2nd Ag Moss Trouble

[tribalfish]

Hi all,

On my second ag brewday, (Smurtos Golden Ale) all was going to plan and decided to have a wee drop of the Black Beer that was my first ag, Yummm :icon_drool2: Only had a couple but must have affected brain function anyway.
I got to my 5 min hop addition but forgot to add my Irish Moss and only realised at flameout, where I proceeded to add Irish Moss and stirred without firing up the burner again. I didn't want to overboil my aroma hops, so decided to let it settle out as it was.

1 week ferment, 1 week cc, gased, drinking and there is this strong, sharp almost chemical aftertaste. :blink:

The only thing that I can think of is not boiling the Irish Moss for 5 mins as per directions.
It's not an infection as the aroma and initial taste of the beer is sensational.

Can anyone confirm my suspicions?

TF.

 

[seemax]

Irish Moss is algae and tends to smell/taste like the sea (aka salt!), not chemicals (solvent, etc).

What did you use to sanitise... bleach?

 

[The King of Spain]

Hi all,

On my second ag brewday, (Smurtos Golden Ale) all was going to plan and decided to have a wee drop of the Black Beer that was my first ag, Yummm :icon_drool2: Only had a couple but must have affected brain function anyway.
I got to my 5 min hop addition but forgot to add my Irish Moss and only realised at flameout, where I proceeded to add Irish Moss and stirred without firing up the burner again. I didn't want to overboil my aroma hops, so decided to let it settle out as it was.

1 week ferment, 1 week cc, gased, drinking and there is this strong, sharp almost chemical aftertaste. :blink:

The only thing that I can think of is not boiling the Irish Moss for 5 mins as per directions.
It's not an infection as the aroma and initial taste of the beer is sensational.

Can anyone confirm my suspicions?

TF.

Can you taste anything like rubber? Thats an infection, and it will get worse, much worse.

Cheers
KOS

 

[tribalfish]

Irish Moss is algae and tends to smell/taste like the sea (aka salt!), not chemicals (solvent, etc).

What did you use to sanitise... bleach?

Sprayed all my brewing gear with a no rinse sanitiser and my fermenter got a soak with napisan prior, but was well rinsed with hot water and then a final rinse with a jug full of boiling water.

Just thought of something else, it was the first time that I used my immersion chiller that I had made . I did scrub it in the Laundry trough with hot water and a little napisan before using, but it got the boiling water rinse aswell.

Is it a chemical reaction from the copper?

 

[tribalfish]

Can you taste anything like rubber? Thats an infection, and it will get worse, much worse.

Cheers
KOS

No nothing like rubber.
It's a bit hard to explain, but it is really dominant on your palate after tasting the initial good flavour.
Did that make sense? :blink:

 

[dr K]

Unless you added a Galway Bay like qty of Irish Moss then chances of it imparting a smell such as you describe are low.
It will not be the copper, what you will find is that your immersion chiller will go in looking like and a Roman coin and come out looking like a new penny!! Yes something happens to clean the patina off and that patina ends up in your beer and i have yet to see any eveidence that it makes any difference to flavour.

It's not an infection as the aroma and initial taste of the beer is sensational.

Infections are many and nasty and may not , initially, be apparent to the nose, particularly if you are unused to the smells of infected beers, chemical/solvent, you do not use bleach, sounds like its a bit phenolic, generally caused by good old natural yeast floating around that got to your sugars before your pure strain got hold.
Tip it out and clean everything, anything you can pull apart do and then reassemble, next brew use US05 (or whatever) at 1gm per litre as a knockout blow.

K

 

[tribalfish]

Thanks to all that replied.
Probably some little rouge ******* bug that got into my brew. :angry: Will put it down to experience.
I am getting quicker at chilling my wort to pitching temp, so hopefully there will be less chance of nasties getting in before she is all sealed up.

Tribalfish.