Spring water, chlorophenols and disgusted

[RedIrocZ-28]

Hey -TH-, I had a thought. How do you sanitize your bottles?? I seem to remember you doing them in the dishwasher right?

Did you shake the off flavor yet? I think that I owe you a few beers.

 

[MajorTom]

How are you pulling the samples? Using a beer thief, or something else?

I am using a wine thief.

 

[-TH-]

Hey -TH-, I had a thought. How do you sanitize your bottles?? I seem to remember you doing them in the dishwasher right?

Did you shake the off flavor yet? I think that I owe you a few beers.

I sanitize my bottles by dunking them in sanitizer then hanging them on a bottle tree. I use iodophor at the recommended amount (I double checked my calculations over the weekend just to be sure and its 12.5 ppm titratable iodine just like it should be). When I fill the bottles they are still slightly wet which I was told was ok. I will say however that up until now I used tap water to mix up the sanitizer. I have 3 batches in fermenters now and I will be sure to treat the sanitizer water with campden from here on out. That could very well have been the culprit - I'll know in a couple more weeks!

Also, I'd hardly say you owe me any beers. What I gave you had no value! On the other hand it might be nice for me to know what a homebrew is supposed to taste like

 

[-TH-]

Saccharomyces should get mine tomorrow. I'm really anxious to see what his opinion is.

Let me know what Sacc says about your beer.

Saccharomyces tested one of my samples and gave me some excellent feedback and advice on how to fix it. He seemed quite sure it did not have chlorophenols, but instead an off flavor due to a combination of tannin extraction (causing astringincy), carmelization of the wort, and possibly hop over-utilization. I plan to write a blog on this soon.

Did you hear from him at all about yours?

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

-TH-,
I had what I think was a tannin/astringency problem and I fined the beer and it def seemed to improve. I just used gelatin. I really wanted to try Polyclar because I had read that Polyclar adheres to the polyphenol end of the polyphenol-protein molecule whereas gelatin adheres to the protein end.

So if haven't fined it you might try that.

 

[MajorTom]

Saccharomyces tested one of my samples and gave me some excellent feedback and advice on how to fix it. He seemed quite sure it did not have chlorophenols, but instead an off flavor due to a combination of tannin extraction (causing astringincy), carmelization of the wort, and possibly hop over-utilization. I plan to write a blog on this soon.

Did you hear from him at all about yours?

Saccharomyces seconded my opinion of the clove, medicinal taste and told me it was probably due to a wild yeast colony somewhere in my equipment. So, I am going to super clean my glass carboys with oxyclean over night then soak in a new batch of starsan. Any plastic equipment, buckets, syphons, hoses, is going to get thrown away and new equipment purchased.

 

[MajorTom]

I'm still trying to narrow in on where my problem is coming from. My next question... When my beer is conditioning in the bottle, is it normal to have any yeast develop and loosely cling to the side of the bottle (us-05). Or is this more confirmation of a wild yeast causing my problem.

And will wild yeast cause a lower final gravity. My last two batches have had an OG of 1.045 and finish around 1.008. That seems low to me which makes me suspect a wild yeast in the primary fermentation. If that is the case, I am really at a loss. I specifically took extra care to clean soak the carboy with oxyclean, scrub the inside with a long bottle brush, clean again, rinse, and sanitize with starsan (mixed with distilled water). I poured the wort from the kettle (cooled with lid on) through a new, clean, sanitized funnel straight into the carboy. Nothing (tubes, siphons, etc) touched the wort between the boil kettle and the primary. What else can I do?

 

[MajorTom]

Bueller....

 

[chefchris]

I just want to throw my two cents in here. I was having a problem with all of my beers tasting great before bottling, then 3 weeks later ... off flavor. I wouldn't drink it. I would start drinking them at 2 weeks because once they hit the 3 week mark i wouldn't drink any more. After going through several changes, like you have, to define the problem I started kegging. Problem solved. To this day I don't know what it could have been, all I know is that it's gone and I'm finally able to drink homebrew and I'm not ashamed to let my friends drink it either.

Now I'm not telling you to start kegging, though it is awesome, but maybe try different ways of carbonating your beer. Know any homebrewers in your area that keg? Maybe they'd rent you one for a batch. Maybe look into party pigs or tap-a-drafts.

