Help! Weird maybe off flavour!?

[Reman]

If you get grassy again maybe consider dumping all your plastic stuff and re-buying and "nuke" anything metal with bleach and sanitiser.

 

[Nizmoose]

i have bottled part of a brew that had an infection, i caught it very early - i found that once bottled it didn't continue to get worse, it was sort of time-capsuled. it was a sour taste but only very slight and also had a weird fruityness to it, maybe a bit like bruised fruit

Okay that's interesting and leads me to be more sure it's an infection of some sort

Wild yeast can be a real pain to get rid of but it's a generic term so the results will not always cause hazy gushers.

A real pain in terms of getting it out of a fermenter? Any products which will really kill stuff? Even boiling up water in it with an element?

If you get grassy again maybe consider dumping all your plastic stuff and re-buying and "nuke" anything metal with bleach and sanitiser.

Yeah some plastic might have to go, at the moment Im leading towards two issues, my siphon is the only thing touching my wort post chill, and I drain my grain bag (biab) into the same buckets I Ferment in, not the same bucket I Ferment in that particular day but I rotate through three of them and no one is a grain bag only bucket, this could most definitely be an issue?

 

[manticle]

^^Getting rid of it from both equipment and environment.

Chlorine/sodium hypochlorite or hot sodium hydroxide can be great but both require caution and very good rinsing or they'll create problems of their own. Hot caustic can be really nasty so treat with respect.

New fermenters and taps are good if you think it's a fermenter issue. Cheap and an easy quick fix. Give the whole brewery a thorough clean, replace all plastic hoses, taps, etc, break apart all metal taps/fittings where possible.

 

[Nizmoose]

Cheers manticle, I've never used it but is giving all my buckets (fermenters) a good bleaching and then extremely thorough and repeated boiling water rinses a good way to kill everything? For the next brew I'm going to completely eliminate the use of my siphon and tip from the pot through a strainer into the fermenter I think.

 

[Nizmoose]

Also just to add, will a hot sodium percarbonate and then starsan soak eliminate wild yeast or do I need more specialised chemicals? Also I'm thinking of giving all my fermenters a good clean then chucking say 500ml of wort from extract in each one and leaving them for a couple of days sealed to see if anything grows in there within say 24-48 hours before I commit an actual batch to any of them, good or bad idea?

 

[mxd]

If you think it a wild yeast do a kit brew as a trial

 

[Nizmoose]

If you think it a wild yeast do a kit brew as a trial

Not a bad idea, it's what I'm going along the lines of with a ldme test to save on cash, just now I put about one litre of wort of 1.050 SG in the offending fermenter and the wort went in at boiling. Going to give it 48 hours and test the gravity every 12 hours to see if I get anything spontaneous. Obviously even an adequately sanitised fermenter would produce spontaneous fermentation eventually but if memory serves correctly for a wort stability test 48 hours of no visible fermentation is a good score. The fermenter was soaked with stable chlorine hydroxide before it was rinsed and the wort thrown in

 

[mtb]

I'm going to completely eliminate the use of my siphon and tip from the pot through a strainer into the fermenter I think.

+1

I was using a hand siphon for some time to move cooled wort to my fermenter but the siphon had too many nooks & crannies to clean properly - I fed the lawn a fair few times before deciding the siphon was definitely the problem and ended up tipping straight into the fermenter. Haven't had a problem since. Might've been coincidence but I cut open the siphon later and surely enough, there was plenty of encrusted crud (after a very thorough clean including using pipe cleaners)

 

[Nizmoose]

+1

I was using a hand siphon for some time to move cooled wort to my fermenter but the siphon had too many nooks & crannies to clean properly - I fed the lawn a fair few times before deciding the siphon was definitely the problem and ended up tipping straight into the fermenter. Haven't had a problem since. Might've been coincidence but I cut open the siphon later and surely enough, there was plenty of encrusted crud (after a very thorough clean including using pipe cleaners)

Yeah I'm definitely keen to see what happens!

Update on the wort stability test, opened the bucket, no visual signs of fermentation, slight sort of almost yoghurt smell which I'm assuming might be lactobacillis? It's not intense at all, the wort is still sweet and is the same gravity so I'm satisfied so far that whatever was causing my off flavour is not present in this fermenter as of yet, I'll give it another 24 hours before I check it again then I'll bleach all my other buckets and put a test batch through

 

[Nizmoose]

Okay a bit of an update for anyone not dead of bordem, I brewed an IPA two weeks ago and early on it was looking good, went to dry hop today and I swear by sticking my nose to the top of the fermenter I could smell the dreaded off aroma again but I'm less sure this time and I'm worried I'm doing my own head in. The process this time was to remove the siphon so I boiled, chilled with the lid on as much as it could be with the chiller in, then poured through a strainer from the pot straight into the fermenter. I gave all my three bucket fermenters a blitz with a cup of bleach in 5L of water, gave it a good soak and then rinsed the shit out of them. Prior to filling the fermenter also copped a good starsan as usual. To eliminate a contaminated yeast pitch I pitched an entire packet of Nottingham into just 9L of wort.

