question about chlorophenols

[jbsg02]

So yet another batch that looks like I'm going to dump, very frustrating. I brewed a Mirror Pond clone and everything seemed to go well. Used a carbon filter and potassium metabisulfite in my brewing water and tasted my gravity sample 11 days after brewing, beer tasted like it was turning out great, much like mirror pond, threw some dry hops in for a few days and when I kegged I was met with the smell of plastic. A couple days in the keg and pulled a sample and I can reaffirm that the plastic smell is overwhelming and is present in the taste too. Which is a shame cause I was really looking forward to this beer after the gravity sample.

Can chlorophenols develop to be that overpowering after fermentation? My best guess is that the sanitizer I used for my thief was still chlorinated even after ran through a fridge carbon filter.

 

[JRems]

If your sampling out of the keg, are you sure it's not the plastic taste from the line? Dump the first 3 oz and try again.

 

[FishnBrew]

I sure feel your pain...I ruined almost all of my batches last year (unknowingly) due to water chlorination issues. Like you, I used a carbon filter and camden tablets to filter and dechlorinate my tap water. My tap water contains Chloramine to be specific. My beer would start off fine, and early samples tasted great. Around 3-5 weeks in, around kegging time, my beer would start to develop a variety of flavors ranging from plastic to cherry. I had fellow members of the homebrew community try my beer, and there was agreement that the off-flavors were reminiscent of chlorophenols. I'm not sure why the camden tablets and filtration failed to dechlorinate the water, but these symptoms happened to me on 5-6 straight batches (and as soon as I stopped using bottled water).

Since then, I have switched to using distilled water and I treat it according to the water primer sticky in the Brew Science forum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/brewing-water-chemistry-primer-198460/

My results have been much better since switching back to a distilled + CaCl2 + CaSO4 strategy. Hope that helps!

 

[Xpertskir]

2 pieces of advice. Look into whether or not you have Chloramines in your water, your water treatment grid may or may not be forthcoming with you.

Make sure you restrict your flow with a carbon filter, the filter doesn't work if you push water through it too fast.

 

[jbsg02]

2 pieces of advice. Look into whether or not you have Chloramines in your water, your water treatment grid may or may not be forthcoming with you.

Make sure you restrict your flow with a carbon filter, the filter doesn't work if you push water through it too fast.

I'm pretty sure they do, that's why I was using potassium metabisulfite in my brew water

 

[Wynne-R]

http://www.cor.net/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1069

Pretty sure you have the same water as Richardson. This report shows chloramine.

My question would be how is it getting past the Campden ? Are you using untreated tapwater for anything else ? Look at your process, starter, sparge, rinsing, sanitizer?

If your batch is a dumper, that is beyond a little banana. In my experience that is always chlorine, and a tiny amount is enough to combine with natural phenols to form very nasty chlorophenols.

 

[FishnBrew]

I use tap water and iodophor to create my sanitizing solution. I suppose some amounts of that would be introduced to the beer with hyrdo samples, racking into the keg, etc. Do you think that could be enough chlorine to create chlorophenols? Do people here treat the water they use for sanitizing with potassium metabisulfite?

 

[Wynne-R]

I wouldn’t think so, but I wonder. If I did the math right, 7.6 mL of 2.5 ppm water will produce 1 ppb in 19L. That’s 1/4 oz.

We had a similar thread recently with the OP having an apparently good process but achieving oppressive levels of astringency. He used tapwater in his StarSan. The thread died before we ever got an answer.

I wouldn’t mess with campden for the sanitizer, just use distilled or RO.

 

[zmanzorro]

I've had the exact same issue with my last 2 batches. First batch I used Dallas tap water and the second batch I used distilled water, so I dont think water is the issue here. I'm still trying to figure this one out. One interesting note is that I use iodaphor and water to sanitize as well. My theory is that i'm not diluting the solution enough and the iodaphor is leaving a taste in my hose when I transfer the beer to the secondary and finally into bottles. What is your sanitizing and transfer process?

 

[Wynne-R]

I use a quart spray bottle with StarSan and RO water. If you use RO it doesn’t get cloudy and it lasts forever. I prefer spraying to soaking. You don’t have recontamination issues and you don’t need to use as much.

