Vanilla Smell

[wessmith]

Goose, Warren may have good point there - Ecolab Ansep is listed as a CIP CLEANING agent. It is made from caustic and sodium hypochlorite - a bit similar to those domestic mould removers. It is not recommended on the Ecolab website for sanitising - just for cleaning off proteinaceous material.

I would try Iodophor as Warren has suggested or some of the Ecolab peracetic acid sanitiser.

Wes

 

[Ross]

Just wondering how chlorine can affect beer taste, and how it can stay there after a 60 minute boil (I do full boils)....

Residual chlorine from a sanitizer... that I can buy... the experiments continue.

Will let you know.

Goose

Goose, Chlorine will definately taint your brew, even with a full boil - maybe what you're calling vanilla, others might call antiseptic (chlorine). I'd put money on it being your "sanitiser", as others have suggested.
Just change that without changing anything else or you could still be in the dark once you get rid of it...

cheers & good luck...

Ross

 

[Brewtus]

I am not an expert brewer but my system fault finding experiance say why not take a 350 ml bottle at each stage, prime and cap it and taste it when it is ready to see when the bad taste or smell starts to occur. If it is in the kegging that none of the botles will be affected, if it is a dodgy fermenter all of them will have it.

 

[Mr Bond]

I am not an expert brewer but my system fault finding experiance say why not take a 350 ml bottle at each stage, prime and cap it and taste it when it is ready to see when the bad taste or smell starts to occur. If it is in the kegging that none of the botles will be affected, if it is a dodgy fermenter all of them will have it.

I dub thee"brewtus the pragmatist"
Welcome to the Forum

 

[Goose]

Goose, Warren may have good point there - Ecolab Ansep is listed as a CIP CLEANING agent. It is made from caustic and sodium hypochlorite - a bit similar to those domestic mould removers. It is not recommended on the Ecolab website for sanitising - just for cleaning off proteinaceous material.

Indeed. However I must say this stuff is super effective in removing odours (in beer smells from PET bottles / fermenters) and because its alkaline/caustic it dissolves organic matter readily. But of course its no good if it taints your beer. Application is typically a spray on rinse off process and I'd have thought the rinsing was satisfactory, but nontheless brew going down today will have none of this, fermenter currently filled with water + a capful of coopers sanitiser (sodium percarbonate) as are parts.

If this works the ecolab will be relegated to use in extreme situations (ie presence of mould in stored fermenters/kegs/equipment etc).

I'm still puzzled by the fact that other brewers in my brewing community use it, no reports of these off smells/tastes, but then 95% of them brew kits... anway...

Thanks again, Goose.

 

[mike_hillyer]

Before you fix it, make an ice beer. Once in a life time chance to call your beer vanilla ice

Ok lads I've got to go the joke police are knocking on my.....

 

[Sloth]

Filtration

No, fraid that aint the cause Warren. Its there filtered or otherwise.

Just wondering how chlorine can affect beer taste, and how it can stay there after a 60 minute boil (I do full boils)....

Residual chlorine from a sanitizer... that I can buy... the experiments continue.


Will let you know.

Goose

Goose,

Im not sure on the actual chemisty behind it but some forms of chlorine added to water supplies will not disipate from solution even during boilling. In these cases it is necessary to add something which will form a complex intermediate that precipitates out of solution.

Sloth.

 

[Goose]

Maybe lose your current sanitiser which is starting to sound like the culprit and use Iodophor. Works for me.

See I'm taking alot of advice here. I got a small bottle of iodophor from my HBS. Says I should use it 3000:1 dilution. Warren, what do you do with this stuff, make up a stock solution then spray and rinse or does this stuff not require rinsing ?

Thanks

 

[Stuster]

No need to rinse iodophor, Goose. A spray bottle with an iodophor solution is good. Also good to have a little bucket of the solution to soak things in.

 

[lou]

your can't really make up a stock solution of this stuff unless you store it in glass becasue the iodine gets absorbed by plastic and all you are left with is a weak acid solution - its annoying but a great sanitiser - you need to make it up as you use it - i go by the colour of the solution and make up enough in my bucket to cover whatever i am soaking - with fermenters i make up half a fermenter full and tip it up side down to let everthing have at least 5 mins full contact time with the solution

lou

 

[Goose]

Iodophor

Thanks lads. What u reckon, just a few drops per litre ?

Goose

 

[Goose]

Hey chaps,

You guys hit the nail on the head. Ecosep (sanitiser I was using) was the culprit.

Thought I'd report back on progress after eliminating ecolab ecosep (CIP cleaner) from my brewing process completely. I'd used this stuff religiously in the past at the recommended concentration while kit brewing with no apparent problems, so I never assumed going AG I'd have any issues. I'd been using this stuff througout my system including for flushing lines in my keg system...

Anyway switched to using sodium percarbonate (Coopers Sanitiser) overnight for my fermenter, and iodophor (just a few drops to make a v mildly brown solution) for other items.

The result in latest brew (a Pale Ale), was no vanilla smell at all. :super:

Must amit I was puzzled by the description of this taste by non homebrewers (no less than four independent tasters unfamiliar with homebrew). For a chlorine (aka bleach) containation I would have expected a kind of "medicinal" or "band aid" taste ie chlorophenol compound or so they say, but with this stuff, despite the mildest concentration tainted my brew with a "vanilla" complexion, which is always why I thought that the problem was process related ie , grain, yeast, temperature, water etc ...and not sanitiser.

Thanks again boys....

A Happier Goose. B)