Now I can't confirm that the off flavour is back but assuming the worse case scenario what do I do? I mean is it even possible to get wild yeast to compete with very cleanly prepared wort and entire pack of notto? If I still have this off flavour do I need to start looking at mash pH and water? It's absolutely doing my head in as before this using worse methods I was making crystal clean beer.

 

[barls]

mate just a question. how are you chilling them. i read in the fermentor but is it a sealed one or with an air lock? this could be how they are getting in there as it cools it will pull air in.

personally i went these three steps in this order. hot caustic above 80 degrees, sodium percarbonate once again above 65 and then pink stain aka tsp above 65.
anything that survives that deserves to live.

 

[Coodgee]

Where do you live? Should get someone to come and taste your latest ipa. It could be just your brain messing with you because you might be paranoid

 

[TimT]

I don't mind grassy woody flavours so I'd probably prepare a brew with that in mind!

But seriously, hope you get this sorted.

 

[mtb]

One other Q, when you starsan, how long are you leaving it in the vessel for? I'd give it at least 60sec to be sure it's done its job. And you're not washing the foam out afterwards with tap water are you?

 

[Vini2ton]

Strainer? Autoclave those bastards.

 

[Nizmoose]

mate just a question. how are you chilling them. i read in the fermentor but is it a sealed one or with an air lock? this could be how they are getting in there as it cools it will pull air in.

personally i went these three steps in this order. hot caustic above 80 degrees, sodium percarbonate once again above 65 and then pink stain aka tsp above 65.
anything that survives that deserves to live.

Chilling with an immersion chiller and have gotten it down to temp before going in the fridge most times, reasonably confident the airlock isn't an issue as it has happened to a batch without an airlock but thanks for the suggestion! For the hot caustic will a bleach work for caustic?

Where do you live? Should get someone to come and taste your latest ipa. It could be just your brain messing with you because you might be paranoid

I do still need to do this, I work at the Wheatsheaf (if anyone from SA or abroad knows of it) and so I should get the brewer there to have a taste and to even maybe get a sample under a microscope.

I don't mind grassy woody flavours so I'd probably prepare a brew with that in mind!

But seriously, hope you get this sorted.

Haha cheers mate

One other Q, when you starsan, how long are you leaving it in the vessel for? I'd give it at least 60sec to be sure it's done its job. And you're not washing the foam out afterwards with tap water are you?

The starsan sits there for probably ten minutes in the fermenter right before filling and no rinsing at all.

Strainer? Autoclave those bastards.

Haha yeah strainers are dodgy as but the batches were doing this before the strainer so I'm 100% sure it isn't the strainer itself!

 

[dr K]

Your recipes (in the OP) indicate a a ridiculously low level of hopping for an IPA or even a megalager
You indicate that the off smell (I suspect DMS here btw) was apparent before dry hopping.
A yeast infection is actually really hard to get, if your practices especially regarding yeast health are solid.
Am I correct in reading that you re-use dry yeast?
Plenty around about DMS, its precursors, its formation and its avoidance.

K

 

[Nizmoose]

Your recipes (in the OP) indicate a a ridiculously low level of hopping for an IPA or even a megalager
You indicate that the off smell (I suspect DMS here btw) was apparent before dry hopping.
A yeast infection is actually really hard to get, if your practices especially regarding yeast health are solid.
Am I correct in reading that you re-use dry yeast?
Plenty around about DMS, its precursors, its formation and its avoidance.

K

I appreciate the suggestion, firstly my batch sizes are 10-12L and the hopping rates are fairly reasonable for light IPA's, around 1-2g/L from memory having not gone back and checked. I'm extremely sceptical of any dms issue for many reasons; firstly not one of these recipes has got pils Malt in it and frankly pale and maris Otter just don't have enough potential to produce dms precursor with a 60 minute lid-less boil, secondly there is no cooked corn aroma or flavour of that I'm sure. I do re-use dry yeast but I harvest from starters not beer fermentation which really minimises the risk of mutation and contamination but even then my last batch was a brand new pack of Nottingham.

I agree that a yeast infection should be really hard to get but I'm reasonably sure its what I've got (I've admittedly done no reading on mould and how that works and what problems it can cause?)

My thoughts are starting to lead towards the pot. I'm wondering whether my boil is doing enough to kill the bugs in the grain that dry above liquid level on my pot after the mash. I'm brewing with biab and so my mash and boil and chill occur in the same pot. I'm wondering if the heat of the pot is not enough to kill something that is making itself at home on my pot and during chilling it perhaps inoculates into the wort pre-pitching?

 

[droid]

could you be bringing something home from work or somewhere on your clothes or hair and then you do a brew?

 

[TheWiggman]

Bleach and caustic are not equal. 'Caustic' is colloquial for sodium hydroxide and is nasty stuff. Get some in your eye and you risk blindness, get some on your skin and you'll get a chemical burn. Common bleach contains chlorine however and while also alkaline, is chemically different.
Sodium hydroxide will kill and strip almost anything but needs to be treated with utmost respect. Seriously, research it before use and follow the safety directions.

I'm backing you have some ambient bug that is giving you the grief. I've had it thrice before, twice in the fermenter and once in a keg (bottles were ok). To confirm I'd do as posted earlier and do a cheap kit brew to see if it fixes it. Above all though give the gear the full treatment, you've got nothing to lose there.