Dry Malt boiled over and causing strange reaction

[Super 6 Pack]

Hello all,
I have been doing this for some years now but never have seen this. I did a Coopers Hefe wheat with Coopers brew enhancer 3 and i took my eye away from the pot heating up the sugars, and the pot boiled over, leaving a thick viscos type liquid. I thought it would be ok to continue to add to the fermenter. I put in more than 25 litres of water because im thinking i wanted something mid strength alcohol (still plenty of room from top of wash to lid)

Anyway, the foam (forget the correct wording) has gone ballistic and has gone right through the bubbler twice. Im ok with that but when I take the top off and bubbler to clean it, I am straight away getting that infected smell (like plastic) When I get an infection it tastes like im sucking beer through a 100 metre garden hose. Thats the best way I can describe it.

And so, I dont want to keep going here and bottling this stuff if its not right. Question is, is it easy to get a noticeable infection after 2 days? Does boiling the bejebus out of the sugars known to produce an occurrence?

 

[kadmium]

Hello all,
I have been doing this for some years now but never have seen this. I did a Coopers Hefe wheat with Coopers brew enhancer 3 and i took my eye away from the pot heating up the sugars, and the pot boiled over, leaving a thick viscos type liquid. I thought it would be ok to continue to add to the fermenter. I put in more than 25 litres of water because im thinking i wanted something mid strength alcohol (still plenty of room from top of wash to lid)

Anyway, the foam (forget the correct wording) has gone ballistic and has gone right through the bubbler twice. Im ok with that but when I take the top off and bubbler to clean it, I am straight away getting that infected smell (like plastic) When I get an infection it tastes like im sucking beer through a 100 metre garden hose. Thats the best way I can describe it.

And so, I dont want to keep going here and bottling this stuff if its not right. Question is, is it easy to get a noticeable infection after 2 days? Does boiling the bejebus out of the sugars known to produce an occurrence?

Boiling won't cause an infection in my understanding. The sugar never gets hot enough to scorch as its mixed with water, unless you are saying you heated up theiquid malt in a pot by itself?

A strong chemical / bandaid type taste and smell could be chlorophenols which come from chlorinated (or chlorimated) water.

 

[Super 6 Pack]

Thanks for the reply. No it was with water. I have never taken the lid off the fermenter so not used to whatever "other" smells are going on in there.
The other thing is, I wonder why there was such a reaction in the foam/krausen and what that means?

 

[kadmium]

Thanks for the reply. No it was with water. I have never taken the lid off the fermenter so not used to whatever "other" smells are going on in there.
The other thing is, I wonder why there was such a reaction in the foam/krausen and what that means?

An active fermentation, can be a heap of different factors including yeast strain, temp, numbers, oxygenation etc. Not unusual for the Krausen (yeast colony) to blow out of a fermenter under vigorous fermentation.

 

[Super 6 Pack]

Yeah, it has happened when I did a twocan but for a single tin and the usual yeast, bit unusual. As long as it doesnt appear to be related to an infection, keep calm and carry on.

 

[kadmium]

If it is chlorophenols though, the beer can't be saved.

Maybe let it go to the end, and prior to bottling give it a taste.

 

[Super 6 Pack]

yeah thats a reasonable idea, cheers. ive googled chlorophenols. im in Perth and as i understand it, there is chlorine in the water not chloride. I flash the chlorine out by letting it sit for a day or two. maybe need to filter the water instead.

 

[MHB]

Probably not an infection that quickly, Chlorophenols are a possibility but heating concentrated sugar solutions can get way hotter than people expect.
I think you have effectively scorched your wort, see the following from Complete Beer Fault Guide.
Often in brewing it isn't just one thing, you have been brewing for a while, if it were Chlorophenols it would have been there all along, but sometimes add a couple of related flavours together and you can amplify the fault.

I would encourage everyone to remove Chlorine from brewing water, that will do nothing but improve your beer.
Burnt flavours aren't something we can fix, if it is undrinkable now it wont get better.
Make sure your extract is fully dissolved in hot water before heating on o stove and keep stirring while it heats.
Mark