Phenol off flavors

skelley · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 9:10 pm Post subject: Phenol off flavors

Has anyone ran into problems with the off flavor of phenols. I have had a problem two of my last four beers. The taste is unmistakable and does not fade with aging. I used two different types of yeast and one was and IPL and the other an IPA.

The taste is like smoke and hits the mid tongue. I would consider both beers nearly undrinkable.

I can not see the culprit at first glance, possibilities include:
-rogue yeast
-not acidifying my sparge water enough and oversparging
-chlorine in water (my water source has not changes in 47 batches and I use RO water only)
-keeping starsan around for too long in spray bottles

Does anyone else have experience with this and have other ideas to offer.

Thanks in advance

foomench · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 11:02 pm Post subject:

Of your theories, I like the rogue yeast one. I would think oversparging would give astringency, not smokey phenols. Chlorine? That gives bad flavors, but they are more medicinal in nature. I have no idea about starsan, but am slightly skeptical.

What about the fermentation temperature or pitching rate? These would go along with the rogue yeast idea.

Castermmt · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 11:18 am Post subject:

Here are some nice cards to look at possible causes and solutions. Page 22 may help

http://www.bjcp.org/doc/OffFlavorFlash.pdf

skelley · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2014 2:52 pm Post subject:

I attempted to adress each of the solutions last night so we shall see how it goes. Very frustrating to have this creep into a beer and not know why. You can taste it by the time fermentation is complete.
Thanks for feedback