Garden Hose Fresh Wort Kits

[kevnlis]

Anyone else noticed a plastic flavour in the fresh wort kits they have brewed?

I had noticed this before but thought perhaps it was something with the process the brewer used to do his brews, but I encountered it again last night in the products of another brewer. Thing is with this other brewer, his K&K beers were fine, but all of his AG fresh wort brews had that same garden hose sort of flavour.

My guess is it has something to do with the cheap plastic they use to make the cubes? Perhaps it is better or worse by the amount of time the wort is in the cube, sort of like kit twang?

Interested to hear of other peoples thoughts on this.

Cheers,
Kev

 

[Mothballs]

Hi Kevin, I have made up loads of these fresh wort kits myself and sell heaps of these every week. What brand are the kits in question? Were they all the same beer style or from the same batch?

The kits we sell are made by St Peters in Sydney and I firmly believe they make the best quality beer for the least amount of work . I have never noticed any plastic flavours in the beer. I have also never had any customer feedback about plastic flavours either. I wouldn't consider the plastic cubes that are used for fresh wort to made of cheap plastic as I use the same recycled cubes for my no chilling. I made over 1500 litres of AG no chill beer last year using 8 of these cubes and definitely had no plastic flavour issues. Perhaps it come from the hose used to transfer the wort from the kettle to the cube. I use foodgrade pvc hose and haven't had any issues.

As with all ingredients in beer making fresher is better so the age of kits will have some impact on flavour. I find that beer made from really old wort kits is similar to old can kits and tends to be oxidised and have a soy sauce like taste rather than plastic like. Although I have customers who have kept some of these kits for more than 12 months at home before fermenting and they still made good beer. Direct exposure to sunlight is not good for them and may also affect the flavour of the beer.

Cheers
Anthony

 

[OzBeer_MD]

I've used a few St Peters FWK's now and am very impressed.

I havent noticed any plastic taste, I did however notice that around the same time the type labels moved to the top corner the cubes seemed to be under more vacuum (the wort must have been added hotter) maybe you have had some that were added too hot and/or are tasting something that I am not.

MD

 

[dr K]

plastic...garden hose...can we pop bandaids in there as well....
no doubt whatsoever that wort (hot in partcular) can pick up, at a very low level some of the plasticizers used in flexible plastics ( fresh, virginal garden hose would be a good example) but it is rather unlikely that such contanimation would arise from the "food grade" cubes used by various fresh wort manufacturers.
I most of Australia it is or rather, has been summer recently...
My money, the little that it is, says that the problem (s) is (are) infections.

K

 

[kevnlis]

Well I can rule out a lot of variables based on the facts that I know:

#1 - Both brewers used St Peters kits.
#2 - Both brewers purchased their kits from the same place, but at different times over the last 6 months or so.
#3 - One of the brewers has been brewing for 20+ years and makes excellent beer.
#4 - I have had 3 different styles from one of the brewers and 2 from the other (IPA, Summer Ale, Pale Ale, and Wheat)
#5 - All the beers had the same off flavour, last night 4 of the 5 of us were able to detect the off flavour and determined it to be a 'plastic' flavour which we all likened to drinking water from a garden hose.
#6 - These brewers are both simple dump and bottle brewers, so the off flavour is not related to any equipment they used, and like I said were not apparent in other beers done by the same brewers.
#7 - Different strains of Fermentis/Danstar yeast were used to ferment all 5 brews so it is not part of a yeast profile.
#8 - One brewer lives in Hervey Bay, the other lives in Bundaberg so it is not something in the 5L of water they would have topped up the brew with.
#9 - One of the brews had a 1kg LLME addition and the off flavour was still apparent.
#10 - This flavour is different from any oxidised, light struck, or stale extract beer I have ever tasted.

There are probably other things I am unable to think of ATM, but I am fairly certain whatever this off flavour is, it is in the wort itself. How it got there is what I would like to know. Though very subtle, a skilled beer taster should have no problems picking up this flavour.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

[newguy]

At low levels, chlorophenols taste somewhat plastic-like, and are in general a hard-to-identify taste in the background. Were these kits topped up with chlorinated (municipal) water? If so, get your friends to try reverse osmosis or rainwater (boiled of course) next time to see if the problem goes away. If an infection were the cause, it's very rare to get just one, light, plastic-like flavour. With an infection, there's frequently much more going on, flavour-wise.

 

[blackbock]

+1.

 

[kevnlis]

At low levels, chlorophenols taste somewhat plastic-like, and are in general a hard-to-identify taste in the background. Were these kits topped up with chlorinated (municipal) water? If so, get your friends to try reverse osmosis or rainwater (boiled of course) next time to see if the problem goes away. If an infection were the cause, it's very rare to get just one, light, plastic-like flavour. With an infection, there's frequently much more going on, flavour-wise.

One of the kits was fermented "as is" so top up water is eliminated as a possible cause. Not to mention there having been water used from two different sources.

Chlorophenols was actually my first guess at what the flavour could have been, because it did have a very similar flavour. I thought perhaps the brewery might be using a cleaner to recycle the cubes and not rinsing it well enough. But the more I tasted it the more I came to the conclusion it was a plastic flavour and not a medicinal/chlorine flavour.