So this will be a long post as I’ve been through the ringer with this one.
I posted on a forum a while ago about some weird off flavours I was getting. That was probably a year ago and it’s still happening.
Most times when I brew a beer I get a nice clean fermentation until the yeast drops out. Then, right on cue, a very slight Sulfur smell creeps in. It isn’t rotten eggs Sulfur, but it’s there. The beer will form signs of the start of a pellicle but as it’s in a co2 rich pressure fermenter it never fully forms. The taste is always the same, caramel sweetness. I’m assuming this is diacetyl from the infection.
I bought a new all rounder pressure fermenter, it came back.
I bought a new pill housing for my pill hydrometer. Didn’t work.
I left the pill out all together, still there.
I no chill at 17 litres and top up with filtered water, so I tried boiling the water and using glass flasks to add the water with rather than my plastic jug. Nope.
This is happening before packaging, and I guess it must be happening after cubing otherwise it would ferment in the cube (and I’ll leave them for weeks before pitching).
The other strange thing is when I pour from my tap, the first warmer pour always smells sulfury, but the next pour doesn’t.
I’ve had problems with black mould spots forming in my fermentation fridge, and on my cubes. I’ve tried cleaning the fridge with starsan, soapy water, and 70% alcohol, but they always come back slowly.
So today I noticed a small black spot on the lid of my cube, so I pulled the seal out and bleached them. Then I thought maybe I should probably bleach my cube (I always spray a bit of sanitizer on top before pouring into the fermenter). To my amazement and horror, it turned pink immediately. The top and the sides, bleeding pink… on all three of my empty cubes. So I sprayed inside my fermentation fridge, it too went pink on almost every internal surface.
Has anyone heard of this before? My latest theory is when I pour in my wort it’s dragging bits of whatever bacteria is on the cube in with it. There isn’t a visible film or anything anywhere, other than the random black dot of mould.
So anyway, now I have another 22L of caramel flavoured centennial pale ale to dump.
To top it all off I’ve been fighting an unknown gut issue for a year, which could be linked. I’ve had all the tests, with no conclusions.
Anyway, I’m on commercial beer for a few weeks while I brew a new batch and it’ll be interesting to see if it cures me.
Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers guys.
I posted on a forum a while ago about some weird off flavours I was getting. That was probably a year ago and it’s still happening.
Most times when I brew a beer I get a nice clean fermentation until the yeast drops out. Then, right on cue, a very slight Sulfur smell creeps in. It isn’t rotten eggs Sulfur, but it’s there. The beer will form signs of the start of a pellicle but as it’s in a co2 rich pressure fermenter it never fully forms. The taste is always the same, caramel sweetness. I’m assuming this is diacetyl from the infection.
I bought a new all rounder pressure fermenter, it came back.
I bought a new pill housing for my pill hydrometer. Didn’t work.
I left the pill out all together, still there.
I no chill at 17 litres and top up with filtered water, so I tried boiling the water and using glass flasks to add the water with rather than my plastic jug. Nope.
This is happening before packaging, and I guess it must be happening after cubing otherwise it would ferment in the cube (and I’ll leave them for weeks before pitching).
The other strange thing is when I pour from my tap, the first warmer pour always smells sulfury, but the next pour doesn’t.
I’ve had problems with black mould spots forming in my fermentation fridge, and on my cubes. I’ve tried cleaning the fridge with starsan, soapy water, and 70% alcohol, but they always come back slowly.
So today I noticed a small black spot on the lid of my cube, so I pulled the seal out and bleached them. Then I thought maybe I should probably bleach my cube (I always spray a bit of sanitizer on top before pouring into the fermenter). To my amazement and horror, it turned pink immediately. The top and the sides, bleeding pink… on all three of my empty cubes. So I sprayed inside my fermentation fridge, it too went pink on almost every internal surface.
Has anyone heard of this before? My latest theory is when I pour in my wort it’s dragging bits of whatever bacteria is on the cube in with it. There isn’t a visible film or anything anywhere, other than the random black dot of mould.
So anyway, now I have another 22L of caramel flavoured centennial pale ale to dump.
To top it all off I’ve been fighting an unknown gut issue for a year, which could be linked. I’ve had all the tests, with no conclusions.
Anyway, I’m on commercial beer for a few weeks while I brew a new batch and it’ll be interesting to see if it cures me.
Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers guys.