Just throwing some ideas out there.

 

[Saccharomyces]

And will wild yeast cause a lower final gravity. My last two batches have had an OG of 1.045 and finish around 1.008.

With US-05 no that isn't out of the ordinary it's a hungry yeast. It is unusual to have clingy things in the bottles though near the neck, that is almost always indicative of infection. I had a bottle a year old from my first batch which definitely had wild yeast in it... When it was 2-3 months old it was fine but as it sat some brett definitely set in, it had a ring around the neck and some 'floaties' in the bottle. It was really foamy too, due to further attentuation in the bottle, and had a bit of a rubber/band-aid aroma and flavor.

 

[yeoldebrewer]

Another 2 cents worth:

I recently brewed a batch of amber that carbed inconsistently and has band aid burps that are worse in some bottles than others. The nastiest tasting bottles have the most foam--another red flag for infection.

I think I posted a pic here somewhere of mold growth inside the Italian style spigot used for bottling. I noticed a black spot between the sliding layers of translucent plastic that grew larger in spite of soaking. Taking apart the spigot confirmed a nasty colony of black mold.

Not saying this is your problem; but infection hides in the darnedest places.

 

[MajorTom]

Good info... Thanks. I really suspect my problem is happening in the primary. I can smell it as soon as I open it. That is why it is so frustrating, I have seemingly eliminated everything that could contaminate up to that point.

I am suspecting that there is something in the air in my house, maybe dust/airborn, maybe in my heating/cooling system, that gets into the wort during cooling and transferring to primary. The only thing I can find in common is that all of my batches have been cooled inside and transferred to primary inside after being cooled in an ice bath. That is the only common factor, I've changed everything else, I have stopped using anything that could contaminate or infect. Even bought a new plastic bucket to ferment in... still waiting on results for that.

So, just yesterday, I made an immersion chiller and did a batch all outside, cooled outside and poured into primary outside. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on it. If that doesn't do it I'm out of options.

 

[malkore]

Just how much chlorine/chloramine has to be in the tap water to cause problems when only rinsing?

I ask because I've pretty much only used tap water for my beers, never used campden to neutralize the chloramine, and never had any off tastes in my beer.
I know we have chloramine (not chlorine which gasses out) in out tap water, and only in small amounts.

I"m just curious where we draw the line on 'how much is too much'.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I haven't read anything on chlorine vs. chloramine BUT I do have some first hand experience. My home used to get chlorinated water many years ago but has been getting chloramine-ated water for several years now. I suspect that chloramine is actually not as good of a sanitizer/water-preserver than chlorine for two main reasons:
1) Every year (or maybe two) they have to switch back to chlorinated water (heavily chlorinated as far as I can tell) and run it for a month or two to 'clean out' the system.
2) Things like toilets require more frequent cleaning, especially regarding mold as far as I can tell.

 

[MajorTom]

I hope so! I just drank a pale ale that I fermented in a new plastic bucket from Lowe's. It was a little green and not fully carbed but it tasted really clean and the burp was perfectly clean! Not the slightest hint of band aid burp. So for now, I am thinking that my problem was in the carboys all along. I don't get it though really. I don't know any better way to clean them. I think there is some stubborn wild yeast in them, and without being able to really get inside and scrub them like I can a bucket there is just no way to get it out. I have oxycleaned them, even doused them good with hydrogen peroxide, and also starsaned them and scrubbed the best I could with a long bottle brush. I am thinking of retireing them for display only. Heck, I always feel nervous moving them around anyway, And plastic buckets are much easier to use.

Hopefully I have found my culprit and I can reproduce this again in the future. Thanks for everybody's help and suggestions! I can now call myself the Phenol Slayer! (hopefully)... And it only cost me several hundred dollars to figure it out.

 

[yeoldebrewer]

Cautious congratulations, Tom! I started to ferment the other day in a clean looking BetterBottle, when I happened to notice a tiny patch of crud clinging to a shallow depression in the neck of the carboy.

At any rate, if the carboys are the cause of your headaches--Toss 'em!

Good luck and good brewing.

 

[gingerdawg]

Here is Yeoldebrewers spigot infection thread. this scared me into replacing spigots regularly!!!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/spigot-infection-121734/