Do Phenolics Dissipate With Ageing?

[HoppingMad]

I guess the other issue there was that it was a brand new cube for Manticle - one of those 25l jerry cans - which are not as easy to expel the air out of as my preferred 20l cubes. The volumes were a bit low for the cubes since it was a 3 way split, so there could be some potential there for too much headspace (?)

Weird. I have done no-chill batches and had spare wort so have added 5L to a second 20L cube without issue. Plenty of headspace (15L) in one of those.

Thinking about it more, a new cube, properly sterilised and then with hot wort added like Mant's should not be the problem (provided the cube was tilted on its side to sterilise the inside of the lid once hot wort was put in and closed).

Might lie closer to home with either his fermenter (an old one perhaps?) or his fermenting environment (ie. grubby fermenting fridge? Or airborne wild yeasties as BC suggests? :huh: ) Guess you'll get closer to the truth when yourself and Supra complete your ferments.

Cheers,

Hopper.

 

[jayse]

One thing I could put it down to as a possibility was a water addition of 40ml (to 40l) of Calcium Chloride (stock solution of 100g packet of CaCl2 to 540ml of water) which should have resulted in a profile of 50 ppm Ca2+ and 90 ppm Cl (the water was also pre-filtered). However, I have done the same with another beer recently and sampling that on the weekend, again I couldn't detect anything.

Not sure how tyhe water additions could impart the flavours described, though if anyone can explain how or why this might be the case, I love to listen (cos apparently i'm too lazy to get my arse into gear!)

I don't think any brewing salt additions would play a part in whats happened to this beer.

I guess the other issue there was that it was a brand new cube for Manticle - one of those 25l jerry cans - which are not as easy to expel the air out of as my preferred 20l cubes. The volumes were a bit low for the cubes since it was a 3 way split, so there could be some potential there for too much headspace (?)

This is looking more like it, whats happend to this wort after it was put in the cube and before fermentation.

 

[Supra-Jim]

Could this flavour (?) have come from the 'new' cube?

I've heard a few people mentioning that a virgin cube can often impart plastic/undesirable flavours into the wort. A suggestion was to do a few cycles of boiling water in the cube prior to using it with wort.

Thoughts? I know the flavours manticle has suggested are quite typical of an infection, just attempting to think outsite the square (cube).

Cheers SJ

 

[manticle]

A lot of the reading I've been doing about this medicinal flavour points the finger at bleach sanitisers. As mentioned the sodium met is mainly to drive away the chlorine - it is not the number one sanitiser.

When I first started using bleach and vinegar I was paranoid about chlorine residue so I was very certain of washing everything in hot water then using sod met. However, having had no trouble with chlorine flavours and getting a new vessel ready for brewing elsewhere, I reckon I may have been less paranoid and am now paying the price. It's even possible, in a rush the night before, that I rinsed with straight tap water (can't remember for sure)

I'd be very surprised if it was the brewing process or anything at Brendo's - obviously the two other fermented worts will put any doubts to rest.
My other two AG brews (first two) are tasting spot on at the minute so hopefully all is well within the walls of the brewery.

So - does anyone know that in the event these flavours are NOT due to wild yeast - will they increase, decrease or stay the same? Mainly out of interest and increasing my knowledge that I ask this. Even bad experiences help the learning process.

By the way - thanks to all for advice etc. Learning is what makes this forum a worthwhile place to visit. That and the fact that people give enough of a shit to try to help out.

 

[pdilley]

You have some new gear setup?

Before you pop a santiser as the cause. Consider all the intricacies of cleaning.

Every single tap, valve, hose, interconnect everything I clean over like a fine toothed comb. I'm the one shoving cotton tips full of pure bleach up the end of the taps and doing a full dismantle of every connector and cleaning inside and out.

Its getting a bit OTT but never had a single infection or off flavour to date on any of the beers, be they K's or AG's.

One of the biggest contributors to infections is the taps on bottling buckets and fermenters. If you use the plastic ones, take a flat screwdriver and stick it up the tap. Then hold the tap and hit the screwdriver against a bench if sturdy or on the floor. Those plastic taps come apart into two. Now look at all that goo and gunk thats stuck in there and did not get cleaned "NO MATTER which santiser you use or switch to". Now clean it out thoroughly and then reassemble. They snap together fine. You wear them out a bit quicker this way but you will never have an infection from this vector ever again.

Ball valves or more difficult to clean but its the same problem of sugary wort getting in there and being buggars to get out. All these and any connection joint is an infection point.

Your manifold I don't have one so I don't have good cleaning advice for.



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[jayse]

In the event it is not wild yeast...
No matter what caused it it will not really decrease, the phenols may have come from the raw materials but are below the taste threshold in the other two batchs but you may have the respective chlorophenols due to the chlorine which can have a quite considerably lower taste threshold.

 

[manticle]

You have some new gear setup?

Before you pop a santiser as the cause. Consider all the intricacies of cleaning.

Every single tap, valve, hose, interconnect everything I clean over like a fine toothed comb. I'm the one shoving cotton tips full of pure bleach up the end of the taps and doing a full dismantle of every connector and cleaning inside and out.

