Soapy taste in beer - almost solved - getting close

[Nate R]

All the new ocfest beers are on tap. No sign of soap.

I have since brewed a pilsner. One batch tap water, one with RO. We shall see.

Ahh... the ole' "better make two batches- for science"...

 

[passedpawn]

Ahh... the ole' "better make two batches- for science"...

If I might misquote Thomas Edison, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent inebriation".

 

[jcav]

Hopefully the R/O water fixes the issue as this can be frustrating.

John

 

[TheMadKing]

So I just got ahold of Brewing Chemistry and Technology which includes a bunch of fishbone diagrams. One of them is for troubleshooting soapy flavors and almost all causes come back to yeast handling issues but I think a couple are for water as well.

@passedpawn if you pm me your email address I'll send you a photo of the diagram if that's something that might be helpful to you

 

[passedpawn]

So I just got ahold of Brewing Chemistry and Technology which includes a bunch of fishbone diagrams. One of them is for troubleshooting soapy flavors and almost all causes come back to yeast handling issues but I think a couple are for water as well.

@passedpawn if you pm me your email address I'll send you a photo of the diagram if that's something that might be helpful to you

PMing now.

I brewed a batch of german pilsner a couple of weeks ago. Put the wort right into the carboys that contained yeast from the previous octoberfest. I'm cold crashing the pilsners right now. They do NOT exhibit any off flavors (in fact, quite good I think). I actually brewed TWO pilsner batches - one with RO water, one with straight tap. Neither batch has any off taste (they were quite similar).

So, I'm afraid I don't have any absolute solution or cause for my intermittent soapy flavor problem.