Band aid from chlorine or wild yeast?

[Matplat]

Evening all,

I just finished cleaning my FV after tipping out the first batch I've been unable to continue fermenting.

It only had been in there for a week, but the medicinal band aid flavour was overpowering and from everything I've read, it doesn't go away. Hence, lawn food. I have also read that the flavour can come from either wild yeast/bacteria or chlorinated town water.

This is my first batch brewed after moving house, and used town water for the first time, having previously used rain water exclusively.

I contacted a very helpful bloke at the local water supplier, who confirmed that (along with up to date mineral contents) the water is dis-infected using chlorine. However I also noticed that before i tipped the batch it still had a thick krausen (after 8 days in the fv) and i wondered if that might indicate wild yeast?

Another thing i just noticed is that the fresh spray bottle of star-san that i made up (also with town water for the first time) is cloudy, dont quite know if that means anything...

Recipe was

96% ale malt
2% carapils
2% caraamber

Cascade @60 to 20IBU

Fresh pack of rehydrated us05

Mashed at 66 for an hour

 

[Jack of all biers]

It'll be the chlorine or chloramines in your town water that's done it and you may be one of those lucky people that are predisposed to being sensitive to chlorophenols.
Not sure infections cause this problem, but maybe.
8 days is not too long and still having krausen is not an indication. Did you test the gravity before tipping it? If so was it close to your expected FG? Or was it wayyyyy under? If it was way under then it might have been an infection. Maybe.

Can't explain your cloudy star san.

 

[Camo6]

How does the town water taste? You could always invest in a 2 or 3 stage filter to clean it up.
The only time I had a band aid/ clove taste was from my first attempt at reculturing yeast from commercial beer which I put down to poor practice/infection.

 

[warnerbrew]

Hi matplat,

I experienced this when I moved from k&k to all grain. Every batch had a band aid smell and a strong plastic chemical taste. After weeks of frustration and multiple lawn food batches, advice from local brew club was chlorine in the water.

Bought a carbon filter from the big green shed, run that into my grainfather slowly, add 1/2 a Camden tablet and have not had a bad batch since.

 

[Yob]

chlorine will drop out overnight, fill the HLT the day before and you should see an improvement.

Cloudy Starsan means that its losing its ability and the PH is moving out of range. To fix this, use boiled cooled water for the spray bottle, if its still cloudy then you have too much residual hardness in the water and will need to fix that.

 

[Reman]

Chlorine will drop out overnight but chloramines won't. Add a pinch of potassium metabisulfate AKA campden tablets to your water and the effect is almost instantaneous.

The other source of band aid that I experienced was cleaning with bleach (or napisan) and not rinsing it out thouroughly.

 

[Matplat]

Thanks guys, yeah im planning on dropping a pinch of sodium metabisulphite (i've got a whole jar of it from earlier days!) into the next batch to hopefully sort the problem. If that doesn't fix it i will have to start looking into filtration.

I guess i was just wondering the more likely cause, water or wild yeast? It's really strong and from most of what I've read, people seem to only mention a slight band aid flavour. I gave some to my wife and she used the term 'mediciney' without me prompting her, so it isnt just me being paranoid.

What really sucks is that i brewed my next batch the day after this one, so it will more than likely end up on the lawn as well. At least with more rigorous cleaning and sanitising it will confirm whether it was wild yeast or not.

Thanks for the star san tip yob, i might just go and get some distilled water from supercheap and keep it just for the spray bottle. The water here is quite soft but the pH is around 8.4 so maybe too high for sanitiser? Could i just use star-san at a slightly higher concentration to bring the pH down?

Thanks again everyone, Matt.

 

[manticle]

How is your water chlorinated? Chlorine (easy to drive off with heat or campden) or chloramine (more difficult but campden should do it, otherwise filtration)?

Any chlorine based sanitisers or cleaners? Band-aid from chlorine can be super full on (I know from the one time I used unrinsed, chlorine sanitised cube) but it should be easy enough for you to eliminate the town water anyway.

Use starsan at the recommended concentration.

 

[Matplat]

And I quote the local water supplier "Yes, free chlorine is used in Beerburrum" no mention of chloramine but I will confirm.

No, I only use homebrand napisan for cleaning, and starsan for sanitising.... I've emailed five star chemicals for their take on cloudy starsan, it seems there are some conflicting opinions on the interweb (shocker!).

In the mean time I've almost run out of beer

 

[Matplat]

I was just smelling my water bottle (filled with my tap water) and it fully smells like a swimming pool, so I'm certain that is what the problem is. Kinda makes me think there could be too much chlorine in the water?

Next batch has been brewed using 1/4 tsp of sodium metabisulfite in both the mash and sparge water.... so the proof shall be with us soon.

 

[Blind Dog]

Having struggled with this problem personally (which I also found it a full-on assault on my tastes buds - kind of like chewing a band aid), the most likely cause (and fortunately the easiest to eliminate) is chlorine or chloramine in the water. A carbon activated filter and campden tablets (or sodium met) will fix that issue. I use 1/2 a crushed campden tablet or 1/8 tsp sodium met for the 27L of water or so I need for a 21L brew. That's overkill given the normal concentration of chlorine in the water, but I'm not aware of any adverse effects.