I still have iodaphor but all I use it for now is airlocks. They say it’s no-rinse, but that’s based on the idea that the iodine will sublimate eventually. We usually sanitize right before use, so the iodaphor is still there and I don’t like the taste of it. Shoot, I don’t even cook with iodized salt.

Having said that iodaphor is not astringent, it’s metallic. Looking at the posts above, the musical question is, Is there enough chloramine in sanitizer to contaminate a batch?

 

[HerbieHowells]

Is this extract or all grain? If extract, what is your steeping routine?

 

[zmanzorro]

Is this extract or all grain? If extract, what is your steeping routine?

I don't think its in the routine because I've done it several times before without this issue.

Anyways, it was a mini-mash and here were my steps:

- Steeped 1 lb of Crystal malt in 1/2 gal of distilled water at ~150º F for 30 min
- Bring 4 gallons of distilled water to boil
- Add 8 lbs of LME and steeped crystal malt wort and return to boil

Total main boil time (not including crystal malt steeping): 60 minutes

 

[neosapien]

garland and richardson come from the same source as far as i know. we have chloramine in our water. i use metabisulfate in my water and can't detect any chlorophenols in mine. not sure how else to help diagnose a solution for you.

 

[kylevester]

For about 9 months, I used straight tap water here in Lafayette and never had chlorophenols despite our use of chloramines in the local water. This could partially be due to the fact that we have open storage (with caps to prevent bird poo getting in) that the city employees have told a guy in our HBC that the chloramines volatilize out somewhat. I'm actually surprised I've never had an issue with them. I switched to store bought water and have now decided to switch back and use campden tablets. I think my beers were better on the water side with Lafayette water.

Another thing that can cause the same plastic taste is poor sanitation. My brother is on Chicago water (no chloramines) and had a batch that got infected and tasted of band-aids.

So, ensuring the use of enough campden tablets (they apparently vary in strength, my LHBS sells ones that tell you to use 1/3 the amount called for in the recipe) and fresh/proper sanitation.

 

[zmanzorro]

I opened another bottle last night and the plastic taste seems to have faded a bit. Slightly noticeable still. My last batch never had the taste fade.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

I had a few batches ruined by chlorophenols not all that long ago.

The frustrating part was trying to figure out what had caused it. I read up on it and it seems you have a few possible causes.

1. Chlorine/bleach, whether in the brewing water or sanitizer that left a residue.

2. Other sanitizer used at too high of a concentration.

3. Wild yeast getting ahold of your beer enough to cause an off flavor.

I assumed that perhaps my local water company switched to chloramines, so I made a batch using spring water, straight from the spring, which is nearby.

Next batch also had chlorophenols. Damn! So it wasn't the water. There's NO chlorine in that water, it's straight from the source, in nature not near any runoff.

I use iodophor at a no rinse concentration and have no bleach anywhere in my pipeline, so I figured it must be wild yeast.

Cleaned the hell out of my bottling bucket and all pieces therein, replacing plastic tubing, cooked the bottling cane (it's brass).

Had a batch come out good, no chlorophenols. After that, I was doing all kegging for some time and had no chlorophenols whether using filtered tap water, spring water or whatever.

Recently bottled a batch again after many months and had another batch ruined. Damn!

Eventually, the only thing I could figure that might be causing it:

When I drink my beers, I rinse the bottles. Then when it's time to bottle, I clean them with soapy water and a bottle brush and sanitize with iodophor for 20 minutes at no rinse strength. It's my opinion that that wasn't enough. I've made a few batches since then and soaked the hell out of the bottles with a strong concentration of bleach, THEN cleaned them and sanitized. Those few batches have shown no chlorophenols.

Of course, with things one can never know, but for me, that did the trick. Perhaps the rinsing of the bottles wasn't vigorous enough. I have a jet rinser, but sometimes just rinse manually.

For your particular situation, it could be something similar, mind you, you shouldn't soak SS with a strong bleach concentration as far as I know. You might try hitting it with some Oxy, then clean entirely again as you do normally.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw my experience out there. It's lame to have it come up because I cannot stand that aroma/taste and am hyper sensitive to it. I end up dumping those beers.