Plastic Taste After Secondary Ferment

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jakethedog

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I tried a secondary ferment for the first time. 4 days in primary then about 2 weeks in secondary ferment. I am currently bottling it and the wort has a slight plastic off taste. I was very careful with sanitation and the wort looks good and clear with no sign of infection in the fermenter. The secondary fermenter was new and i gave it a rinse and a good sterilise before use. Should I bother bottling it to see if the taste improves or not bother. It was my favourite APA too. :angry:
 
Can you give a bit more info? Are all your hot side hoses silicon? Are you using any garden hoses, or vinyl to supply water to your brewing process. Are you using a wort chiller, or using a cube?

In my experience, a plastic taste usually comes from plastic equipment, especially bad hoses and bad no chill cubes.
 
I used a fresh wort kit from Brewcraft. Wort straight into fermenter then add yeast. I am wondering if it is the new fermenter which is contributing to the taste.
 
I used a fresh wort kit from Brewcraft. Wort straight into fermenter then add yeast. I am wondering if it is the new fermenter which is contributing to the taste.

Put some water in the empty fermenter overnight and taste it in the morning. That will tell you.

It could also be chlorine in your tap water - do you filter?
 
what temp did you brew it at? could be a fusel issue
 
Sounds like a ferment issue to me. Phenolics can give the impression of plastic, rubber, bandaids etc - could result from poor yeast health, or an infection. Also as mentioned it could be chlorophenol (very plastic-y) - exacerbated if you do not dechlorinate your water before use.

Racking before primary ferment has finished is pointless in my opinion, and probably more detrimental to your beer than beneficial. For what reason are you transferring so soon ie what are you trying to achieve? There may be a better way to do it...
 
I got the idea of secondary ferment from a book "Brewing Better Beer" by Jack Faber. He recommends racking to secondary at 1/4 OG. I used filtered water (puratap) and fermented at about 18-22 degrees.
 
I guess the question is should I bottle it and hope it tastes better after conditioning or just dump the $50 worth of wort.
 
Too early to dump it.

At least ferment it out and condition a bit.

Can you describe the taste a bit more? Medicinal in any way? Disinfectant? or melted plastic?
 
Bandaids....... dump it and start again
 
IF it is band-aids then yes I agree. No coming back from that.

Sometimes though Haysie, new brewers jump the gun and see infection where there is none only to find the taste/smell diappear a few days later.
 
If it is Band-Aids then give it to my father in law, he'll drink it. Seriously, I made a brew that had a strong phenolic/band-aid taste and I was going to tip it but he drank it anyway. Although he does drink VB regularly so I guess that tells you the state of his tastebuds.
 
Yeah its hard to describe a plastic taste or the description of the OP, but most plastic tastes I have ever experienced were medicinal or downright band-aid. YUK, no fix solution.
OP, bottle a couple off, prime them, nice warm spot for a week, have a taste. If it is still there its dumping material and worth asking Brewcraft for a refund :p

oops sorry Ross, edited post
 
I have never tasted bandaids but I would not describe it as that. It tastes as if it would be nothing like the finished product. A slight plastic taste and watery. I just remembered that when I made up the original brew i thought the wort looked different in the original container, and when i tipped it out there was a slight blackish sludge in the bottom of the container.
Oh well my dissappointment from today will be over ridden by excitement from my first AG BIAB which is geared up for tomorrow. I am going to brew the 'House Ale' recipe which comes with the Brewmate software.
Fingers crossed that will be my best beer so far!!!
 
I was thinking about the plastic taste today. I did use a plastic tube to tranfer the wort into the secondary fermenter. I bought the tube from a hardware store and it has a strong plastic smell to it. I am thinking if it smells of plastic then there are volatiles being released from the tube. Maybe this was enough to alter the taste????
 
More than likely. I've bought tubes before that have had a plastic odour, regardless of being soaked in boiling water etc. As a result, I've discarded them as I don't want to run the risk of flavouring the beer.
 
Has been bottled for just over a week. Carbonated well, just had a taste - bad taste still there and just as strong. Down the sink is the best place for it I think.
 
Has been bottled for just over a week. Carbonated well, just had a taste - bad taste still there and just as strong. Down the sink is the best place for it I think.


Dont be so quick Jake, Zipster might want it to water his horseradish plants. :icon_vomit:
 
Hi Jake - prolly worth going a little further to figure out where your problem came from; you don't want the disappointment of having it turn up in your next all grain brew (trust me; I'm living the same hell - chasing down a phenolic taste which is turning up in a few of my brews, not fun).

You've suggested you used quite a bit of brand new plastic equipment - that could be a cause, even if you didn't do any high temps. A good idea would be to soak this stuff in very hot water for a while. Better not to use it if you don't have to (somebody suggested going for the secondary was pointless - I tend to agree). The extraction of nasty plastic volatiles will increase with high temps.

What did you sanitise with? If it was chlorine (bleach) don't do it again. I'm pretty sure this was a major contributor in my case as my beers cleared up when I stopped using bleach. Different people use bleach in different concentrations - the temptation is always to overdo it as you don't know how viable your bleach is; it degrades over time. I never use it anymore - at least never on plastic. If you feel the need to swap sanitisers from time to time as is suggested by some old wives tales on here (probably can't hurt) then go acid, boiling water, iodophor, etc. - there's plenty of suggestions about.

Get someone else to taste it if you can - preferably somebody with judging experience. There's a very fine line between some of these phenolics: band-aid, or medicinal, or chlorophenol can be hard to judge and can have causes other than infection.

Good luck
 

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