Its getting a bit OTT but never had a single infection or off flavour to date on any of the beers, be they K's or AG's.

One of the biggest contributors to infections is the taps on bottling buckets and fermenters. If you use the plastic ones, take a flat screwdriver and stick it up the tap. Then hold the tap and hit the screwdriver against a bench if sturdy or on the floor. Those plastic taps come apart into two. Now look at all that goo and gunk thats stuck in there and did not get cleaned "NO MATTER which santiser you use or switch to". Now clean it out thoroughly and then reassemble. They snap together fine. You wear them out a bit quicker this way but you will never have an infection from this vector ever again.

Ball valves or more difficult to clean but its the same problem of sugary wort getting in there and being buggars to get out. All these and any connection joint is an infection point.

Your manifold I don't have one so I don't have good cleaning advice for.



Cheers,
Brewer Pete

All good advice but this was brewed at somebody else's brewery by somebody else. I'm not blaming the sanitiser so much as suggesting my process of using it may have been faulty.

Recently I've started buying new taps for my fermenters as I'm yet to work out how to pop them in two (not throwing them away -I'll work out the mechanism and give them a good clean but new ones will do until I figure it out.). I know the build up you're talking about which is why I started buying the new ones. $2 is pretty cheap for extra sanitation.

As for ball valves - I actually have a straight garden tap rather than a ball valve on my tun so it's a bit easier/less parts to clean. Copper is anti-microbial so manifold should just be given a thorough rinse/clean then sanitised like everything else but I need to be careful with bleach contact (or so I hear) on the copper. Still not sure on this one - copper can be toxic but in very very high levels. Don't know if bleach contact for 2 mins will result in that.

I pull apart all my equipment after use and give it a soak, clean and then sanitise everything before use. Occassionally things get sanitised after cleaning then again before use.

 

[manticle]

Cheers Jase.

If it is not an infection I'm guessing the levels will remain the same? It may seem silly to some but I did bottle these and if I can work out in a few weeks whether it's likely a wild yeast infection or a result of not rinsing chlorine properly it will help my future practices. My assumption is the wild yeast will increase over carbonation time and lead to overly fizzy, very medicinal tasting beer, whereas chlorephenols will remain at the level they currently are.

 

[jayse]

Cheers Jase.

If it is not an infection I'm guessing the levels will remain the same? It may seem silly to some but I did bottle these and if I can work out in a few weeks whether it's likely a wild yeast infection or a result of not rinsing chlorine properly it will help my future practices. My assumption is the wild yeast will increase over carbonation time and lead to overly fizzy, very medicinal tasting beer, whereas chlorephenols will remain at the level they currently are.

If it is a wild yeast infection I am not sure if it would carry on producing phenols now in beer being they are wort spoilage organisms not beer infections.
So in either case if it was wild yeast or chlorine I imagine the phenolic level will remain the same.

 

[manticle]

Bugger. It would be good to isolate the cause, one way or another.

 

[jayse]

Bugger. It would be good to isolate the cause, one way or another.

Could be hard when wild yeast phenols can be medicinal but also chlorophenols derived from normal phenols in beer are medicinal.
I would however expect with wild yeast it would have some vegetal funk or some other aspect going on aswell.

So its gunna be down to the taste if it were wild yeast you'd expect more than just bandaid.

 

[haysie]

:icon_offtopic:
Did a maiden no chill y`day into one of the cubes I bought for lagering from one of the car places, Supercheap maybe, when they had a sale recently.
Didnt get too get excited about the cleaning, a rinse with cold tap water, a steam up and then a 50ml soak of iodopfer.
Filled the thing with hot hot wort, its not even bloody airtight <_< , bulged out all over the joint, nearly popped the tap. Dangerous all this hot liquer in plastic vessels. Picked it up this morning to move it, all i can hear is air being drawn in. YUK YUK .Not to mention all the flowering fruit trees ATM. Geez, I have concerns for this brew when I dump it next weekend.
We need a burns thread to go with the botulism thread.
I :wub: my plate chiller

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I would happily bet a dollar that you have no sort of infection, nor do you have an issue with wild yeast or chlorine in the sanitation process. I point my finger accusingly at the new cube.

They do - absolutely in my view - impart plastic flavours when they are new. I wouldn't even think about letting my wort touch a cube that hadn't been filled with boiling (or near) water, allowed to cool down and repeat till you cant taste plasitc in a blind triangle test.

When I did this with my first ever cube - my wife could pick the water that had been cooled in a cube (vs water cooled in glass) until the cube had been through three soak/cool cycles. In the 4th she couldn't really be sure. Then I did another one just to make sure.

The very first run of water cooled in the cube - was just plain nasty, with plastic phenolic type smells all over the place. If you handed me a glass of this water, I wouldn't drink it, I sure as shit wouldn't brew with it. If I had put beer into that cube first up - it would have been a drain pour AFAIAK

So I vote for your cube.

Is it empty now?? Do a blind triangle test on water you have cooled down in it vs water boiled and cooled down in glass. If you cant pick a difference, then maybe you have another issue.

