Soapy Taste

[fguenther]

Just did my first brew. It was a Brooklyn Brew shop Everyday IPA kit. It's been bottled and carbed (2 weeks) and I got carbonation... I noticed a slight soapy taste and was wondering what may have caused this or does it need more time to condition?

The only deviation I did from the recipe was to cold crash(3 days) after fermentation of 2 weeks.

 

[friarsmith]

1) Were your bottles rinsed in a dishwasher by chance? Even a rinse cycle may push up trace amount of detergent left in the machine

2) Did you give your bottles a bath in sanitizer solution, and did any of the bottles still have labels when soaking? You can get some funky flavors from label adhesive.

3) When you racked the beer from kettle to fermentor, did you leave all/most of the trub (kettle gunk in the bottom) behind? Sometimes if too much cold break/trub material from the kettle gets in the fermenter, fatty acids in the trub will break down and give a soapy flavor

 

[fguenther]

1)

3) When you racked the beer from kettle to fermentor, did you leave all/most of the trub (kettle gunk in the bottom) behind? Sometimes if too much cold break/trub material from the kettle gets in the fermenter, fatty acids in the trub will break down and give a soapy flavor

I believe this might explain it since I was uneasy using the auto siphon and sucked in more trub than I would have liked. I have a Brewers Best red ale fermenting now and there was little to no material transferred into the fermenter so I'll see how this one turns out... As far as the bottles they were new ez cap bottles so no labels and I didn't use the dishwasher for rinsing. I will see how this one goes before jumping to conclusions.

I just remembered another difference to the recipe and I know it starts a whole different debate, but my local lhbs suggested conditioning tabs. I have decided to not use them this batch because of the little white floaters.

 

[Sailingeric]

Let them ride and see how it goes. :rockin: I did a saison last summer that used cascade hops and it had a slight soapy taste at first but it quickly aged out.

 

[friarsmith]

+1 for Sailingeric. The soapyness may fade with time and be less noticeable if you drink the beer really cold.

 

[m1k3]

I'm was not surprised to see the "soapy" beer in question was an IPA. I've only had this issue with hoppy beers, but water has a big part to play.

"If your water is highly alkaline, the beer pH may be too high, causing the beer to taste dull, soapy, or excessively bitter." from Brewing Classic Styles.

 

[MyQuL]

It should condition out. I BIAB and usually I seive the hop debris out before transferring my wort to the FV (although I just chuck all the break material in). As an experiment I chucked all the hop debris in too, for the two weeks of fermentation. Straight from the FV it had a very strong soapy flavour. But 4 weeks later it's completely conditioned out and left a lovely full flavour beer

 

[Sailingeric]

What hops did you use? I was worried about my beer and found that some hops give the soapy flavor early on.

 

[WisePrey]

Let them ride and see how it goes. :rockin: I did a saison last summer that used cascade hops and it had a slight soapy taste at first but it quickly aged out.

Thank god, I hope this is the issue with a beer I just brewed a few weeks ago. Made a Lemon Wheat beer that is mainly using Cascade hops, was searching Google to figure out WTF I did wrong. Looks like I might be okay after all. Has only been in the bottle a week, adding this to my brew diary lol.

 

[fguenther]

Let them ride and see how it goes. :rockin: I did a saison last summer that used cascade hops and it had a slight soapy taste at first but it quickly aged out.

This must have been the case because I let them sit another 3 weeks and no soapy taste at all. thanks for the suggestion. I thought I thought I had done something wrong.