Bi carb soda can it give a soapy mouthfeel ?

[Gloveski]

My wife reckons most of my beers have a sopy taste to them , personally I can't taste it but have had a few beers with a not nomal bitter aftertaste.

I use bicarb soda and water to soak plastic fermenters in for inbetween use . Not sure why I do this but I am starting to wonder if the bicarb soda is leaching into the fermenters and causing a soapy type mouthfeel.

My whole process is I use charcoal filtered water that I leave overnight to rid of any chlorine.
Check mash ph with a high quality ph meter and that is always between 5.2 and 5.6
I use a grainfather and do have issues with excess grain in the boil (next brew going to use a BIAB to fix this problem) .
Bi carbed filled Fermenter is rinsed with garden hose (could this be the problem) and then use starsan. I always clean fermenters straight away with just water and then fill up with bicarb soda and water mixture until I am ready to brew next

Cleaning wise for kegs and grainfather I use soduim percobanate but I do have some of brewmans brewery wash that I will try on brew day tomorrow. Use starsan aswell on kegs but also rinse soduim percobanate with garden hose.

Beer faucet wise I take them apart and use soduin percobanate same as with beer lines then starsan.

I did have an issue with mold on beer faucet plugs so I have stopped using them and just spray faucet with starsan after use.

I am going to go to pressure fermenting very soon

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I can't put my finger on it

 

[manticle]

Bi carb is good for cleaning windows.

Percarb is good for cleaning fermenters.

5.6 is too high. Have you measured beer pH?

Garden hoses can leach flavours.

Yeast breakdown and fatty acid breakdown can give soapy flavour, as can unrinsed soap.

Also badly rinsed glasses.

Does your wife have any other descriptors? Disinfectant? Medicinal?

Try without the bicarb and see if anything changes.

There's a lot of articles of varying depth and quality about common off flavours, including soapy.

 

[homebrewnewb]

To answer your post, yes it can.
High/basic ph levels can be associated soapy characteristics.

I am more curious about the storage looks like you're kegging. And they are rinsed with starsan, so that should keep everything on the acid side.

Can you get a ph reading before you keg it? 4 or less is ideal, for finished de gassed beer i believe, you may have to look at adding some acid to "tighten it up a bit" there are some threads on AHB just recently around this and are quite a good read.
here's a good read too on ph of finished beers

 

[Rod]

Bi carb can taste soapy

small amount in some water

taste it

http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-wrong-with-my-baking-soda-good-questions-194210

see last post

 

[manticle]

Link broken, Rod

 

[DU99]

do you rinse the fermenters of bi carb

 

[Gloveski]

thanks everyone for the replies

firstly meant to add glasses are rinsed clean of any soap so I dont think the glasses are the issue
I havent check ph of finished beer as I m brewing tomorrow will definately check this out
I did have one beer that devoleped a medicinal type flavour I put that down to the mould on the faucet plugs as I was away for about 2 weeks.
Will the bi carb have leached into the fermenters or a decent clean percarb be ok ?
Yes I do rinse fermenters out and then use starsan
Kegs are also rinsed with starsan and left for a few hours before kegging

thanks everyone for your help and links

 

[bradsbrew]

Yeast health, over or under pitch can throw soap.

 

[HBHB]

others that haven't been mentioned: Zinc from brass fittings and excessive use of yeast nutrients = soapy taste

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I am starting to wonder if the bicarb soda is leaching into the fermenters

No. Assuming your fermenters are LDPE (cubes), that can't happen. "Leaching" in that sense is a solid solution phenomenon, bicarb is quite polar and LDPE is very non-polar.

 

[Gloveski]

No. Assuming your fermenters are LDPE (cubes), that can't happen. "Leaching" in that sense is a solid solution phenomenon, bicarb is quite polar and LDPE is very non-polar.

using standard fermenters not cubes. So I presume they should be fine then cleaning the with percarb as we speak

 

[Gloveski]

Yeast health, over or under pitch can throw soap.

I try and pitch when reusing slightly above recommended amount

 

[Gloveski]

using standard fermenters not cubes. So I presume they should be fine then cleaning the with percarb as we speak

and will rinse with filtered water to elleviate the garden hose aswell

 

[manticle]

No. Assuming your fermenters are LDPE (cubes), that can't happen. "Leaching" in that sense is a solid solution phenomenon, bicarb is quite polar and LDPE is very non-polar.

HDPE is more common, no?

I have no doubt the point remains valid.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

HDPE is more common, no?

I have no doubt the point remains valid.

Yes, my mistake, I should have said HDPE. Thanks

Bicarb is even less soluble in HDPE than LDPE, the higher density is the result of closer chain packing (not as much hindrance from long side chains).

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

using standard fermenters not cubes. So I presume they should be fine then cleaning the with percarb as we speak

What's a standard fermenter?

 

[Gloveski]

What's a standard fermenter?

HDPE fermenter that came with a magrove jack's kit

 

[Gloveski]

out of interest I checked both my current beers ph that are carbed 4.27 and 4.29 , I'm leaning towards the bicarb soda as my issue

 

[peteru]

Garden hose is bad news. Especially if it spends any time in the sun. The only time my brewing equipment sees water from a garden hose is to rinse out the trub and yeast cake from the fermenters. I bring the fermenters indoors and clean them in the bath tub. I tend to alternate the cleans between Caustic Soda, Tricleanium and Sodium Percarbonate. I also always do a final rinse with hot water then let everything dry. Never store the equipment wet. When it comes to using it, all it needs is a spray or rinse with some starsan.

 

[fungrel]

Are you dry hopping all of your soapy beers? I've had issues with soapy tastes from hops that have degraded over time, when I changed hop varieties and changed up the styles I made, the flavour disappeared. I had the same flavour in a beer at my local brewery last weekend, the beer had just been transferred into a bright tank.

Also dismantled and soaked my taps, growth was leading to a buttery slick mouthfeel I attributed to the beer itself. I read going to turf a perfectly good beer over it.

I doubt it's got anything to do with the cubes.