I cracked my first brew open last night. I loved it. Wifey spit it out and said it tastes like metal. Waiting on my beer swilling neighbor for his opinion. In the meantime, I am obsessing. After reading, I am now thinking it may be the water. How do you test for these chloramines?
Why on earth does my beer taste like metal??
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tko17
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If they're in your water they'll be listed on the water report from your public water utility.
I've been talking to home and craft brewers in the neighborhood, and I think that metallic tasting chlorophenols are more prevalent in darker beers and band-aid chlorophenols are in other styles...
That opinion is completely unscientific though.
I thought I'd chime in on this as this just happened to me... I brewed a Double Chocolate Milk Stout last month and just tried it and it had a metallic aftertaste. Great flavor up front, just a mild metal taste at the end. I"m 10 batches in and this has never been a problem before.
I have all SS pots and fittings so it can't be from metal leaching. Also, I have pretty great water here but I still filter to get out the Chlorine. I used Hershey's Cocoa 100% Cacao Special Dark powder in the last 15 min of the boil and then cocoa nibs in the secondary.
The only other issue that I've had with this batch is that after I burst carbonated for a few days I dialed it down to serving pressure for a week or so and then my regulator got a leak in the shut-off valve. When I went to pour a glass after a week it was dead... no gas at all. The beer had gone flat and I don't know how long it had been that way. I switched CO2 tanks and fixed the problem and again burst carbonated it and left it at pressure for about 5 days. Tonight I when tried it the carbonation was ok, but it has this aftertaste.
Can I be getting it from the carbonation problem or should I be more concerned about the Cocoa Powder?
I"m going to give this some more time to mellow and hopefully it will drop off the metal aftertaste.
I have all SS pots and fittings so it can't be from metal leaching. Also, I have pretty great water here but I still filter to get out the Chlorine. I used Hershey's Cocoa 100% Cacao Special Dark powder in the last 15 min of the boil and then cocoa nibs in the secondary.
The only other issue that I've had with this batch is that after I burst carbonated for a few days I dialed it down to serving pressure for a week or so and then my regulator got a leak in the shut-off valve. When I went to pour a glass after a week it was dead... no gas at all. The beer had gone flat and I don't know how long it had been that way. I switched CO2 tanks and fixed the problem and again burst carbonated it and left it at pressure for about 5 days. Tonight I when tried it the carbonation was ok, but it has this aftertaste.
Can I be getting it from the carbonation problem or should I be more concerned about the Cocoa Powder?
I"m going to give this some more time to mellow and hopefully it will drop off the metal aftertaste.
After the beer went flat, it's likely that the escaped CO2 left sodium-like properties behind. If you have ever tasted water after it was carbonated, and then went flat again, you'll know that it definitely does not go back to tasting like plain water again. It tastes almost saline/metallic. Re-carbonate that, an it'll be better, but it won't be like it was when it was freshly carbonated. It will taste strong of minerals, which could be the aftertaste you're experiencing.
Something about that worries me. In practice, you never actually boil cocoa when you make hot cocoa. You boil water, then add cocoa to it after it's removed from the heat. Boiling something for 15 minutes can really change it, possibly making it bitter. I really don't have any idea what might happen to cocoa.
James from Basic Brewing Radio added Count Chocula cereal to a mash for a chocolate stout, and he liked it a lot, so I would think cocoa would be okay to boil, but I just don't know. I have personally tasted the side effect of leaving ingredients in the boil for too long, such as cinnamon, and I have learned to add that sort of flavoring post-boil. You may even want to consider making hot-cocoa, then letting it chill, and adding it to the carboy. I'm just thinking out loud. Take it with a grain of salt.
Hopefully so.
I'm going to add something here.
I've found brown sugar (molasses) to give a slight "metallic" taste in beer when it gets fermented, at least to my palate, while other people seem to agree. If you were to add it to a keg or bottling bucket after fermentation it may fare better, never tried it. The metallic taste seems to age out slowly. One of my Christmas ales turned really good after a year in the bottles, with very little or none of that metallic taste left.
I've found brown sugar (molasses) to give a slight "metallic" taste in beer when it gets fermented, at least to my palate, while other people seem to agree. If you were to add it to a keg or bottling bucket after fermentation it may fare better, never tried it. The metallic taste seems to age out slowly. One of my Christmas ales turned really good after a year in the bottles, with very little or none of that metallic taste left.
