Session Ipa with Windsor yeast - soapy/milky off taste

[trhr]

Hi all,

I haven't brewed in about a year and I still had some cubes laying around, so grabbed some new yeast to ferment them out.
This one was a session ipa (OG 1044) that I fermented out with Danstar Windsor dried yeast. It finished 1018 after 11 days and was dry hopped with a year old unopened pack of mixed simcoe, citra and galaxy hops.
I crashed for 5 days and then kegged, and noticed the crash was too cold and had frozen about 2-3 litres of beer.

The hops and wort, although old, all smelled ok before I used. But the ferment I feel was just not right from the beginning, it smelt bad all during ferment and the taste went from fruity to quite bland during ferment.
I'm now left with a beer that has unpleasant sulphur smell and has a strong, slightly sour milky/yoghurt taste, with a soapy thin head. It's still drinkable, but the combined taste of sour milk and soap with the smell makes it off putting.

I'd like to know your thoughts on what could be causing this as I have additional year old cubes, grain and hops and was hoping to use them up before I start afresh.

I feel it was a bad ferment, has anyone had similar results with windsor?
Could the ice in crash be contributing? (I doubt this as the off putting smell and taste were there before CC).

Could it be the old wort and hops?
(As above, I doubt the hops contribute as the smells/ off taste were there before dry hop).

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[trhr]

Some more information...

I'm not a great brewer, but I'm fanatical about procedure and sanitation, and I'm starting to doubt myself that when I dehydrated the yeast I used PBW water that was sitting in my sparge urn as I'd been cleaning fermenters. I doubt this as I normally just heat water and mix PBW in a 20L bucket, but it would account for the soapy taste, weird soapy head and that fact that the beer still hasn't dropped clear even a bit despite the cold crash and biofine at kegging.

 

[hoppy2B]

Hi trhr,

Have you used Windsor yeast before? It is not the yeast one would normally pick for an IPA. It is a yeast that produces quite a few esters, it doesn't attenuate all that well, and it probably doesn't drop out of suspension too quickly either. So those aspects of your fermentation don't seem to be out of the ordinary. Perhaps you are just perceiving the flavour and aroma as strange because you were expecting something cleaner and better attenuating.

In terms of the cube, were there hops in the cube? By that I mean were hop pellets or flowers added to the cube before it was filled. I've never cubed, and if I did I don't think I would want to leave it for a year before fermenting. You can probably get away with it if you keep the cube nice and cool, but I definitely wouldn't try it with hop debris in the cube. Others may have a different opinion to mine re the hops. I have found that hop debris in bottles doesn't help the cause. That was back when I was a newby and hadn't sorted my processes out very well.

 

[trhr]

Hi Hoppy2B,

First time using windsor yeast, but I have tasted many beers which use windsor and this tastes very different and just wrong.

This beer was basically a clone of Bacchus pale ale/session IPA and I used windsor as they do for the reasons you stated, lower alcohol level and fuller body/esters.
You might be right about the clarity, but other similar yeasts have cleaned up at least a bit by now with a crash and biofine

The cube didn't have any 0 min/late hop additions (whatever it's called) and I use a hop sock in my kettle, there was just a little sediment in the cube from sitting so long which I left behind in the cube.

 

[hoppy2B]

I'm surprised that Bacchus use Windsor for fermenting IPA. I was under the impression that hop flavour comes through a lot better when the beer has a lighter body. I don't mind the esters in Windsor but wouldn't want them in an IPA. Maybe an English IPA using lots of Golding hops would work but that is about it.

I've used Windsor a couple of times but didn't get any sulphur with it.

 

[MHB]

Sounds like a wild yeast infection.
Windsor is a medium attenuator but you have less than 60% apparent attenuation - low even for Windsor.
What is really worrying is that the ferment wasn't happy, generally a bad sine.
Mark

 

[brewgasm]

I'm surprised that Bacchus use Windsor for fermenting IPA. I was under the impression that hop flavour comes through a lot better when the beer has a lighter body. I don't mind the esters in Windsor but wouldn't want them in an IPA. Maybe an English IPA using lots of Golding hops would work but that is about it.

I've used Windsor a couple of times but didn't get any sulphur with it.

Never used Windsor but as far as IPA goes I want a full bodied beer, you know what I mean, that mouth feel a bit like soup lol. If I was looking at focusing on a particular hop I would go for a light bodied pale ale.

 

[trhr]

I'm surprised that Bacchus use Windsor for fermenting IPA. I was under the impression that hop flavour comes through a lot better when the beer has a lighter body. I don't mind the esters in Windsor but wouldn't want them in an IPA. Maybe an English IPA using lots of Golding hops would work but that is about it.

I've used Windsor a couple of times but didn't get any sulphur with it.

I'm sure talking to them a year ago they used Windsor in their pale ale/session IPA. Their FWK page still recommends Windsor too.
You must be psychic, as I have an old English IPA cube and some old Goldings, bought some more Windsor to ferment it out. I'll ferment it this week and see how it goes!

 

[trhr]

Sounds like a wild yeast infection.
Windsor is a medium attenuator but you have less than 60% apparent attenuation - low even for Windsor.
What is really worrying is that the ferment wasn't happy, generally a bad sine.
Mark

Hi Mark,
The beer is still bad, my thoughts were an infection too. In regards to attenuation, my first thought was it was low as well, but then I read online in many places that most people only get 58-60% so didn't think anymore of it. Also the Bacchus FWK I cloned is 1045 with an expected alcohol content of 3.5%. I'll see how I go next with this old English IPA cube that I'll ferment with 2 packs of Windsor.

 

[hoppy2B]

Never used Windsor but as far as IPA goes I want a full bodied beer, you know what I mean, that mouth feel a bit like soup lol. If I was looking at focusing on a particular hop I would go for a light bodied pale ale.

As long as it has the alcohol to match the body it will probably be ok. If it is just a mashing miss-hap of some sort and it doesn't attenuate and it is thick and syrupy, I'd be surprised if it would appeal to anyone apart from some Brett organisms and the like. I get where you're coming from though, I like a beer with good head retention.

 

[nosco]

I have fermented cubed beers after year and they have been... ok... but definitely not the beer it would have been fresh. Hop bitterness is one thing i have noticed really falls away. I gues hop flavour and aroma would do the same. Maybe the hop flavour could change a bit and even produce an off flavour? Just a guess.