Burnt vegetables and rubber flavour?

[UnannouncedMole]

Hey,

Brewing an English style Ale.
I'm only at day two of fermentation and was adding some dry hops. I decided to have a sneaky taste (used a pipette). The flavours I got were as described above, burnt vegetable and rubber taste.

Is this normal during fermentation, and will go away with time in the tank?

Cheers for any assist in advance.

 

[UnannouncedMole]

Anyone?

 

[keine_ahnung]

Heya,

a burnt vegetable smell can be related to DMS production after the boil. However!!! At day 2 of fermentation, I wouldn't be alarmed at all.
At that stage, the yeast is most probably pumping out large amounts of bi-products, which will then be broked down again during the end-stages of the fermentation and lagering.
In general, the warmer it ferments, the more bi-products the yeast will produce. Flip-side of that is, warmer temperatures also accelerate the procesing of said bi-products. Question is just whether that then balances out the initial increase in their quantity..... not necessarily

How's it turned out so far?

 

[MHB]

Burnt and Rubber in the same sentence usually equals Yeast Autolysis, something usually found in old beer, not so early in the ferment.
Was it a fresh yeast pitch or a recultured yeast that might have has some old dead yeast in it?
A really hot heat plate under a fermenter can cook yeast very quickly.

Another possibility is a scorched wort, most common cause is too short an element, the surface gets hot enough to burn the wort, really intense flame can cause problems to, you will in either case probably find crud burned onto either the element or the base of the kettle.

Bakelite (an old phenolic pre-plastic) can be described as burnt, usually more like an appliance smoking out, caused by Chlorophenols, getting rid of Chlorine in your water usually fixes this, care with Cl based sanitisers (Bleach) is important to.

There are some infections that can make burnt flavours (i.e. Benzaldehyde) - Hygiene....

Either way, I wouldn't hold out high hopes that it will get better, these aren't go away with time problems. Sure let it run and see what happens, but I would be taking a hard look at equipment and processes.
Mark

 

[UnannouncedMole]

Hey! Cheers for the replies guys!

So I don't actually have much of a smell, can smell the hops i used, but this is more of a flavor.

Firstly to clarify, my initial thought on the flavor was "sulphury" and the burnt vegetables/rubber description was me trying to be more accurate.
its definitely more of an after taste than directly on the palate. It may even be a vegemite flavor (I'm not great at describing this i know guys i'm sorry)
To answer your question @keine_ahnung, I had a small sample just now (day 10) and the taste has significantly decreased. If it were a 10 before, it is now down to a 6 or even 5.... There is still a noticeable amount of yeast in suspension as well.

@MHB Nottinham dried ale yeast fresh packet. No heat plate under fermenter. The room i'm fermenting in is 18 degrees. Apparently perfect for Nottingham.
When I cleaned the kettle I only had to clean a little bit of sticky bits off the bottom, certainly nothing burnt.
But bringing up the chlorine thing... I do use the tiniest bit of demestos when cleaning my fermenter, maybe i didn't rinse it well enough?
The sanitizer I have justt started using as well is a powdered sodium percarbonate that you dissolve and use. It says on the container that it's 30% oxygen based bleaching agent. Thoughts?

Either which way i'll take what you have said on board and reassess my process.

I'm thinking of giving it until the end of the week, bottling it and forgetting about it for a few more weeks, refrigerating a few days and then giving it a crack.

I'll update with the results for those interested when that happens!
I'll just have another crack at a brew in the meantime.

Cheers!!

 

[UnannouncedMole]

Hey also,

Come to think of it, I had half a pack of S04 left over from a half batch I did, which I tossed in to use up.

Could this cause a mischief?

 

[MHB]

Oxygen based bleach (peroxide) wont make Chlorophenols. Can cause other problems but you would really have to have extreme amounts in the wort, then its more likely to be the Carbonate that would cause flavour issues.

Sodium Percarbonate is both a Cleaner (Sodium Carbonate - aka Washing Soda) and peroxide that provides the Oxygen bleach part of the product. Perk is my go to general purpose cleaner sanitiser, usually followed up by something more specific just before filling bottles or kegs.
I wouldn't be looking at Sodium percarbonate as a likely cause (unless you left 100's of mills of it in the fermenter.

Old opened packets of yeast really are a No-No, not so much that they cause off flavours themselves, but because dry inactive yeast is a lovely nutrient for lots of other bugs. If you aren't going to use the whole packet, vacuum sealing might be OK, otherwise throw it in or throw it out.
Mark

 

[UnannouncedMole]

Oxygen based bleach (peroxide) wont make Chlorophenols. Can cause other problems but you would really have to have extreme amounts in the wort, then its more likely to be the Carbonate that would cause flavour issues.

Sodium Percarbonate is both a Cleaner (Sodium Carbonate - aka Washing Soda) and peroxide that provides the Oxygen bleach part of the product. Perk is my go to general purpose cleaner sanitiser, usually followed up by something more specific just before filling bottles or kegs.
I wouldn't be looking at Sodium percarbonate as a likely cause (unless you left 100's of mills of it in the fermenter.

Old opened packets of yeast really are a No-No, not so much that they cause off flavours themselves, but because dry inactive yeast is a lovely nutrient for lots of other bugs. If you aren't going to use the whole packet, vacuum sealing might be OK, otherwise throw it in or throw it out.
Mark

Thanks for the sound advice mate!!

 

[UnannouncedMole]

Hey guys.

I said if update and here we are.
Apparently I was way off.

I've nailed the culprit.
First let it be said that after about 6 weeks in the bottle, we ended up with a delicious beer. Nutty from Maris Otter, citrus flavour with a slight sour edge to it.

I have run a whole list of isolation tests.
Coclusion: Citra hop was the culprit of the weird flavour. Time has mellowed it out to be tasting how aimed for.

Cheers for the advice and interest guys, rest assured it was all taken on board.

J