If that's not it (and it helped me but did not entirely eliminate the issue), its likely to be an infection or a contaminant somewhere in the process. Then you'll need to step through equipment, ingredients, process etc. to find and eliminate the source. That's painful and at times, soul destroying, but it does work.

Here's hoping the next brew is sorted

 

[Matplat]

Yep, before I ferment the next brew FV's are gonna get nuked with caustic to be absolutely sure they are bug free. I haven't had a really great batch since november and it's starting to wear a bit thin...

 

[Matplat]

Oh yeah this was the response from 5 star chemicals:

"The reason why the Star San batch you made has gone cloudy is because the minerals in the water are reacting with the acids in the Star San. As long as the pH is 3.5 or below it is good to use. Anything above that, the solution is not good anymore."

I made up a fresh batch with de-mineralised water. problem sorted.

 

[Reman]

Caveat, apparently metabisulfate is good for about a year, so if they are older than that they may not be as effective.

If you still get the flavour after that you might be better off dumping equipment and buying new stuff rather than trying to clean the bug out, it might end up being less hassle and potentially cheaper (due to grain/hops/yeast wastage)

 

[Matplat]

Awesome... wish I knew that before.

Well I guess we'll see in the next brew if that's right. If it fails, it will be three in a row on the lawn.

Tasted the second brew last night just to see, even though it's only been in the FV 3 days, and it wasn't promising. Sucks, because even though it tastes pretty rough, it smells amazing!

 

[Blind Dog]

Is it the same bandaid taste, or something different? If its different, leave it to ferment and condition - I've had brews that smelt amazing, but tasted like diesel out of the FV, come good with a bit of time in the keg. If it finishes close to your predicted FG, you can at least rule out (at least as the main suspect) those bugs that will munch on sugars yeast leaves behind.

If its bandaid again, try again but this time measure the chlorine in the water (you can get test strips / kits from aquarium places which are a lot more accurate that the ones used for pools) to at least completely eliminate that as the source. also make sure others can taste it. When I had an issue, I found that a lot of my beers had a bandaid note, which no one else could detect and it was likely my own paranoia.

If you're still struggling, my suggestions would be:
1. try an FWK with your current FV - if its good, then you've probably eliminated the FV, if its not buy a new FV and use that next time you brew a batch
2. If you still have an issue, replace cold side equipment and try again
3. If you still have an issue, look at the environment all of the cold side processes (i.e. anything where the wort / beer is under about 80C) take place in and make sure its free of obvious contaminants (e.g. dust from grains, mould, dusty ceilings, pollen etc) and all equipment used is super clean and sanitary
4. If you still have a problem, find all the place on the hot side that bugs can hide and strip down and nuke or replace, and try again
5. if you still have an issue, you could look at the ingredients

Good luck. Struggling with an infection / off-flavour is a real pain, but I reckon I ended making much better beer because of it as it forced me to focus on each stage of the process in a fair amount of detail. Clouds and silver linings

 

[potof4x]

HI all,

I've been hit with an infection that gave a Bandaid phenolic that was so strong that it completely dominated any other aromas or flavours.

For those that have the chlorinated water problem - Is the taste of chlorinated water in finished beer that strong? Or does it form more of background off flavour? FWIW I can't imagine drinkable water causing a flavour so strong as that from infection; unless concentration by boiling or some other factor increases the effect?

After being on a brewing hiatus (due to infection of a coupe of batches in the fermentor and even a couple of sealed no chill cubes swelling up) for the last 12 months, I'm 6 batches deep again without infection - touch wood!
I think that mould spores were surviving the pasteuristion effect of no-chill and the sanitisers used.

I changed my process by covering my keggle for the last 5 minutes of the boil after adding brewbrite, and draining to cube after only 5 minutes (down from 20min).

Good luck sorting it!

 

[Matplat]

As it has only been in the FV 3 days I think it is too early to directly compare it to the flavour from last time, as that was after a week. I think the flavour gets more intense as fementation progresses, however I'm pretty sure the flavour will end up in the same result. Knowing the effect of chlorine, and knowing that there was chlorine in the brewing water, I'm not too concerned that this brew is ruined because I was expecting it.

If the following brew has the same problem, i'l be starting to get really annoyed. If that does happen, i'l probably try a brew with the rainwater thats at the back of my block, then follow blind dog's process.

potof4x - you don't taste the chlorine in the finished beer, the chlorine is processed by the yeast to create chlorophenols which taste like bandaids.... at least that is my understanding of it.

Thanks guys.

 

[Markbeer]

Yob,

Does it matter if you leave the lid on or off? Is it an evaporation thing and needs to be open?

chlorine will drop out overnight, fill the HLT the day before and you should see an improvement.

Cloudy Starsan means that its losing its ability and the PH is moving out of range. To fix this, use boiled cooled water for the spray bottle, if its still cloudy then you have too much residual hardness in the water and will need to fix that.

 

[manticle]

Lid off, yes.