 1.021, the beer tastes very good. Temps were mostly at around 72 - 75F

...another week goes by, temps were down as low as 62 and mostly around 65-68F ... hydrometer is still at 1.021, beer still tastes very good, but has a VERY SLIGHT butterscotch flavor...no worries though...

I then learned that my beer was just too cold so I took it off the swamp tub and the airlock started bubbling again for two days straight before stopping.

Five days later (yesterday) I opened the fermenter and took a reading... it came in at 1.020 How could it have fermented for two whole days (at least) and only dropped one point?? I sampled the beer and it tastes very bad. Let me see if I can describe the flavor...

This is a very unique flavor that I have tasted in a couple of German hefeweizens before that I bought off the shelf in America. The first time I had it, I thought it was the most disgusting thing I had ever had...then I forced myself to drink it.

If I HAD to describe the taste using words seen here on the forum, I'd liken it closer to the "band-aid" taste although that is not quite right either. It is almost yeasty and slightly sour (lemon sour, not old towel sour) and bitter, also with the kind of bandaid-ish flavor. This is not a slight taste but a very overwhelming taste. There is no longer any "beer" flavor in the beer.

What is this taste?? Is this what a young "green" beer tastes like? Is this the taste of the beer before the yeast clears out? SWMBO says it smells like her father's homebrew which she always said was disgusting lol

I'd like to understand what this smell/taste is so that I can better recognize it in the future.

Also related to this beer, would you suggest pitching some more (better) yeast in the beer to try and help complete this neverending fermentation?

I'm going to give it more time to see what happens but would like to know your thoughts... thanks

PS ~ Notice I never asked if my beer was ruined or if it was infected ... HAHAHAHA I don't think it is, just actually...but I do want to know what is going on with it.

Edit (again) I checked and double checked my hydrometer for calibration...but I swear it is acting like it is off...I mean proportionally the readings seem ok. My OG was surprisingly high and my current SG is also surprisingly high. If I were to lower them both by the same amount, it would be right on.

 

[ShorelineThomas]

Well, newbie advice time (I'm the newbie, see?). Reading from John Palmer's "How to Brew," pages 252-258, I see:

Won't stop bubbling a long time? Could be due to the cool temps, but also could be "gusher" infection of wild yeast or bacteria.

Hydrometer reading not changing in a long time? Could be temps are too cool. Could be a stuck fermentation.

Band-aid smells? Could be the "initial products" of the yeasts, which might indicate fermentation in progress (my guess) or presence of gusher yeasts. Also possibly due to using bleach for a sanitizer. Did you use bleach? Was it rinsed afterwards with boiling water? (JP's suggestion if you use bleach)

JP says to move the fermenter to a warmer place, and swirl up the yeast to restart fermentation. I would guess that after a week, the situation should be clearer, either slow fermentation or wild yeast / bacteria.

 

[Whippy]

It's actually very interesting how the beer goes through such changes...

No, I did not use bleach...I had read about the bleach/band aid effect from searching HBT. I am hoping it is just the yeast being normal, and tend to feel this way like you, but not ever having experienced this I have no way of knowing without asking. I had never read anything from anyone saying "be prepared for a nasty tasting beer after a week or two" so this took me by surprise.

I understood this information about cooler temperatures. (I found that out after my first week) I did as Palmer suggests and this was when my fermentation re-started. Since then, I've been holding a steady 75F

thanks Thomas

 

[vitoma]

The airlock activity after you warmed it up might just have been CO2 coming out of solution.

 

[BigB]

First off, the Maltodextrine is not fermentable, so that likely explains the high readings.
I'm not sure of the flavor you are describing, but often these off flavors will mellow with age. I once had a Dusseldorf Alt that had the most nasty bitter/astringent flavor ever at bottling. After 3 weeks bottle conditioning and 3 weeks of cold conditioning, the astringency was gone and the bitterness mellowed big time.