US-05 Problems

[manticle]

I am at a loss as to why any commercially available grain, or the cracking of said grain by any hbs would lead to the flavours described.
OP - is scotch hot alcohol or caramel/honey/butterscotch or smoky/phenolic/medicinal?

 

[murpho]

I am at a loss as to why any commercially available grain, or the cracking of said grain by any hbs would lead to the flavours described.
OP - is scotch hot alcohol or caramel/honey/butterscotch or smoky/phenolic/medicinal?

manticle, yep it's the third. Smoky phenolic medicinal, sorry just didn't know how to describe it in the op as I've never tasted something like this before.

Also, the reason I first considered the yeast to be the cause of the problem was because of the lag time. 2 days lag isn't consistent with my other batches using us05 so I thought something could be creeping in this time. Tricky one really.

 

[murpho]

Did you boil the tap water before topping up?

hi mstrelan,

I didn't boil the top up water but I've had to top up all my extract brews and have used un-boilef tap water for that each time with no problems, hence why I haven't boiled top up water with these partial brews

 

[manticle]

Smokey/phenolic/medicinal can have a couple of causes.

1 major one is chlorine - from water or sodium hyporchlorite used for sanitation. Do you use bleach or pink stain remover at all?
Another possibility is a wild yeast infection - longer lag time may make the occurrence more likely.

Not the 05 (unless indirectly because your packets were out of date or stored badly and the viability subsequently low)

 

[Bridges]

Was the us-05 as packaged by fermentis? I remember a while ago there were a few mobs repackaging from the 500g packs, I personally wouldn't be to keen on that. No idea how clean the process of splitting yeast is at the local shop.

 

[Killer Brew]

Heavily chlorinated water or an infection. I would be tipping infection given you have only had the issue a couple of times. Would expect if your water was the cause it would be an ongoing issue.

 

[LAGERFRENZY]

The only time I ever had a problem with US05 was when I got a ten pack of them shipped from an interstate eBay supplier in the middle of a Brisbane summer. Every packet was sluggish no doubt due to lost cell count from the satchel being left in uncontrolled temps for the four days it took Aus Post to deliver. Ever since I have paid the extra 50 cents a pack to buy only from local brew shops who keep them refrigerated.

 

[peteru]

Was the us-05 as packaged by fermentis? I remember a while ago there were a few mobs repackaging from the 500g packs, I personally wouldn't be to keen on that. No idea how clean the process of splitting yeast is at the local shop.

Which reminds me, I found a packet of S-04 at the back of the fridge. It's a bit old - packaged by DCL and dated 2004. I wonder how that would go. :blink:

 

[Cosh]

Sorry Brad, I'll go into more detail.

I'm basically following this process to do a 19 batch but also adding a bit of dme to get the gravity up: http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/55617-step-by-step-biab-lcba-clone/

At a high level I'm using a 19 litre pot to mash 3kg of grain in 15 litres at 66c for 60 minutes. After that I sparge with 4 litres of 77c water to bring the pre boil volume up to 17 litres. I'm then proceeding with a 60 minute boil as usual, cooling in the sink with the pot surrounded by running water and transferring to the fv with a silicon hose leaving about 2 litres of hops and crap left in the pot. I get about 12 litres of wort into the fv and top up with 7 litres of tap water to get to 19 litres. I also add 500g dme at this stage. Whilst cooling the wort I rehydrate the yeast as per fermentis instructions (boiled and cooled water 10 times the weight of yeast at about 27c for 20 minutes) and add this once the wort is cooled, transferred and aerated. Ferment at 18c in a freezer with temp control. I use sodium perc for cleaning and starsan for sanitizing.

If you need any other info let me know
Cheers

Did you boil the DME before adding to the cooling wort?

 

[Markbeer]

I thought the same thing. Boil the dme in your main boil.

Boil and cool your tap water as well. Even better go buy a big bottle of water from aldi pit it in the fridge and then add it to your fermenter to reach pitching temp quicker.

I would bet u have wild yeast infections as the source of your off flavours.

 

[HBHB]

Best bet would be to get yourself, along with a bottle of each of those batches to a retailer who understands beer flavours or better still, a brew club meeting at your nearest HBC.

Unless the flavour can be properly identified, it can't be remedied and the rest is just guess work.

One thing's 99.99% for certain it's not the yeasts fault. Process, other ingredients, infection, water, what's in the water, or some combination of all of these, but not the yeast itself.

What part of Brisbane do you live in? Perhaps one of the near-by club members could chime in with meeting details.

 

[murpho]

Thanks for the replies everyone. So it seems the general consensus is a wild yeast infection is the most likely cause, does this thread need to be moved over to the general brewing techniques section? I was way off!

So where to now. I guess I need to decide if I tip this batch or not, I might give it a few more days, cc it then see how it tastes and decide then. Or is it best to get rid of it now? I'm fairly time poor at the moment so to get to a hb club might be difficult but I guess I could take a bottle to the shop next time I grab some ingredients and see if they can identify the flavor.

I'll try some of the suggestions here on my next batch to see if I can isolate where it may be coming from.

cheers

 

[Hpal]

Try using a yeast starter for a quicker take-off.

 

[murpho]

Try using a yeast starter for a quicker take-off.

Yeah I think that's a good idea and I'll give it a go next batch