[COHO] phenolic beer

[JERRY OLDRIDGE]

Medicinal
These flavors are often described as mediciney, Band-Aid™ like, or can be spicy like cloves. The cause are various phenols which are initially produced by the yeast. Chlorophenols result from the reaction of chlorine-based sanitizers (bleach) with phenol compounds and have very low taste thresholds. Rinsing with boiled water after sanitizing is the best way to prevent these flavors.

Hi Tim, this is from John Palmer's book, maybe some help good luck, cheers Jerry


--- On Mon, 6/9/08, Tim Howe <thowe at bendtel.net> wrote:

> From: Tim Howe <thowe at bendtel.net>
> Subject: [COHO] phenolic beer
> To: coho at lists.bendtel.net
> Date: Monday, June 9, 2008, 10:47 PM
> I'm a bit stumped.
> 
> I've made two beers in a row that tasted of band-aid. 
> I have only ever had
> this issue once before (and that was a long time ago with
> crappy yeast).  To
> have this twice in a row is strange.  I haven't changed
> any sanitizing
> practices or used any chlorine bleach lately.  I use
> iodophore for everything
> and hot PBW for kegs and carboys before sanitizing.  These
> two batches used
> different carboys.
> 
> I have thought of two possibilities after eliminating
> anything that didn't make
> sense.  Since these flavors can be caused by chlorine in
> tap water, I thought
> it possible my chiller leaked into both batches.  I did
> recently need to
> tighten the hose clamps, but I used to make beer with 2
> gallons of tap
> water...  Has the Bend water become more chlorinated in the
> past two years?
> Another possibility is that there are more wild things in
> the air right now
> that could have blown in while chilling, but would that
> produce band-aid
> flavors?  Has anyone else had a similar issue lately?
> 
> 	Ather possibility is that both beers were in the carboys
> for two
> weeks, and still a bit cloudy before kegging. (one should
> be as it is wheat
> yeast, the other I don't know as it was the first time
> I used nottingham ale
> yeast).  Should I have racked off again for another week? 
> Does beer not
> further condition well in a keg in a fridge?
> 
> 	I had also suspected my new keg, but it has been cleaned
> pretty well
> and PBW treated and sanitized twice now.  Also,
> wouldn't finished beer not have
> an immediate problem after only 2 days in a slightly
> contaminated keg?
> 
> WTH?
> 
> --TimH
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