aftertaste. where does it come from?

wolfie7873

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It seems that all of my beers have the same finish/aftertaste. It doesn't render the beer undrinkable, but I'd rather it not be there, and what's even more frustrating is that I'm pretty sure it was NOT there in my Oatmeal Stout when I tasted the FG sample before bottling, so I think I've narrowed it down to something in the bottling process. I run the bottles through the dishwasher with the sanitizing cycle and I Star-San everything during the bottling process. I use boiled dextrose priming sugar and bottle condition the beer.

I would say the finish/aftertaste is something like the last taste of a dry HG beer that's gotten a bit too warm.

Does anyone have experience with this they can share to shed light on this issue?
 
could it be from oxygen getting into the beer during bottling?
 
In the past I was getting a phenol aftertaste. It was only after bottling and the longer it aged the worse it got. I found it was from the tap water I used for my starsan. It was the only thing that still had chlorine in it. Started filtering the water I mixed in the starsan and the problem went away.
I'm just throwing this out there as an example of what happened to me and it took me a long time to find it. I would also probably skip the dishwasher, because there's usually jet dry or a rinse aid that people forget about. The starsan is sufficient.
 
I'll second skipping the dishwasher, unless you're sure there's not jet dry and it's super clean (no food bits left in the trap).

I never thought about starsan water and chlorine combination before. That's something I'll have to keep an eye out for in the future if I start bottling again. Right now I make a batch and use it a few runs with my kegs.
 
I'm pretty good about making sure there's not a rinse aid in the dishwasher, and I typically run it empty before I put the bottles in, just to make sure. I did an oven-bake for one batch of bottles and had the same taste problem.

I do use tap water for the StarSan and never thought about that. That said, though, I use StarSan for everything during the brewing process, so is it that the problem is there before bottling but I just don't taste it because it takes time for the phenols to develop?

Since taste is rather hard to verbally interpret, how can I be sure it actually is chlorophenols?
 
Chlorophenols have a plastic almost bandaid flavor. Almost the same flavor that are in some belgian yeast strains, warmer fermentation temps seem to amplify the taste in that strain. I can't stand that flavor. Mine would start off very faint, the lighter the beer the more bandaid. Darker beers would be less noticeable, but would always be there. I would never notice it during bottling, only after carbonation.
 
based on what your saying its possible that the yeast carbonating the beer is putting out off flavors, it didn't during fermentation, but is after bottling so guessing the temp or something is wrong with the carbonation procedure
 
Why do so many people know what bandaids taste like? ;)

Bottle conditioning has been at room temperature or a touch below. After conditioning, they've been in the second fridge.
 
haven't you ever chewed on a Bandaid?
 
off topic well sorta, just pulled a beer out to condition, darn thing exploded during fermentation popped the lid off 3 times, clogged the 1/2" blow off tube 3 times and emptied a huge amount of yeast into the blow off bottle had a 6" krausen. needless to say I was thinking off flavors and low and behold "band-aids" lol easy to fix with a keg just keg hop then filter but in your case drink 2 and it goes away lol

oh it was starting 1048 and fermented at 60 with 2 packs 05, guess I over pitched lol
this is the third time in a row 05 has let me down, never had a single issue with Nottingham, going back to it
 
Ozarks Mountian Brew said:
this is the third time in a row 05 has let me down, never had a single issue with Nottingham, going back to it
:cry: That's not encouraging to hear. My first packets of 05 arrived yesterday and I was feeling pretty stoked to brew my very first beer with something other than WLP007...
 
all I can say is the last 3 or 4 packs had huge temperature changes the first 4 days so it would be best to keep the carboy in as much water as possible to keep the wort from climbing up and down.

my fermentation chamber is controlled by a rtd prob and thermowell stuck down in the lid 8". i was keeping an eye on the air, inside the wort and the side of the bucket. 10 degree swing between the air and the wort some times, had the thing set for 63 the air was 55 and barely got the wort down to 67 then up and down up and down, Ive herd other people saying the same thing for the last 6 months
 
I haven't had a problem with us-05, but I also don't have problems controlling the temps. I have a fridge with a temp controller, so it stays pretty much the same all the time. It's one of the most used yeasts, and most everything I've seen people have been happy with it. 2 packs in a 1.048 wort might be too much.

I'm assuming here that by 05 you meant Safale us-05. If you meant something else, oooops.
 
Temp control shouldn't be much of a problem(I hope), seeing as I am also using a fridge. I have my probe insulated on the side of the carboy, so some fluctuation is inevitable, but it shouldn't be more than ~1C +/-...
 
Bringing this back to my original question which was about flavors.

Took a look at the water report for my town and found a relatively high level of chloramine. I would guess then that my StarSan which was diluted using tap water has chloramine, thus tainting everything in the process. :(

My plan is to campden tablet a vat of water, boil all of my tubing, etc in it and use it to start a new StarSan bottle. Never again through the dishwasher with my bottles - if there's still water, there's still chloramine.

But, how easily do the chloramines rinse off? Will a quick rinse in campden-reduced water wash away any chloramine residue?
 
I think you're over thinking this a bit. The bit of chloramine left over from rinsing or washing equipment is negligible. Filter or treat your brewing liquor and you should be fine.
 
I would have thought so too, but I've only ever used bottled spring water for the brew kettle.
 
I have heavy concentrations of chloramine in my water as well as lime and chlorine , what I had to do is invest in a good carbon filter, hooking one up works good for all grain and two together for extract, if you leave my water the way it is it gets real bitter and has a strange off flavor, if you look at my profile it has the link, works great
 
Did you determine it was a phenol aftertaste? I know I fought that problem for quite a few batches until I found the tap water I was using for the starsan. To test my theory I used one gallon of distilled water for the starsan and the off flavor went away. I now use filtered water for the sanitizer, through a pur filter. Chloramine is very hard to remove and takes a long contact time with carbon to remove it. I would buy a gallon of distilled for the sanitizer and bottled or spring water for the wort and give it a try. I really don't think you need to boil with campden treated water to pre clean everything. I use a natural spring for my brewing water, only because it will be boiled.
 
I have to admit, we're spoiled here in Aurora, CO - our tap water is exceptional. I use an RV filter to take the bit of chlorine and chloramine out of our water. It's helped immensely.
 

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