I brewed an Oat Brown Ale 2 weeks ago and noticed an off smell in my brew area while it was fermenting, but I blew it off as it is the first time I used Wyeast 1335. Upon cold crashing I took some samples for tasting and noticed a bad flavor similar to burnt rubber. It was a 10 gallon batch, split into 2 fermenters; 1 flex+ and one plastic bucket. Temp was controlled from 68 - 72F. Only the batch from the bucket has the off taste, the other tastes like beer. Any ideas where I might have gone wrong? I do clean everything with PBW and used StarSan on everything cold side. I just want to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Also is this batch salvageable?
10 Gal. batch.
15# 2-row, 4# Aromatic malt, 1.5# Crystal medium, 1.5# special B, 1.25# Golden Naked Oats, .5# Chocolate malt, .75# molasses in boil.
2 packages of Wyeast 1335, no starter.
EBIAB, single infusion mash @ 152F for 75 min.
60 min. boil, chilled to 68F and split into 2 ferementers, oxygenated w/pure o2 and pitched one packet of Wyeast 1335 to each fermenter.
Started fermentation at 68F and once I had activity I raised 1F per day up to 74F. OG - 1.056 FG - 1.011
-Severe autolysis? Perhaps one yeast package is much older than the other?
-Infection? Perhaps bucket is scratched so it can’t be cleaned and sanitized properly?
I’m leaning towards infection honestly. Both yeast packet were dated from this year and they were only in the fermenters for about 10 days. Just wondering how I got the infection and what I need to do now to make sure it doesn’t spread. I’m tossing the bucket, but the keg probably needs to be emptied and thoroughly cleaned. And advice on that part?
I vote for autolysis. Perhaps raising to 75F, which is at the max end of the range for Wyeast 1335 , so early in the fermentation created some unsavory phenols. Lack of proper oxygenation could be a factor as well.
Im thinking the issue is in your bucket. The white plastic “food grade” buckets are great until they’re used a couple times. Then they tend to get surface scratches and it’s in these scratches that the bad guys hang out. I’ve had two batches develop a pellicle in each batch. However, the batches were four batches apart! I too used Star San and PBW. I have since moved to glass and PET for my fermentation.
Probably the description of rubber made him say that, but I seriously doubt it as well. I’m pretty comfortable saying that if he split the batch and the only difference was the fermenter, that the fermenter is the problem.
It could be some wild yeast hijacking a ride into your fermenter. I once had two containers of stored yeast get what I believe to be a wild yeast infection. Both beers had a nasty, plastic or rubber phenol that was undrinkable.
Thanks for all the insight everyone. I’ve already tossed the bucket and my second Flex+ arrived today as I don’t want to chance it happening again. The only way I can think to describe the odor and taste is burning tires. I’ve read that it is tied to autolysis, but I can’t imagine that would happen within 10 days, but then again I am pretty new to all this stuff. There was no pellicle on top of the beer when I transferred. The thing that is most odd to me is that I noticed the off smell in my brewing area after only about two days of fermentation, so to me that would mean that the autolysis would have happened within the first two days? The “infected” bucket also took longer to have air lock activity than the stainless fermenter, I know that isn’t necessarily a sign of fermentation activity, but it is something I noted in my notes.
I agree, so that leads me back to infection. I guess I need to spend some time going over my processes and identify and eliminate any gaps I find. Honestly, I’m kinda shocked that this is my first bad beer in over 20 batches. Guess it was bound to happen, trying to make it a learning opportunity.
Not sure if this is possible, but perhaps your descriptor of burnt rubber is really a sulfur-based smell (like maybe a burnt match)? One way for you to aromatically test that is to take some very light lager and treat it with some sodium metabisulfite and compare the two, adding more and more of the Sodium Metabisulfite to the light lager until it approximates your beer’s aroma, if at all. This condition is typically from a stressed yeast condition (low pitch rate, too high of fermentation temperature, as well as bacterial infection).
When I see a thread like this I go back to something that I believe it was Ray Daniels said about having a common lexicon for describing things and sometimes people say burnt rubber but it really would be something else to somebody else if we were using the same reference point.
Having said that it might be worth looking at something as simple as more of a phenolic like a Band-Aid type aroma and flavor I’ve seen that a lot with beers that are made with highly chlorinated water I don’t know this person’s brewing experience and if they filter the water I’ve also experienced this with different municipal water supplies at certain times of the year they really kick up the chlorine contribution whether it’s chlorine or chloramines and this could have affected your brewing water if you don’t filter it.