Still, get rid of the sodium met and buy some starsan or iodophor though - sodium met is rubbish.

thirsty

 

[haysie]

I would happily bet a dollar that you have no sort of infection, nor do you have an issue with wild yeast or chlorine in the sanitation process. I point my finger accusingly at the new cube.

They do - absolutely in my view - impart plastic flavours when they are new. I wouldn't even think about letting my wort touch a cube that hadn't been filled with boiling (or near) water, allowed to cool down and repeat till you cant taste plasitc in a blind triangle test.

When I did this with my first ever cube - my wife could pick the water that had been cooled in a cube (vs water cooled in glass) until the cube had been through three soak/cool cycles. In the 4th she couldn't really be sure. Then I did another one just to make sure.

The very first run of water cooled in the cube - was just plain nasty, with plastic phenolic type smells all over the place. If you handed me a glass of this water, I wouldn't drink it, I sure as shit wouldn't brew with it. If I had put beer into that cube first up - it would have been a drain pour AFAIAK

So I vote for your cube.

Is it empty now?? Do a blind triangle test on water you have cooled down in it vs water boiled and cooled down in glass. If you cant pick a difference, then maybe you have another issue.

Still, get rid of the sodium met and buy some starsan or iodophor though - sodium met is rubbish.

thirsty

I tasted my water out of the new cube yesterday, It was ok.
Does every new fermenter have to go thru this tasting/testing/passing phase? I have bought many fermenters over the years and never did the boiling thing before using, Is there a difference between a fermenter and a cube? I would be shocked that everybody who has ever bought a coopers or a wanda or a houdini kit brewed a phenolic bandaid beer first up.

 

[buttersd70]

Does every new fermenter have to go thru this tasting/testing/passing phase? I have bought many fermenters over the years and never did the boiling thing before using, Is there a difference between a fermenter and a cube? I would be shocked that everybody who has ever bought a coopers or a wanda or a houdini kit brewed a phenolic bandaid beer first up.

Yeah, but a fermenter (in normal use) doesn't get a dose of hot wort straight from a boiler....it's the heat that makes the difference.

 

[haysie]

Yeah, but a fermenter (in normal use) doesn't get a dose of hot wort straight from a boiler....it's the heat that makes the difference.

Seems too easy a get out clause for the no chillers. London too a brick on versus Thirtys dollar its yeast infection.

this seems too have all gone off topic, put my hand up. Debate the heat issue some other thread some other day, over n out!

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I tasted my water out of the new cube yesterday, It was ok.
Does every new fermenter have to go thru this tasting/testing/passing phase? I have bought many fermenters over the years and never did the boiling thing before using, Is there a difference between a fermenter and a cube? I would be shocked that everybody who has ever bought a coopers or a wanda or a houdini kit brewed a phenolic bandaid beer first up.

Frequently fill your fermenters with boiling hot wort then??

Your cube might have tasted "ok" - Mine on the other hand, after multiple rounds (five taste per round to make it statistically kosher) of blind triangle taste testing by both myself and my wife, who has the best palate of anyone I know, showed very distinct off flavours in the water.

And I dont know about you, but I care a lot about the flavour of my beer, and indeed I do test my fermenters to see if they are flavour stable - cold water because thats what they will see - cold liquid. They usually are flavour stable, but I have given one a hot water/cool treatment just to be sure.

But its completely different anyway - boiling hot vs cool.

The cube might be perfectly stable straight up .. but in the three I have owned, none of them was.

 

[bum]

TB, would you say that the cooling cycle is essential for prepping a new cube? Or would just repeated hot fills do?

 

[Darren]

:icon_offtopic:

We need a burns thread to go with the botulism thread.
I :wub: my plate chiller

I bought both of those points up (and the leaching of plastic flavour from essentially cold water cubes) but apparently it was just "trolling".

Cooling wort in a cube will suck in quite alot of air so spoilage organisms (wild yeast) would be my guess regarding the OP question.

You would need to leave quite a large whack of chlorine in a cube to reach taste threshold.

cheers

Darren

 

[manticle]

I bought both of those points up (and the leaching of plastic flavour from essentially cold water cubes) but apparently it was just "trolling".

Cooling wort in a cube will suck in quite alot of air so spoilage organisms (wild yeast) would be my guess regarding the OP question.

You would need to leave quite a large whack of chlorine in a cube to reach taste threshold.

cheers

Darren

You get accusations of trolling (and possibly wrongfully - I don't think you're a troll because trolls piss people off just for the hell of it) because you make negative comments without offering much more information.

I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say if you can expand beyond 'no chill is bad', 'biab is bad' etc which you rarely do.

I'm not having a go at you. My assumption (rightly or wrongly) is that you have a lot of brewing knowledge - I just don't often see you sharing it. I wouldn't be upset if you did though.

Cheers

Andrew

@TB: Thankyou for that. It's an interesting point.

I understand sodium met is at the bottom of preferred sanitisers list but as a follow up to chlorine/vinegar is it really so bad? Seems just like an extra step to me. Many experienced brewers report great success using bleach/vinegar solution so I can't imagine sod. met is going to make things less microbe resistant after application. lIke all things though I have no dramas with being wrong: helps me learn stuff.