I started brewing in 2019. With a pale ale kit from craft a brew. You know the rest… Everything was going well and I moved up to whole grain and 5 gallon batches. Built a keezer, set it up, bought kegs and everything was really pretty good. I was making beer from my own recipies, and was proud to share with friends and family. I even had some good reviews. haha… Flash forward to 2024…
Lately, I would say for the most part the beers have gotten steadily worse. I have metalic flavors that are terrible… What I’ve done…
I passivated my kettle… came out great looks like new, but no change.
I sent off for a new water test from Wards. There was a significant difference from the first one I had done, but the iron level was .01. seems low to me.
I’m not very experienced in water adjustments, but I’m trying to learn it. I definetly ain’t no chemist… I would really benefit from a hands on lesson of water treatment.
Cooling the wort in the summer down to pitching temperature is not easy or near impossible and maintaining fermentation temperatures is difficult too, but I don’t know if a 3-4 degree change would give a metallic taste.
I believe this is happening after kegging… the last four beers I’ve made have not been good, but the last two especially have me wondering what’s happening??? One an IPA, which wasn’t my best to begin with, but drinkable, and the next was an Amber ale, which at first was pretty good. Had a friend over, we each had a couple and they were very good. The next week I noticed the metallic flavor and by the end of the week I could hardly drink it. The IPA got steadily worse also. What’s going on? Do I need to passivate my kegs? Something is causing this in the keg in the keezer at 36 degrees.
Any help is greatly appreciated… Sorry for the long story…
my immediate thoughts re: metallic taste is to strip all your lines and equipment down to components and find the filthy and/or corroded or uncleaned spot.
I haven’t seen that in oxidation, but I have seen metallic flavors with yeast autolyse. Yeast can produce blood like flavors as it autolyses, which some people perceive as metallic.
I don’t know about oxidation. I don’t use closed transfer so it’s possible I suppose. I purge my kegs 5 times before filling and again after filling. I hadn’t had this issue before, but maybe I can figure out a closed transfer method.
I haven’t heard of yeast autolyse. can you explain what that is and the causes. Sometimes I feel like I ferment too long if the yeast seems to be working good. Usually 14-17 days. Maybe that causes the yeast autolyse, IDK. Thanks again for your reply…
These are all interesting possible causes. The only copper used is the wort chiller. I clean and santitize all the equipment. I was wondering if kegs should be passivated occasionally. This seems to be happening after kegging in the keezer.
Another major concern is my brewing water. I’m very inexperienced at making water adjustments and early on the beer was always pretty good. However, the water test I did in October showed a significant change in some minerals etc… The water PH was 7.9 and total alkalinity CaCO3 was 29. Again I’m no chemist… This seems high to me and adding ingrediants when brewing might make it worse.
Thanks for everyone’s replys. I’m looking for areas of improvement and these all help…
The other place to check is your faucet. If your tap has exposed brass, this can be a source of metal flavors, particularly since you believe this is entering later in the process.
A total alkalinity of 29 is not high. Only a few light lagers would benefit from a lower alkalinity. You could neutralize the alkalinity in those light lagers with acid, I used phosphoric or lactic acids depending on the beer.
Doesn’t Brewtan-B remove metals from wort? If you don’t know the source of the metal flavor, Brewtan-B might help.
From my understanding, yes. It can chelate some metallic minerals which react to O2. For example, barley contains iron. It’s more to help shelf life, by limiting the things that react with O2 that triggers oxidation.
Wyeast has updated their description with seemingly a bit more detail…
It seems Brewtan B is best for lagers and beers that don’t rely on hop character. On a homebrew scale, I don’t think it would be very helpful.
If the beer stays on yeast too long, the yeast can begin to die. The cells can burst after dying, cause off flavors. Some can be associated with blood, meat like odors and flavors. To me it has a metallic like flavor. It’s the one off flavor I’m really sensitive to and I pick up on it before most others, ironically, I can’t taste diacetyl. I try to get the beers off the yeast or cold crash the beer to clear the yeast right after the fermentation is complete (including a d-rest if needed). Refrigerating the beer to 32-33F slows everything down, including autolyse.
In my experience, autolysis takes months to happen at homebrew scale. It’s more likely to happen commercially, where there’s thousands of lb of pressure on the yeast in fermenters.
Autolyse can happen, but it can take time I agree and pressure adds an another element to the equation. But thousands of pounds?
An 80 foot conical will have @34 psi of head pressure at the bottom. It’s 2.3 pounds per foot. If a homebrewer spunds a beer, it’s not unusual to spund at 25 psi, so homebrewers do approach and in some cases exceed tall industrial conical pressures. It plays a role in the overall health of the yeast.
That’s not how hydrostatic pressure works. If that were the case, no human could dive more than a few feet, water towers would develop thousands of pounds of pressure based water volume and not head pressure.
The pressure exerted on the yeast is hydrostatic, not the full weight of the volume of beer. It’s 1 pound per square inch for each 2.3 foot of head. The volume beer doesn’t matter, it’s about the depth of the beer.
The pressure exerted on a yeast cell would be equivalent to the hydrostatic pressure, this would also be true if a diver (human) were at the bottom. The diver would not be subject to 24,000psi as in your calculation, but would feel the same pressure as a yeast cell at that depth.
What your calculating is the overall pressure exerted across the bottom of the entire tank, which is equivalent to the overall weight of the liquid. That would be like placing the entire weight of the liquid on one yeast cell and in that case your calculation would be accurate.
Not all the weight of the liquid is on each yeast cell but rather the pressure exerted by the liquid it’s in.
