Plastic Porter

[Crogers]

Long time lurker, first time poster...

Relatively new to all of this... 9 brews under my belt, most of them really good. But I just kegged an extract porter, and it has got a very plastic like aroma to it. Research tells me phenols are to blame, but I don't know how or why.

I filter and or boil the chlorine out of all my water (chloromines are not used in our area). The only thing that I did differently this time, was to steep my specialty grains the evening before my brew day. Normal steeping at 150-160F for 30 minutes in 1 gallon of water, and let them drain (I'm a non-squeezer). Then, I just put the lid on the pot, and added that water to my boil water the next morning, and preceded with the rest of my brew day.

VERY strong plastic smell. I use better bottles, no garden hoses or non food grade tubing, etc. Smell was very evident when I first checked the gravity at 2 weeks in the fermenter.

So, could the steeping, and then letting that sit out all night, covered but unrefrigerated, have caused my problem? Again, I haven't had this off-flavor before, and I don't want it again.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Colin

 

[jbambuti]

What yeast did you use and what temperature did you ferment at? I had a similar issue this summer and I've traced it to either bad Notty, higher than normal temps in the basement, or both.

 

[DKershner]

Usually the smell comes from using bleach and not rinsing thoroughly enough. If you do use bleach, you might consider iodophor or starsan instead.

 

[Crogers]

Wyeast American Ale at a temp controlled 65F. Use StarSan for sanitizing - no bleach.

???

 

[jbambuti]

Rules out my theory.

 

[JesseRC]

Did you by any chance add or replace any kegerator liquid lines?

 

[carnevoodoo]

You didn't cool the wort that you had sitting on your stove? You just left it warm and covered it? You could have had any number of infections by doing that. You steeped and didn't boil, so nothing was killed off, and there are naturally occurring bateria on grain (lactobacillus stands out) and there's a good chance you just had part of your beer turn before you got back to it.

I did a sour mash once by leaving out a pot of 110 degree wort sitting out for a couple of days. I was hoping for just lactobacillus, but I got things like feet and vomit and all kinds of bad smells in there. It was not what I wanted. At all.

 

[Crogers]

So... Looking at all of this, and doing a bit more research, I've come up with a couple more changes to my process.

1 - No more steeping and letting the resulting wort sit for an extended period of time before boiling.

2 - I think that I am likely running my water too quickly through a cheap RV carbon filter. The amount of chlorine in our water seems to vary quite a bit from time to time, and so perhaps I get lucky sometimes, and didn't this time. I picked up some Campden tablets, and will start using them to treat my water as well, for additional insurance.

Thanks for all the help - even as a lurker, I got most of the info that I needed.

Colin

 

[Prionburger]

I've had the same plastic flavor coming out of my beers, and I think those flavors are gone now since I've started using campden. It's weird because I had some very clean tasty beer made last winter. The water must have be cleaner.

Definitely run your water through the filter slowly. I remember hearing about how slow you have to run it, and I think campden is a much more convenient.

Also, I've been pitching yeast strictly below 70 f, and even leaving the wort overnight to cool off if necessary. This way the yeast won't throw off any weird phenols and esters.

 

[greeneyed]

Alot of times if there is some big rains, or it has been rainy for a while, the water dept will add extra chlorine to compensate to runoff water. I am not sure if that is the problem, but in keeping fish, I have seen this time and again.