Outside of cholorophenols any idea where a “plasticky” off flavor would come from?
I used Lallemand Koln yeast for the first time and it was admittedly a few months expired. One satchet for a 1.050 beer. It performed as I would expect from their description as a slower starter. Fermented most of the time at 66F and finished at 1.010.
I followed my normal process so not sure how it could be my water. Any ideas? I’m hoping it’s just one of those things I’m sensitive to and it will fade. This was noticeable in the sample I took when transferring from ferment to keg.
Whether it’s chlorophenol specifically, or some other phenol, it’s still likely a phenol, and if so then it would come from a combination of yeast metabolic processes and all the usual suspects, including your water, or sanitizer, cleaners & soaps, plastics, hoses, rubber (stoppers, gaskets, o-rings), contamination by wild yeast therein, etc. Retrace every step along the way, you might be able to narrow things down to one or two potential sources. Oh… and it can also come from smoked malts, or maybe certain other specialty malts as well. Think some more on it.
Could be phenolics from a wild yeast contaminant, which perhaps was even present in the yeast sachet. But plasticky to me sounds like something with the water. Where did you get your brewing water from? A garden hose? Water bottles that have been sitting for a while in a hot garage? Even if your brewing water was clean, did you use hose water for your sanitizer and then leave residue behind in the fermenter? And so on.
Built into my process is always tasting my brewing water before firing up the burner. If something goes south, it’s very useful to be able to rule water out as the cause.
I’ve brewed a lot of Kölsch and never had a phenolic one. BUT – I never tried the LalBrew Köln strain (even though I have had a sachet for over a year I’ve been planning to try.)
I have used that yeast twice. It’s not my favorite Kolsch yeast but it doesn’t give phenolic flavors.
Phenolics to me means infection.
I have had phenolics too many times. Each time I have traced it back to either bad sanitation or too many repitches of yeast. The plastic port on my fermenter gets dirty and it is hard to clean. Each time I have had the issue it has been multi-generations of repitches into a batch of yeast and then that valve is dirty. Frankly, I never know which it is. I think maybe it’s a combo. The dirty valve imparts a small infection and then each repitch lets the infection grow. Eventually the infection is big enough to leave phenolics I can taste.
PS. I just had this happen. I took the valve apart and cleaned the heck out of it. Then when putting it back together I noticed I broke it taking it apart! I am shopping for a new fermenter now.
Thanks. I think this could most likely be the issue. I will report back as the beer gets some age on it. I’m definitely getting some nice kolsch undertones in there and am crossing my fingers.
I don’t want to discourage you but it won’t get any better. Phenolics don’t fade. The infection is a likely scenario unless you think your water filter quit working. Chlorine and Chloramines in the water will cause phenolics
Thanks for your support. I have picked up many things in young beer that improved with age. If this is indeed an infection I wouldn’t expect that. At this point I’m hoping I’m just picking up something that I’m sensitive to but not counting on it.
Tap water. I can hit most profiles with gypsum, CaCl, and lactic acid. Never had a problem in 12 years. Water in the denver area is apparently pretty good for brewing. That said, it’s time to send another sample to Ward.
While the Lallemand site doesn’t specifically use the phrase POF-, the description mentions fruity esters with no mention of spice, clove, or phenolics. The blank spots next to pepper and clove on their flavor wheel also screams POF- to me. I’d be looking somewhere else for the source of this off flavor.
Won’t chlorine evaporate out of the water on its own during heating? Chloramine is more problematic and needs Campden. My water has Chlorine not chloramine. But I use Campden anyway. Just in case.
Yes, chlorine will gas off during heating to strike or sparge temp. Not only that, but if your municipality uses bleach as the disinfectant, as mine does, the bleach will fully decompose, and again the chorine will gas off. Totally chlorine-free water without filtering.
For some on this forum, these facts are very controversial and amount to heresy, but it’s extremely easy to test, and I don’t understand why the skeptics don’t just do that before chiming in on how wrong I am. Chloramine is a totally different story.
Long story short, use some kind of metabisulphite. I use K meta.
One of the problems with water on the front range is the mix of surface water and aquifer water varies day to day and season to season. I’ve noticed the chlorine/chloramine level varies too. Also depending on where you are specifically in the metro could affect it. Boulder county used to have a ton of beautiful snow melt water but I don’t think those sources have been adequate in decades.
I remember a lot of chlorophenols back in the heyday of the craft gold rush when everyone with a bucket, a dream and a hundred grand was opening a new brewery in town.
If you’re using city water, you’ve got chlorine. If you’ve got chlorine, you’ve got potential for chlorophenol. I myself got lucky and had no problems with chlorophenol for a dozen or so batches. Then it happened. A guy from my homebrew club who worked at the municipal water plant said they add extra chlorine every spring and fall. My bad batch happened right on schedule in one of those seasons. So, I’m not saying your municipal water company is necessarily doing the same thing… but some do. The cure to all this is either to add sulfite (a.k.a. Campden or K-meta), or bottled water, or get an RO system. If you’re using city water and not doing any of those things, you will very likely eventually encounter chlorophenol.
5 years and 150+ batches using unfiltered tap water and no chlorophenol thus far. Many awards won, including golds for pale lagers. I guess I’m the luckiest brewer ever.