rubbery aroma?

[HughBrooks]

A couple of my friends and I brew together and we have made a lot of beer over the coarse of o year. We have had great success making good beer. Recently though we have had a few batches come out with a rubbery smell only after bottling though. Not sure what this could be coming from. It taste and smells fine before it goes in the bottle but after it is "ready" to drink it has a rubbery or plastic sort of smell to it and it overpowers the flavor. It seems to go away slowly over time but really sucks. Anyone have any similar experiences or know what this may be from?

 

[rnrchemnerd]

Do you use iodophor to sanitize? I kept running into a band-aidish smell in a couple of my beers until I realized that I was using twice as much iodophor as recommended. Since then, no problems....

 

[HughBrooks]

we use star san like we always have. We have not changed the way do things either it is really weird that it is random from batch to batch. It makes it a lot harder to figure out the problem really is because we are pretty consistant in our methods. It has been in a couple of different styles of beer. I hope we figure out what is soon though.

 

[carp]

Tell us a bit about your yeast - dry or liquid, starter or not, and also fermentation temps. I don't know for sure that these parameters could cause that taste, but perhaps with more info someone more in the know than me can help you.

 

[HughBrooks]

liquid yeast. usually wlp001. we always make a starter with a stir plate.

 

[HughBrooks]

usally ferment around 69-70 F.

 

[jmo88]

Chlorine in water is often a contributor to off aromas, like bandaids or rubber bands. This is also variable as many water departments add chlorine at different times and levels to treat bacteria in the water. This is possibly why you haven't had issues in some but have in others. Can you smell chorine in your tap water? Try contacting your water department for information on this.

 

[HughBrooks]

we filter the water before we use it.

 

[jmo88]

How do you filter? Do you know your water profile, in terms of calcium,sulfate, etc? Are you introducing air/o2 at any point after the fermentation to the beer?

 

[samc]

I think your best bet would be to write out your entire process and post it. It will help others and it might get you thinking about it. The next time you brew you should consult your written procedures and somewhere within all that mess you might find your answer. It's odd that it is random and that is what makes it tough to find. Are you guys always brewing at the same place?

 

[HughBrooks]

usally brew in the same place. We have made probally 50 beers or more and it has only turned up in about 4 maybe 5 of them. We have gone through our routine several times to figure out what is wrong. We have had 3 of them turn out rubbery since we switched over to a converted keg for o brew pot. have also made good beer with this keggle so it is still confusing. The only things I can think of is if our wort chiller (immersion chiller) is not getting sterilized fully. It is the same one we were using with a 7.5 gal pot so it does not really fit. It kind of just hangs on the rim and dangles down into the wort so there are parts that are not submerged. Or since it is only really noticable after bottling I thought it may somthing happening at bottling. Like maybe our bucket has scratches harboring bacteria or somthing like that. Or the racking cane. What ever it is it is frustrating. We like to make 10 gal batches so it really sucks if the whole batch comes out to be less than parr. Thanks for all the input you all have given me. I am sure we will figure it out eventually but I am ready to brew this weekend!

 

[HughBrooks]

we have stepped up our bottle cleaning to eliminate any possiblity of that. We even bought a fancy bottle sprayer to help clean them

 

[ChrisS68]

How are you filtering? Without charcoal, filtering isn't going to do a whole lot about chlorine.