I brewed an American Wheat beer a few weeks ago and it seems to have a plastic flavor. I was wondering if this is function of the wheat yeast or a sanitation problem? I’ve brewed a few batches and al of the rest don’t seem to have this problem. Any thoughts or advise would be great.
Do you sanitize with bleach? The slightest trace of the least amount of bleach remaining on any of your bits and pieces can lead to development of chlorophenols whose taste is described as “band aid” or “plasticy”
I do not sanitize with bleach but I use tap water when I brew.
What yeast did you use.
Some yeast can create “plastic” taste.
There was a session about it on lase NHC.
is there anyway to clear the chlorine without a systemic water filter?
I used Wyeast 1010 American Wheat
Talk was more about Belgian and Hefe yeasts.
Chlorine will valitalize (big word) with boil. Chloramine can be removed with Charcoal filter.
Simplest way is Campden tablets. One quarter tablet per 5 gallons instantly gets rid of all chlorine and chloramines.
cool thanks for the advise
A few ways. If it’s chlorine, not chloramine, you can simply draw the water the day before and let it sit uncovered overnight . Or you can boil it. The fast, easy way, which works for both chlorine and chloramine, is to use campden tablets. One crushed tab added to 20 gal. of water will remove chlorine or chloramine almost instantly.
What’s wrong with Carbon filtration? I run mine through a filter and have had it tested and there is no chlorine in water (I do double filter).
Absolutely nothing wrong with it if you have one.
As I understand it, carbon filtration will work for chlorine but it’s a little more tricky for chloramines. Carbon filtration will remove chloramines but only if the contact time with the carbon is long enough. Most of us can’t/won’t run the water through the filter slowly enough to do that. If your water supply uses chloramines, it sounds like your double filtering is meeting that contact time requirement.
Mine doesn’t use chloramines, but from my understanding filtration takes care of about 90% of chlorine or chloramines depending how slow you run the water through. Double filtering takes it down to negligible levels (but, IMO, 90% is probably negligible as well. Never noticed off flavors even from single filter.)